Yeah. Earlier in his career Udonis Haslem took less money to help give the roster more flexibility. Later in his career, the Heat ended up keeping him on the team and paying him long after he was even playable player.

James Harden def had a handshake deal as pat of trade to Cavs

Wizards trading for Trae Young, benching him with phantom injuries to land the #1 pick, then extending him for well over market value. :)

To a degree. For example Draymond was willing to take less to try to recruit Lebron and then when they didn’t get him he just got the payday he was always going to get.

But this goes far beyond “you gotta trust us” into egregious cap circumvention because the contract is clearly so much higher than what he’s worth. And the contracts he signed beforehand were clearly so much lower than what he was worth and what he was being offered elsewhere. That’s getting more into Joe Smith territory.

Exactly. This just seems dumb. Also no one cares.

I don’t see how getting paid less now to get more later is anything other than just contract negotiations within the current rules. It either works out, or it doesn’t, and doesn’t spectacularly.

I say make these deals legal and in writing. Then we can see blunders like this more often.

And why do you think Harden couldn’t do anything about it? You’re so close!

Unless they have it in writing, it’s just a bad contract

Yeah but this was hyper-inflated and very obvious, which is the problem.

Plausible deniability is a thing.

Charles Barkley literally shared a story on Bill Simmons’s podcast a couple weeks ago. He said the Rockets told him “take ____ and we’ll pay you more next year.” Then the next year came around and they told him to pound sand because he sucked

I mean, not only that, but every time a star is traded in the last year of their contract there is a handshake deal that they’ll extend.

Do you think the Heat sent so much for Giannis if they weren’t absolutely certain he would resign? They can’t offer an extension, yet they have no doubt that he’ll re-sign.

This is similar to the Joe Smith situation. You can’t make a deal to underpay now via small, short contracts in exchange for overpaying with a bigger and longer contract later that just happens to coincide with the team acquiring Bird rights that allow for the higher salary.

Think of it like this:

Trent received 3 separate contracts. Two very short and low, one very high and longer. If that had been packaged as a single contract, it would have been something like 6/~$70M or somewhere around 11.5M/yr.

The problem is that the Bucks couldn’t have given him that contract to start with because of cap limits and roster costs. It’s what he ended up with but allegedly only because the Bucks and Trent agreed “look, we’ll get you what you’re asking for but we can’t do this above board because of cap limits so we need to do some funky accounting (that is expressly forbidden by the CBA) to make it work, cool?”

(Note: the style of cap circumvention is different than compared to Kawhi’s but at the end of the day, the specifics are less important than the alleged result: both the Bucks and Clippers are being investigated for business arrangements that violate the CBA.)

And no, this isn’t the same as, say, Brunson or anyone else taking less now to help the team with roster flexibility in hopes of making more later. If you’re operating in good faith, then you can negotiate a lower salary to help the team but then decide, when an extension comes up, you negotiate for a higher salary. Those are two separate contracts, not one secretly split into 2-3 in order to avoid cap limits.

As for the comparison to Haslem: sure, it’s possible that he and the heat also had a handshake deal, but the circumstances there did not raise the same kinds of red flags as far as the league was concerned. Haslem took a below market, multi year deal to stay with the team and was subsequently offered a series of short term contracts that more or less paid the same amount that he was getting before.

What makes GTJ’s situation different is both the “surely this can’t be a coincidence in timing“ with the bird rights and the stark contrast between the sizes of the three contracts, the last of which seemed completely incommensurate with his on court performance. This is another kind of similarity to KL: as Pablo Torre kept asking “make this make sense. These deals with sponsors in which he was expected to do absolutely nothing doesn’t make any sense and there’s no other logical conclusion except that this was a cap circumvention money.” in the case of GTJ, what people are asking is “make this make sense. How do you give a player who barely shows up in the box score every night this kind of generous contract compared to what you’ve been dealing to him prior“

I obviously don’t know if any rules were actually broken here or not, but that’s the point of the investigation: on paper, this does not look legitimate

Dirk definitely didn’t take less money because Cuban promised him a lifelong position in the front office while not having to work….

