Hard Cap and Cap Holds

[Ian Noble]

Cap Holds

If a team holds the Bird Rights to one of their players, an amount of money will be placed against that team's salaries before re-signing the player. GM's must therefore Claim Bird Rights before Off Season Free Agency begins.

The amount of money will be equal to a player's previous year's salary, except for expiring rookie-contracts which will be 150% of a player's previous year's salary.

In the past a re-signed player with Bird Rights would not have their salary count against their team's salary cap until after the off season.

Reasons for change:

• In the past teams could even go after one or two superstars before re-signing their own player.
• The number of players a team could sign, before they signed their Bird Rights player, was dependent upon how long Player Agents took during negotiations and nothing else.
• The NBA implements Cap Holds to guard against the same problems.

Hard Cap

A 200% Hard Cap will be introduced over the next four seasons.

If the salary cap does not change, this will be the level of the hard cap going forward:

• 2014/15 - $145,049,500 (230% of salary cap)
• 2015/16 - $138,743,000 (220% of salary cap)
• 2016/17 - $132,436,500 (210% of salary cap)
• 2017/18 - $126,130,000 (200% of salary cap)

Obviously the salary cap will change, but those percentages will remain the same and will be used to calculate the official hard cap each season.

Hard Cap restrictions:

• Trades cannot take teams over the Hard Cap.
• Teams are not allowed to sign free agents for any more than the league minimum.
• Bird Rights players cannot be re-signed.
• The team loses their MLE.

Reasons for change:

• It is already difficult for teams to "hoard talent", a talented player sitting on a team's bench is likely to leave when their contract expires no matter what the circumstances, but it doesn't take a trading genius to compile a bench full of long-term-contract talented players who are stuck there until their contract ends.
• Some teams are getting locked into the process of only acquiring players on long-term deals, causing some areas of league activity to stagnate, this process would at least be limited by a hard cap.
• Since D5 does not have a luxury tax, a hard cap performs a similar duty.
• If a GM already has a team at the hard cap but "strikes gold" and acquires a great player, and then cannot re-sign them, they will have to make changes and decide which players to keep, it's a good problem to have and once again helps parity and league activity.

[Bryan Colangelo]

Hey Ian Noble i have a question

For this

"The amount of money will be equal to a player's previous year's salary, except for expiring rookie-contracts which will be 150% of a player's previous year's salary"

Use these numbers as an exmaple:

Salary Cap is 65,000,000
My Salary Cap is 62,000,000
I claim Bird rights on Kyle Korver
Kyle Korver salary in the last year is 3,000,000

What i understand with that sentence is I can only offer Kyle 3 million dollars without hurting my cap in the off season and then I have another 3 million dollars (total 6 million) to resign him. If another GM puts in an offer of 10 million for each year, I cannot match it right?

[Ian Noble]

May 10, 2015 15:58:25 GMT Bryan Colangelo said:

Hey Ian Noble i have a question

For this

"The amount of money will be equal to a player's previous year's salary, except for expiring rookie-contracts which will be 150% of a player's previous year's salary"

Use these numbers as an exmaple:

Salary Cap is 65,000,000
My Salary Cap is 62,000,000
I claim Bird rights on Kyle Korver
Kyle Korver salary in the last year is 3,000,000

What i understand with that sentence is I can only offer Kyle 3 million dollars without hurting my cap in the off season and then I have another 3 million dollars (total 6 million) to resign him. If another GM puts in an offer of 10 million for each year, I cannot match it right?

Because you have Korver's Bird Rights you can offer him however much you like, you're allowed to exceed the Salary Cap to re-sign him.

The amount of $3,000,000 obviously comes from the final year of Korver's contract, but a Cap Hold is an imaginary amount for which you might re-sign Korver, it's applied to your team's salaries so that you're not able to sign some other player for $3,000,000 and then wait to sign Korver for the same amount.

To use an example: last year's Golden State Warriors.

Last year Golden State's salaries heading into the Off Season = $43,000,000

Golden State signed Dwight Howard for $20,000,000
Which made their salaries = $63,000,000

Then they re-signed Steph Curry for $20,000,000
Which made their salaries = $83,000,000

Using the new system and using last year's Golden State Warriors as an example:

...salaries heading into the Off Season = $43,000,000

Golden State would have to Claim Steph Curry's Bird Rights before Off Season Free Agency started.

The final season of Steph Curry's contract was roughly $5,000,000.
Since Steph Curry was at the end of his Rookie Contract, an imaginary Cap Hold of 150% of $5,000,000 would be added to Golden State's total salaries. So the Cap Hold for Steph Curry would've been $7,500,000 (would have just been $5,000,000 if he wasn't coming off his rookie contract).

Golden State's actual salaries heading into the Off Season, after Claiming Steph Curry's Bird Rights would be = $50,500,000

The salary cap was $63,000,000, therefore Golden State would only have $12,500,000 with which to go after other players.

Therefore Golden State would not have been able to sign Dwight Howard, since they would have only had $12,500,000.

