What is the limit per year you would go for Smith?

[Diesel]

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One thing we know is that Diaw was traded for JJ. Diaw only makes 9 million dollars. Suns had cap room, but Suns didn't have 11 Million dollars in cap space to eat on JJ. That's what it would have taken to get him a frontloaded contract at 20 million.

Diaw didn't make 9 million when we traded him, it was closer to 2. But that doesn't matter, we had infinite capspace at that time, so we could take back any amount of salary and it wouldn't matter. Much like Charlotte did with J-Rich last season, it didn't matter how much cap PHX had because we were the ones taking back the salary.

Diaw making only 2 Milllion makes it worse.

Remember. It was a SNT not a FA Signing.

Being a SNT means that it was ultimately a trade.

In a trade, both sides have to have equality.

We sent Diaw over - 2 Million.

They Sent JJ over .

We had the 12 Million in cap space to sign JJ. However, it being a trade:

1. Why would we raise the price up to 20 million. IF we were trying to take JJ, then I agree... we would.. however, this was a trade not a FA taking.

2. Why would Phoenix spend 20 Million to move JJ. That money doesn't go back into their cap immediately. In a trade it because an 18 million dollar exemption. The whole purpose of us frontloading JJ was to make it hard for Phoenix to match on JJ and at the same time to resign their other free agents.

Finally, the last bit of damning evidence.

It was a trade, that left an exemption. IF it were a 20 million dollar frontloaded Contract, the Suns would have a 18 million dollar exception.

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The Phoenix Suns today completed a sign-and-trade deal with the Atlanta Hawks that will send restricted free-agent guard Joe Johnson to Atlanta in exchange for guard/forward Boris Diaw (pronounced DEE-ow) and two future first-round draft picks.

This trade also leaves Phoenix with a $6 million trade exception for their use in future dealings.

This exception is 12 million short.

Click

[Diesel]

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D I have no idea what you are responding about. Is that an attack at me? The ASG? Phoenix? I am clueless as to what you are saying.

I was just clarifying the contract situation for you guys, so a response to a clarification just seems odd to me.

You have to forgive me, but I'm looking at the board in collapse mode. However, are you saying that this is an attack:

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You forget..

JJ was the product of a sign and trade.

the Suns didn't pony up what it took to pay JJ 20 million. What would the purpose of that be?

??

????

I don't understand what you're going for here fanatic...

My point was that we didn't sign JJ as a free agent. We traded for JJ. IN the rules of trade, it has to be equitable for both sides. For us to have frontloaded JJ's contract makes no sense in the context of a trade with Phoenix. If we were trying to take JJ away from a Phoenix who were attempting to match, a frontloaded contract would be one that would cause Phoenix to have trouble signing other free agents. However, in a trade, Phoenix still has to pony up the money to make the trade equitable.

[exodus]

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However, in a trade, Phoenix still has to pony up the money to make the trade equitable.

Huh? Phoenix didn't have to pay JJ one penny. They traded him to us.

The fact that the deal had a $20 million first year salary is irrelevant for cap purposes. The signing bonus is spread out over each year of the deal for cap purposes.

[Guest Walter]

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I'm sure you did.

Hey, I even like the poll's idea. You just didn't word it well. Suck it up a little instead of being an [censored] about it. Reword the poll (as I believe it is a worthy question) and expect some more credible numbers.

Walter

[Diesel]

No.

Whenever you make a TRADE the trade has to be equitable.

On our part we gave a 6 million dollar exception and Boris Diaw.

On their part they gave a resigned Joe Johnson.

What's the logic in frontloading the contract if there's a trade Ex??

Have you forgotten the purpose of frontloading?

[exodus]

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What's the logic in frontloading the contract if there's a trade Ex??

Have you forgotten the purpose of frontloading?

There are two purposes of frontloading.

1) to make it tougher for the other team to match

2) to give the player more money up front, increasing the value of the deal. The present value of money > the future value of money. If you get the money now you can invest it and get a return. Plus inflation reduces the value of money over time.

[Diesel]

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2) to give the player more money up front, increasing the value of the deal. The present value of money > the future value of money. If you get the money now you can invest it and get a return. Plus inflation reduces the value of money over time.

This is BS...