I really haven’t seen many situations like this where a player got significantly worse on an undervalue contract and then magically got paid an indefensible amount far over market value.

This one really is pretty bad - it was blatant sliding future cap space into a present season.

Is it worse than Kawhi/Clippers? I don’t know. But it’s very serious.

More recently it was Jalen Brunson - and they just won a championship! Welp, I guess we need to take all their picks??

The wolves did this and lost like 4 1st round draft picks

Thats not really cap circumvention. Its promises of future salary increases under the cap.

Yeah the whole “you broke the league rules for Gary Trent” thing just makes the Bucks a joke; it doesn’t mean they should get away with it.

The Kawhi situation seems worse because he’s a superstar, as you said, but it also involved shell companies and triggered a SEC investigation — it went beyond the boundaries of basketball. (Not to mention Ballmer immediately ran to ESPN for cover and made the story even bigger.)

Strictly from the perspective of competitive integrity I would guess the league sees them as very similar situations.

Both are against the rules, but the Kawhi situation was way worse.

Bucks still paid every penny of the contract through on the books NBA salary, they just split it into two separate deals to backload the cap hit. That’s explicitly against the rules, so they earned some punishment if they did it, but it isn’t inherently unfair/anticompetitive. It helps them save cap room in the near term but eventually they have to pay for it with an inflated cap hit later on.

The clippers paid Kawhi one salary on the books and then had a completely separate salary that they were simultaneously paying him under the table through a series of shell companies. So they get the immediate cap relief and, if they got away with it, never have to deal with balancing it back out in the future. It’s a huge competitive advantage.

Paying someone less isn’t getting around the cap. It is literally working within the cap. I honestly don’t understand why this is even an issue. It’s not comparable to exceeding the cap or working outside the cap in any way.

I don’t know what the exact letter of the rules are, but that behavior is not really hurting. If a team AB’s is players can defer a larger contract till later, so be it. The player is the one assuming the risk

The biggest thing is the Bucks effectively went over the cap by borrowing from future cap space. Every penny is still on the payroll. Not by fraudulently giving business to companies in exchange for funneling money to keep it off the books.

I think the distinction is that the Bucks have not paid GTJ outside of the salary structure of the NBA. The GTJ thing, really, feels closer to tampering than actual cap circumvention since offering/promising players future contracts is a little different to signing a player for money you are not allowed to give them under the CBA.

It definitely straddles the two (cap circumvention and tampering) but it feels much closer to a Joe Smith (am I remembering the name right? The Timberwolves guy) thing where you are pre-agreeing a nonetheless legal contract.

Yeah but if you think of the cap as being the sum total of several combined seasons, then it’s more of an accounting trick than a total circumvention. Still illegal, but much less egregious.

Yes, but its a much different way of going about it, Trent got a backloaded contract that was actually separate deals but all the money he received is accounted for and counted against the Bucks salary cap.

One was paying a max contract player more than the max while facing full salary cap repercussions of paying a player the max rate.

The other was circumventing the cap and creating additional $10 million ++ of cap space (and avoiding multiples of that in tax payments) on a contending team.

Owners and players should both be aligned on punishing the second scenario more.

In theory wasn’t paying Trent less in the early years to get around the cap?

By that logic, every player you sign for a cheap deal is circumventing the cap. The cap was designed for teams to stay under it. So they’re going to try to pay every player less to have a better team.

For example, if a 38-year-old player is worth 30M, you could pay him 15M a year for 3 years instead. That helps the cap by spreading his money over 3 years instead of 1. No one thinks that player is going to be worth 15M at age 41. But I wouldn’t call that cap circumvention. It’s paying a player less for a longer period of time.

