Trade Kickers and Matching Salaries

[shrink]

If a player is traded and he has a trade kicker, is the new salary used for matching, or is it the original one, pre-kicker?


Let me give you an example. Suppose the Lakers and Wolves wanted totrade Theo Ratliff for Kwame Brown. Kwame's salary is $9.075 mil.

$9,075,000 x 125% + $100,000 = $11,443,750

Ratliff's salary is $11,666,666, so it just misses out.

However, Kwame has a trade kicker. If the TK is 2% or more (which is highly likely), then it reaches the minimum salary necessary.

A team over the salary cap may acquire 125% plus $100,000 of the salaries they trade away.

So would the Lakers be trading away Kwame's salary + trade kicker? Or just trading away Kwame's base salary?

[killbuckner]

I stand corrected- just removing this to eliminate any confusion.

[bgwizarfan]

^ doesn't matter. In this case it wouldn't work at all and wouldn't matter if Kwame waived any of the bonus. Even if Kwame's trade Kicker was for a lot (let's say $1.5 million), it wouldn't affect it. Here's the deal:

Minny's Perspective:

Sends out: Theo Ratliff ($11,666,666)
Takes in: Kwame Brown ($9,075,000)

That trade is legal WITHOUT the trade kicker for Minny. Even if you add in a $1.5 Kicker, it just mean's Minnesotas TPE that they'd receive would become smaller.

Teams that send out player with trade kickers DO NOT count the kicker as part of team salary. So here's the trade from L.A's Perspective:

Send Out: Kwame (9,075,000) - trade bonus is not factored in from their side
Take In: Ratliff ($11,666,666)

So the trade won't work and waiving part of the bonus won't do a thing to help it work

[FGump]

So would the Lakers be trading away Kwame's salary + trade kicker? Or just trading away Kwame's base salary?

They would just be trading away Kwame's base salary.

Coon 83
...a team trading a player with a trade bonus uses the player's pre-trade salary (without the bonus), when comparing salaries for trade.

[grizzfan1204]

Minny's Perspective:

Sends out: Theo Ratliff ($11,666,666)
Takes in: Kwame Brown ($9,075,000)

That trade is legal WITHOUT the trade kicker for Minny. Even if you add in a $1.5 Kicker, it just mean's Minnesotas TPE that they'd receive would become smaller.

How is this trade legal since the salaries are not within 125% + $100k of each other? Is this assuming Minnesota has a TE to use?

[FGump]

Minny's Perspective:

Sends out: Theo Ratliff ($11,666,666)
Takes in: Kwame Brown ($9,075,000)

How is this trade legal since the salaries are not within 125% + $100k of each other? Is this assuming Minnesota has a TE to use?

He wasn't saying that would be legal for both teams - he was only evaluating one side of the deal.

That trade would be legal for Minnesota ONLY, because Minn sent out 11.67M and took back less. You can always take back less and it doesn't have to be close. He was noting that fact. 11.667 > 9.075 obviously.

[Factoring in the trade kicker, which counts only for the team RECEIVING the player with the kicker, Minn is still legal, sending 11.667 and receiving back an increased contract on Kwame that would be somewhere between 9.0751 (virtually no kicker) and 10.4363 (max 15% kicker).]

But as you note (and as he said later in his post) that trade would NOT be legal from the other side, ie for LA, in that they sent away 9.075M and are allowed to only take back (9.075 x 1.25) + 100K, or 11.4438M. Since 11.667 is bigger (as you noted) it wouldn't work without somehow adding some other salary for LA to send away.

[LarryCoon]

That's why the Lakers have Coby Karl.
And BTW, Kwame's kicker is 7.5%.