Let's just understand this. You don't sign JJ at 20 Million and stiffle your ability to sign other free agents. JJ came out in a strong free agent class. The only reason we would have to frontload JJ's contract would be so that we could pry him away from Phoenix. However, once Phoenix decided to deal, that Frontload crap went out the window and JJ got a different deal. Frontloaded (maybe) but not to 20 million.

Moreover, at the time, we had only 17.01 million in capspace.

Finally, we only needed a 6 million dollar exception to get the deal done.

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There appears to be much confusion over the nature of the trade the Suns made with the Hawks, the one that sent Joe Johnson to Atlanta. It seems some have deluded themselves into thinking this was a good deal for the Suns. It's not -- but Phoenix had to make it, basically, because Johnson made it clear he wanted out and because ownership did not want to fork over $70 million for him.

If you can accept that, then you can put a smiley face on things by saying, "At least the Suns got something in return," and you'd be right. There was the chance Johnson could have left for nothing. But if you are thinking that the cap space saved on Johnson, plus two Atlanta draft picks, Boris Diaw and a trade exception is fair compensation, then you're just plain wrong.

Let's start with cap space. The Suns are not going to have it, not for at least three years, anyway. They are paying Shawn Marion $15 million this year, Steve Nash $10 million and Kurt Thomas $7.5 million. They'll sign Amare Stoudemire to an extension this summer, which will kick in for the 2006-07 season -- that means when next summer rolls around, the team will already be over the cap with those four players. Signing Johnson would have put the team further over the cap, but it would not have ruined any potential big free-agent signings.

And the question is, if Phoenix did have cap space next summer, what would they be looking for? Ideally, they'd look for a big combo guard who can defend and hit 3-pointers. Someone like, um, Joe Johnson.

Now, the draft picks. One of the picks will come directly from the Hawks, but that is lottery-protected. That means it won't come in 2006 unless Atlanta somehow makes the playoffs. Fat chance. More likely, the pick will come in 2007, unless the Hawks wind up with one of the top 3 in that draft, then the Suns will wait until 2008. But, most likely, Atlanta will get a little better next year and wind up in the 7-10 draft range. My guess is that's the pick the Suns will get from the Hawks -- mid-lottery in 2007.

The second pick will come from either the Lakers or Celtics in 2006, unless both teams really stink and wind up among the first 10 teams in the lottery. That is unlikely. More likely is that the Lakers will just miss the playoffs and wind up with the No. 14 pick. The Celtics probably will sneak into a low playoff spot in the East and get the No. 15 or 16 pick. The Suns will get the lower of the two, which probably puts them in the late teens.

The draft picks, then, figure to be a mid-first round crapshoot in 2006 and a solid lottery pick in 2007. That is a pretty good haul, but not great. And, again, who would the Suns be looking to draft? Probably a big combo guard who can defend and hit 3-pointers.

As for Boris Diaw, if you're thinking he is going to be the answer as the Suns backup point guard, then you're wrong. He has some potential, but he is not as good as Leandro Barbosa, the current backup point guard. It's unlikely he'll ever surpass Barbosa.

Finally, there is the trade exception. This is a very useful tool, because, essentially, the Suns can pick someone off another team's roster and make a trade for nothing. Because Atlanta was under the salary cap, the salaries involved in the trade for Johnson did not have to match up -- but Phoenix gets a bonus in the form of the trade exception. They now have $6 million they can trade to another team that is looking to create cap space.

But don't get too excited. The Suns can certainly address a need during the season by using the exception, but usually, when a team is willing to give up a player for a trade exception, it is because the player is somehow flawed -- maybe a guy who is not fitting in with the system or a veteran player who is on a young team. Clifford Robinson, for example, was acquired by the Nets from the Warriors using a trade exception.

If the Suns use the trade exception, it'll be for a guy like Robinson -- they are not going to come up with a star-caliber player.

Of course, they'd prefer to use it to acquire a big combo guard who can defend and hit 3-pointers. But those are hard to find.

Sporting news - YourTurn SPEAK OUT O

Again. why just 6 million for Phoenix if they had to Sign him at 20 and then trade him.. and all they were getting back was 2 million Diaw?

[exodus]

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Moreover, at the time, we had only 17.01 million in capspace.

Finally, we only needed a 6 million dollar exception to get the deal done.