I think that’s a wide leap in logic. Assuming there were no outside sponsorship deals involved, Trent and his agent agreed to both contracts and that was his only compensation, and the Bucks did zero cap circumvention as in breaking the rules of the salary cap.

A player taking a hometown discount or less money to play for a team of their choice is as old as the history of the league. If another team offered GTJr 15-20MM and he took 3M no doubt there would be calls to the league or leaks to the press, but the fact is he isn’t a great player and there wasn’t a market for him last contract. He probably took a discounted deal to help the Bucks, and for that generosity, the Bucks bumped up his next contract when they weren’t hard against the cap. This type of thing happens all the time, is hard to prove since there is no cap circumvention, just a difference in public perception of a players value.

If Jalen Brunson was not paid by the Knicks through a third party, his contract is also not cap circumventing, just something other players and the players association might frown on because they are trying to maximize contract numbers, but again hard to argue against the logic, it got him a chip and endorsements (that are legal as long as Knicks ownership is not paying).

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Not even in spirit - it’s the exact same type of deal, except it seems the Bucks may have been smart enough not to put it in writing.

It’s not even in spirit, it’s pretty much the exact same thing. Take below market, cheap contracts for a few years, then when we have your bird rights we’ll sign you to a bigger deal.

From what I understand, the Timberwolves had this in writing. There is no paper trail with the Bucks.

Eh, saying you will do something and doing it are different things. You can put your faith in someone to “do the right thing” but that is still taking a big chance. Boozer absolutely fucked the Cavs over when they tried to give him a raise rather than having him play out a year on a cheap team option. He went for the money in Utah.

Hoping someone lives up to their word is very different than paying someone under the table.

The really crazy part to me is that I always assumed the league minimum was fair market value for Gary Trent. I genuinely thought the Bucks were giving him 1+1 deals because that was his market value, and he was doing the “betting on himself” to see if every summer the market improved.

The smoking gun I need to see in this investigation is a ton of teams that were trying to hand him a bigger bag, because I want names. Who was dumb enough to have their offseason plans spoiled by Gary Trent going to Milwaukee? Cuz the main victim I see is the Bucks paying him $15M/yr.

That doesn’t mean it’s worse

Darryl Morey is a liar

You don’t think every player is promised something?

It isn’t “going around the cap” if we are talking about two contracts that will be on the books for cap purposes.

Edit: it is specifically the Bird Rights that make this a circumvention, not just “oh we will just pay you more later. Pinky promise.”

I’d be surprised if the Bucks get the same level of punishment as the Clippers. People focus on the picks aspect, but they’re not fining the Bucks 30 million and suspending the entire ownership and front office over this.

I could see the Bucks getting hit with losing a few picks and a lesser fine.

The Joe Smith instance was subversive accounting. The Kawhi case was out and out fraud.

That’s true, although I think the combination of

1. The level of thought and effort to circumvent by the Clippers

2. The uniqueness of the way the Clippers circumvented (a lot of teams do what the Bucks did just not as obviously and extreme)

3. That this Clippers method could be used on a lower level guy to devastating effect

Make the Clippers offense bad enough to offset what you are saying. I defintiely think people in this thread are being way too lenient on the Bucks. They should probably lose 2 first round picks (maybe 3 if the contract is voided), but I do agree that’s it’s not as bad or worse than what the Clippers did.

Paying him extra is essentially raising their own cap tho. Like, you look at MLB where the Dodgers pay more so they get the big signings. The reason for a cap in the NBA is to prevent that. If the Clippers set it up so they can provide more income than anyone else and use that advantage to sign a player, it defeats the entire point of a cap. Max contracts are the same idea. If you pay more than the max, you have an unfair advantage against other teams trying to sign him.

So you’re right that the Clippers didn’t receive any salary cap benefits, but saying they receive no on court benefits is just ignoring the obvious.