[Deleted]

AND THEN DWIGHT SIGNS WITH THE KINGS AND HE WINS MULTIPLE CHAMPIONSHIPS ALONG WITH LILLARD AND WESTBROOK!!!!!!! :0

[Walt Frazier]

May 10, 2015 10:53:32 GMT Ian Noble said:

• 2014/15 - $189,195,000 (230% of salary cap)
• 2015/16 - $138,743,000 (220% of salary cap)
• 2016/17 - $132,436,500 (210% of salary cap)
• 2017/18 - $126,130,000 (200% of salary cap)

Obviously the salary cap will change, but those percentages will remain the same and will be used to calculate the official hard cap each season.

I like this generally. I think the 200% may be a bit high but at least it's something!

One thing though, pretty sure it's just a typo but..

Bold and Underlined with red and size increase, above. That math can not be correct.

[Kevin Hollis]

So if a player with bird rights doesn't sign with the team, I assume this hold is taken off? Therefore, addressing players with bird rights might take priority before other player's contracts?

[Deleted]

May 11, 2015 2:57:58 GMT Kevin Hollis said:

So if a player with bird rights doesn't sign with the team, I assume this hold is taken off? Therefore, addressing players with bird rights might take priority before other player's contracts?

Cap holds work in the real NBA without this concern.

[Ian Noble]

May 11, 2015 1:40:39 GMT Walt Frazier said:

May 10, 2015 10:53:32 GMT Ian Noble said:

• 2014/15 - $189,195,000 (230% of salary cap)
• 2015/16 - $138,743,000 (220% of salary cap)
• 2016/17 - $132,436,500 (210% of salary cap)
• 2017/18 - $126,130,000 (200% of salary cap)

Obviously the salary cap will change, but those percentages will remain the same and will be used to calculate the official hard cap each season.

I like this generally. I think the 200% may be a bit high but at least it's something!

One thing though, pretty sure it's just a typo but..

Bold and Underlined with red and size increase, above. That math can not be correct.

Fixed!

[Ian Noble]

May 11, 2015 2:57:58 GMT Kevin Hollis said:

So if a player with bird rights doesn't sign with the team, I assume this hold is taken off? Therefore, addressing players with bird rights might take priority before other player's contracts?

That's correct, but you've got a point there. I'll need to think about it when back from work.

[JR Wiles]

All I know is it really sucks all the way around. If a gm picks up their bird rights on their player...it doesn't mean .."oh the gm really wants him, so let's make sure he resigns"...because if that was the case I want TD back. I'm glad we fix things and come up with better ideas and solutions, but getting screwed in the past.. Does not make me a happy gm..even 3 years later!

I think we as a league need to come up with guidelines to when resigning with a team is the best choice. I don't like leaving it all up to the player agents. It would be a lot better to have agents who are not GMs to other teams.

[Danny Longley]

Are we allowed to renounce the rights at any time? feel like that should be clarified.

[Walt Frazier]

May 11, 2015 14:26:05 GMT Danny Longley said:

Are we allowed to renounce the rights at any time? feel like that should be clarified.

Ian Noble

[Walt Frazier]

May 11, 2015 13:33:16 GMT JR Wiles said:

All I know is it really sucks all the way around. If a gm picks up their bird rights on their player...it doesn't mean .."oh the gm really wants him, so let's make sure he resigns"...because if that was the case I want TD back. I'm glad we fix things and come up with better ideas and solutions, but getting screwed in the past.. Does not make me a happy gm..even 3 years later!

I think we as a league need to come up with guidelines to when resigning with a team is the best choice. I don't like leaving it all up to the player agents. It would be a lot better to have agents who are not GMs to other teams.

Re: re-signing with a team vs. leaving...a lot of it comes down to the normal issues...

1. Money Offered (Player Agents will work to keep salaries realistic, but it doesn't hurt to show you're committed)
2. Playing time.
3. The chances of success with your team (playoff/championship calibre)
5. Whether your team is a "big market" team, or a team with "prestige" or history.
6. The player's perceived real-life personality traits.
7. The perceived effort you put into making a offer.

The team with Bird Rights just happens to be able to offer another year on the end of the contract. And, almost always there is some added "Loyalty" at play there as well. So something like...

8. A Bird Rights player has an almost automatic perceived level of loyalty to the team who kept him around long enough to earn his Bird Rights.

and

1a. A Bird Rights team has an additional season they are able to offer that no other team has, which means more money.

[Walt Frazier]

Ian Noble

Have some questions...it says we're introducing a 200% hard cap, and IF THE SALARY CAP DOESN'T CHANGE, these are the numbers.

Are we sticking by these numbers or by the 200%? Or is this just outdated?

[Alex English]

May 21, 2018 22:49:38 GMT Walt Frazier said:

Ian Noble

Have some questions...it says we're introducing a 200% hard cap, and IF THE SALARY CAP DOESN'T CHANGE, these are the numbers.

Are we sticking by these numbers or by the 200%? Or is this just outdated?

We drop to a 175% hard cap next season, followed by a 150% hard cap the year after:

dynasty5ive.proboards.com/thread/4/salary-cap-hard

[Ian Noble]

^ what Alex said