WTF

Philly only has $11 million in cap space right now but they could offer Smith a deal with a first year payment of $15 million if they wanted to. EXTRA CAPSPACE IS NOT NEEDED TO OFFER A FRONTLOADED DEAL. hawksfanatic explained this just a day or two ago. Sorry you missed it.

Secondly we didn't NEED a trade exception to get the deal done because we were under the cap. The Suns received an exception because they got back less salary than they gave up. by the same token when Indy traded Peja to NO they received a trade exception because they gave up a lot of salary and didn't take back any. They used that exception to get Harrington.

[Diesel]

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Moreover, at the time, we had only 17.01 million in capspace.

Finally, we only needed a 6 million dollar exception to get the deal done.

WTF

Philly only has $11 million in cap space right now but they could offer Smith a deal with a first year payment of $15 million if they wanted to. EXTRA CAPSPACE IS NOT NEEDED TO OFFER A FRONTLOADED DEAL. hawksfanatic explained this just a day or two ago. Sorry you missed it.

Secondly we didn't NEED a trade exception to get the deal done because we were under the cap. The Suns received an exception because they got back less salary than they gave up. by the same token when Indy traded Peja to NO they received a trade exception because they gave up a lot of salary and didn't take back any. They used that exception to get Harrington.

Dude, even if a team frontloads a salary, they still take the hit on the cap. If Philly offers a 15 million dollar frontload, they better have 15 million for that first year in cap

[exodus]

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Moreover, at the time, we had only 17.01 million in capspace.

Finally, we only needed a 6 million dollar exception to get the deal done.

WTF

Philly only has $11 million in cap space right now but they could offer Smith a deal with a first year payment of $15 million if they wanted to. EXTRA CAPSPACE IS NOT NEEDED TO OFFER A FRONTLOADED DEAL. hawksfanatic explained this just a day or two ago. Sorry you missed it.

Secondly we didn't NEED a trade exception to get the deal done because we were under the cap. The Suns received an exception because they got back less salary than they gave up. by the same token when Indy traded Peja to NO they received a trade exception because they gave up a lot of salary and didn't take back any. They used that exception to get Harrington.

Dude, even if a team frontloads a salary, they still take the hit on the cap. If Philly offers a 15 million dollar frontload, they better have 15 million for that first year in cap

We just had a thread about this. I guess you forgot about it already.

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Yes they can, frontloading is essentially giving a signing bonus.

Capwise, it does not matter that they only have $11 million

that just means his starting salary can be that with 8% raises for 5 years. That gives you the total value of the contract and 20% of that can be given upfront as the signing bonus. So the bonus is paid, and then he has a base salary for each year.

Capwise, the signing bonus is broken up into fifths and evenly distributed over each year of the contract.

Like I said in another post, a frontloaded contract is definitely a possibility but I don't think our ownership will balk. If they do balk, then that will tell us that the legal battle is going to get interesting.

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[Guest]

OK no I wasn't saying it was an attack, I just had absolutely no idea what you were responding about. It was a post of confusion for me.

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IN the rules of trade, it has to be equitable for both sides.

We were under the cap by a large amount at the time, so absorbing the whole contract was not a big deal at all for us. Phoenix was over the cap at the time, but they were decreasing their overall salary. This is when Phoenix received the $6 million TPE (that amount was equal to the BYC of JJ less Diaw's salary). So Phoenix did not have to take back equal amounts.

[jhay610]

Dolfan:

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I wasn't asking for the average annual salary as that is the most relevant to us right now. I was asking for the starting salary and I believe that most people have been voting off of that assumption.

Exodus response:

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This is what you wrote.

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beyond 11 million

annually

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You made no mention of starting salary.

For the record, as I have been referenced multiple times in this thread: Ex, I think that last statement comes off as slightly aggressive, which I had mentioned earlier. The word in boldface is "slightly," which is what I had said earlier.

Dolf then went off, overreacting somewhat, which is not too surprising considering context. I didn't intend to be the thread moderator, though.

It does seem clear to me that Dolf has contradicted himself over the course of the thread. Or maybe I am missing something. The whole thing is quite dizzying.

[exodus]

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Dolfan:

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I wasn't asking for the average annual salary as that is the most relevant to us right now. I was asking for the starting salary and I believe that most people have been voting off of that assumption.

Exodus response:

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This is what you wrote.

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beyond 11 million

annually

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You made no mention of starting salary.

For the record, as I have been referenced multiple times in this thread: Ex, I think that last statement comes off as slightly aggressive, which I had mentioned earlier. The word in boldface is "slightly," which is what I had said earlier.

Dolf then went off, overreacting somewhat, which is not too surprising considering context. I didn't intend to be the thread moderator, though.

It does seem clear to me that Dolf has contradicted himself over the course of the thread. Or maybe I am missing something. The whole thing is quite dizzying.

Did you read the part where Dolphan claimed that you posted where i "attacked" him?

LOL

[Diesel]

You just had a thread about this?

Try this:

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The principle behind frontloading is simple. Unless teams are absolutely forced to give annual raises, in most strategic situations it would be more prudent for teams to pay more early in the contract and to stop giving raises that clobber a team’s salary cap position by the last two or three years of the deal. If you look at the example above, you can see how much larger the salary cap hit is in the 5th year of the deal if maximum raises are given.

In fact, when a team is signing its own player – if it is not a max contract superstar -- or if it has cap room, I think a compelling argument can be made that a smart team will actually reverse the process and give the largest salary in the first year and then have annual maximum decreases in the salary. According to the NBA collective bargaining agreement, a contract can be decreased by as much as it can be increased annually. So when a team re-signs its own player, it can lower the annual salary by as much as 10.5 percent based off the first year of the salary. When a team signs a player from another team, it can lower the annual salary by as much as 8 percent off the first year on the contract. That is what I mean by frontloading.

I know, you are probably asking, “Hey, why would any player accept an annual pay cut?” The reason is that they are not taking a pay cut because they are going to make the same amount of money, only they will get paid much more of it at the beginning of the contract. Any person in business or economics will tell you that is a winning proposition.

So, in the example I gave above, imagine if the Bulls said to Luol Deng, “We agree to give you a five-year $60,000,000 deal, only we want to restructure it so you get much more of the money at the front end.” So the new contract would pay Deng $15,000,000 the first year and have annual $1,575,000 decreases in the salary. In the fifth year of the deal, the Bulls would pay Deng $8,700,000. The difference in the cap hit in the fifth year between this approach and the classic maximum-raise approach is a whopping $5,500,000.

The player clearly wins. Deng can take that extra money he gets early in the contract, invest it, and the total amount he will make from the deal after five years will be much more than in the standard deal. In fact, teams will be able to negotiate down the first-year salary because getting the money at the front of the deal is such an advantage. This is standard practice in business.

There are also very distinct benefits for the teams. First, teams will be able keep their long-term position vis-a-vis the salary cap much healthier. In the near term the team pays more and may have to pay the luxury tax in some cases, but a few years down the road the team will have far more cap space to use for free agents. It is worth noting that Chicago is pioneering the movement to frontload long-term deals, doing so with the recent Ben Wallace, Kirk Hinrich, and Andres Nocioni contracts. The Bulls pay more now, but they are still not paying a luxury tax, and they are going to have greater flexibility and a lower cap figure in 2010 and beyond. I assume they will do the same thing with Deng and Ben Gordon if they are able to resign them. Come 2012, save five million here and three million there a bunch of times and pretty soon you are talking real cap space, enough to afford a significant free agent. And that might be enough to win a team a title, or at least make it much better.

With frontloading, the era of NBA teams having many mediocre or worse players with massive long-term contracts grown mountainous due to huge annual raises making them all but untradeable except as salary dumps: Ratliff, LaFrentz, Szczerbiak, Miles, Walker, seemingly half the Knicks, the list goes on and on – will slowly fade into the past. That is as it should be: the NBA will pay as much or more in salary only it will now go to players who deserve it.

Second, teams will find it easier to get players to accept a provision that gives the team an option to drop the final year of the contract. It is not going to always be possible to get players to agree to let teams have an option to end the contract with a season to go, but players will be more willing to accept this with frontloaded deals because they will have gotten the lion’s share of their money before then. If a team exercises its option, the player has gotten most of the money and is then free to sign with another team. The only catch for the team is that a team option cannot be put into the contract unless the salary in the final season is the same or greater than the salary in the preceding year.

If teams are able to get a contract to include the team’s option to a final year in a five or six year contract, it can then dump players who have become unproductive without having to work a contract buy-out and have the contract count against their salary cap for the final year of the contract. It also makes it less expensive to work out a buy-out in the year or two before the option if the player has really hit the skids. And the cherry on the sundae is that they get the player off their team. These guys sometimes become locker room cancers.

In certain scenarios, where the frontloading is especially attractive and the player has few alternatives, teams may even be able to get the player to agree to have the final two years non-guaranteed. It will probably require a team to overpay a player beyond merely frontloading in order to get the right to have the last two years of a five or six year deal non-guaranteed. In this case, unlike a team option, the salary can continue to be decreased. This is a dream scenario for a team because it makes it possible to dump players or trade them easily since other teams can dump them. Or, if they are playing well, keep them through the contract and get them cheap at the back-end.

Players have resisted non-guaranteed years in contracts, for self-evident reasons, but with frontloading and a slight bump in initial salary, it can get back on the table. The only player I can locate with such an arrangement presently is Antoine Walker, who was forced to accept it because of medical problems that emerged after he signed his six-year deal with Miami in 2005. Walker wisely preferred to let the last two seasons of the deal be non-guaranteed rather than jeopardize the first four years of a deal that made him among the most overpaid players in the NBA. With frontloading, Walker’s exception could be more prevalent.

Third, frontloading long-term contracts makes it much easier to move players later in their contracts. Their salaries are simply much lower which makes them easier to trade. If a player is a young and emerging all-star, like, say Luol Deng, toward the end of a front-loaded contract at age 25 or 26 he might be relatively cheap at $9 million or $10 million per year, and many more teams could compete for him if the Bulls decided for whatever reason to put him on the market. With a traditional maximum raise contract, Deng’s salary would be $14 million by the last year and the market would be thinner, and his trade value would be less.

There is one downside, a mighty one at that, for a team that frontloads its long-term contracts in the manner I suggest.

The team has to pay more salary in the near-term, and for many teams to do this might put them over the luxury tax threshold.

Then they will have to pay, in effect, double when they take on additional salary to frontload contracts. This is the main drawback to the plan as far as I can see. Frontloading is the strategic choice of teams with especially wealthy owners, or visionary owners with patience and a commitment to win over the long haul. That does not include all 30 teams.

There are really three schools of owners, and each of them would have a different stance toward frontloading. Owners like Robert Sarver in Phoenix, who traded away two number one picks to get Seattle to take a good player like Kurt Thomas with a measly one year left on his deal, would never go for something like this. At the other end of the spectrum, the billionaire owners like Paul Allen and Mark Cuban should almost always frontload contracts when it is an option. Cuban may live to regret not frontloading his deals for Josh Howard and Jason Terry. Their contracts were made for frontloading. When Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge come up for extensions, Allen will be wise to frontload, except in the unlikely event they become max contract players. (Then he will probably be wondering if he has enough fingers for championship rings.) Guys like Allen and Cuban can afford to be patient. In the long run they will laugh last.

For most other owners who are in the middle, I think frontloading is a no-brainer if there are no luxury cap implications. The only reason not to frontload is if a team is already under the cap, as I noted at the outset, and frontloading would undermine its ability to sign free agents or trade for expensive players, like Charlotte did with Jason Richardson. But once a team is at or near the salary cap, frontload away!

I would argue that teams not owned by billionaires might consider the value of frontloading contracts even if there are luxury taxes to be paid. I know, that is easy for me to say; it is not my money. But it is true that, on balance, NBA teams make far more money if they go deep into the playoffs than if they go deep into the lottery. Ticket prices increase, merchandise sales go up, and local TV and radio contracts are bid much higher. Done right, frontloading is a strategy that can get a team to the top and keep it there quite a bit longer once it has gotten there. And it is worth repeating that frontloading can help teams avoid, or at least lessen, the terrible position of having several costly overpaid players on their roster who are all but untradeable.

I know this is all very abstract at present. In the second part of this article, I will discuss how frontloading contracts could benefit one specific team, the Boston Celtics, the team I follow and write about for RealGM. In part two, this theoretical discussion will be made concrete. I want to be clear about one point: frontloading contracts is a strategic device. It is not to be applied willy-nilly to all contracts. There are going to be times a team will offer contracts with maximum annual raises. Each particular team will have a different strategic situation, and the usefulness of frontloading will vary. My discussion of the Celtics will demonstrate that. But the general usefulness of frontloading applies for every team in the league. It is an idea whose time has come.

The frontload does count against the cap and you can't transfer it out for some imaginary ideal number. Moreover, when you talk of Frontloading as being just a matter of format and not cap related then how in your bizzarro world do you handle trading a frontloaded player? Do you trade his made up numbers? So if we were to trade JJ this year, do we trade based on his "made up #" of 14.3 million or his "real #" of 13 Million?

Give me a break.

[Diesel]

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OK no I wasn't saying it was an attack, I just had absolutely no idea what you were responding about. It was a post of confusion for me.

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IN the rules of trade, it has to be equitable for both sides.

We were under the cap by a large amount at the time, so absorbing the whole contract was not a big deal at all for us. Phoenix was over the cap at the time, but they were decreasing their overall salary. This is when Phoenix received the $6 million TPE (that amount was equal to the BYC of JJ less Diaw's salary). So Phoenix did not have to take back equal amounts.

It's still an equitable amount for both sides.

We took on some of Phoenix debt along with giving them 6 million in Exemption and Diaw.

They signed JJ over to us at 13 Million.

It would make no sense for us to frontload JJ's contract in a year that we had capspace and there were many good free agents available.

The only reason we had to frontload JJ's contract was to put JJ's salary "out of reach" for Phoenix. Well, once Phoenix agreed to trade, there was no more reason to frontload.

[exodus]

Funny how you didn't post a link. I bet you are quoting some dumb reporter like you did the time you were trying to say Nene was unrestricted.

They have a poll right now on AJC.com asking if we should trade Smith or Childress for a draft pick as if that was even possible.

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the team I follow and write about for RealGM.

LOL I just noticed you are quoting a RealGM writer as it he was a reliable source. Those guys are just message board posters like us.

Funny how your article doesn't mention signing bonuses.

[Guest]

Because of legal issues we had to agree to the original offer sheet we were going to give to JJ rather than changing it. It was a frontloaded deal. Frontloading just means there is a large amount of money given at the beginning of the deal. That can either be from a signing bonus, declining annual salary, or a combination of both. With JJ, it was just a signing bonus.

A signing bonus is paid upfront. It is calculated for salary cap purposes as if it were spread evenly throughout the life of the contract. I've already explained this before in the thread, just scroll up and you would understand the contract better.

[exodus]

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Well, once Phoenix agreed to trade, there was no more reason to frontload.

Really? I guess you didn't read the article you just posted.

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The reason is that they are not taking a pay cut because they are going to make the same amount of money, only they will get paid much more of it at the beginning of the contract.

Any person in business or economics will tell you that is a winning proposition

.

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The player clearly wins.

Deng can take that extra money he gets early in the contract, invest it, and the total amount he will make from the deal after five years will be much more than in the standard deal.

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frontloading long-term contracts makes it much easier to move players later in their contracts. Their salaries are simply much lower which makes them easier to trade.

[Guest]

D that is talking about declining in annual salary. JJ does not have that kind of frontloading. His frontloading is a signing bonus. Big difference, I think that is where you are getting confused.

[Diesel]

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Because of legal issues we had to agree to the original offer sheet we were going to give to JJ rather than changing it. It was a frontloaded deal. Frontloading just means there is a large amount of money given at the beginning of the deal. That can either be from a signing bonus, declining annual salary, or a combination of both. With JJ, it was just a signing bonus.

A signing bonus is paid upfront. It is calculated for salary cap purposes as if it were spread evenly throughout the life of the contract. I've already explained this before in the thread, just scroll up and you would understand the contract better.

I know that it's possible. It was done with Camby, LJ, Odom, a lot of players. However, in every case, the frontloaded value is counted against the cap. The team has to have the capspace to frontload a contract.

Ex is talking about Philly frontloading a contract to go after Smoove because they only have 11 million.

However, he missed the part where they would have to make a trade to free up capspace to offer a frontloaded deal.

There's no confusion about frontloading, the confusion is about it counting against the cap.

You can't say:

We can say JJ to a 70 Million dollar deal, therefore, we want to frontload the deal and not have the frontloaded value count against the cap. If we paid 20 million to JJ, we had to have 20 million in capspace.