They signed Kawhi Leonard. There’s no guarantee they sign him (or extend him later) without these under the table promises. Clippers, Raptors, and Lakers were all chasing him in the 2019 offseason. We know Uncle Dennis asked the Raptors and Lakers each for similar inappropriate benefits and they declined. And we all know where he ended up.

Didn’t the NBA intentionally not investigate the Kawhi/Clippers thing back beyond a couple years? I thought I read they didn’t even look into the time period around when he originally signed.

I remember people saying this exact same thing about the Kawhi/Clippers situation. “It’s not like the Clippers and Kawhi would be dumb enough to put this in writing.” While neither side actually did put it in writing, there’s often a paper trail of evidence.

They’ve also talked about deals needing to pass the “smell test.” Basically it needs to have some logical or reasonable explanation. With dumb trades or signings, you can at least make a case for it. There’s no way to explain the GTJ deal in a way that’s not cap circumvention.

I understand the cap circumvention issues, but these are my thoughts as well.

How can you prove that Gary Trent isn’t their locker room guy? The one who understands the Milwaukee culture, loves the team, city, etc and they’re paying him for character over on court production in a transition era after losing their franchise player.

We all know that’s likely not the case, but it might not all be a pipe dream. I just don’t know how you can for certain conclude one way or the other from the outside.

“Literally”

The point is that the Bucks are paying Trent everything on the books. I’m not saying they don’t deserve punishment, but paying players off book has massive implications under current CBA.

If teams can pay guys off book then they can circumvent max contracts, luxury tax, aprons, hard cap.

The Bucks deserve some sort of punishment but I don’t see how they deserve more than the Clippers.

Dude what are you guys talking about? The Clippers got almost the same punishment that the Timberwolves got, and this Gary Trent deal is allegedly way closer to what the Timberwolves tried to do.

Gonna disagree.

Being able to offer superstars more than max money while no one else can is a way bigger advantage that saving 10m on Gary Trent

And to be clear if they prove the Bucks did what they are alleging, they should be punished as harshly as deemed necessary

You don’t think paying a guy completely off the books allows a team to gain a competitive advantage?

What if instead of promising Trent a \(60M contract down the road, the Bucks just paid Trent \)60M totally off the books? Would that be worse than their current situation? Because I absolutely think so.

The NBA’s punishment for the Clippers sets a precedent for how the league punishes teams that pay money off the books. The league absolutely cannot allow that to happen because negates the purpose of having a salary cap at all.

Worse is absolutely relevant when someone is talking about the Bucks getting a harsher punishment than the Clippers

What the Clippers did could be applied ad infinitum to every player on the roster. That’s the problem.

Paying guys off book completely and fundamentally undermines the purpose of having a salary cap in the first place. Yeah Kawhi was on a max, but if teams think they can get away with paying players off book, then they can start handing out an extra $10M a year to every role player they want without it ever going on their cap sheet. Off book payments > delayed on book payments, regardless of the specifics of Kawhi’s individual situation.

Exactly

Id say this is a terrible take and what the Bucks did is not anywhere near as bad as what the Clippers did.

Lol. Gary Trent took far less of a deal than the market demanded with a promise he’d get it back later. That is literally cap circumvention. They would not have been able to sign him otherwise. Kawhi was getting his money no matter what, and him taking under the table money had little to no effect on the Clippers cap situation, unlike Milwaukee.

Trying to equate the Bucks situation with the Clippers shitshow definitely paints the Clippers in a positive light. This is trying to make it seem like that sort of behavior is more common throughout the league when it really isn’t.

By equating their conspiracy to an objectively lesser infraction they are laying the groundwork for their future appeals and request for some draft picks to be returned.

According to Cuban, Balmer isn’t stupid (because he’s a billionaire).

As a general rule I hope these stories help teach people that rich and powerful people aren’t devious geniuses always getting away with stuff. They can be total idiots too. If they get away with stuff it’s usually because of money and power not because they’re smart.

Exactly this.

not sure why you’re being downvoted, that’s exactly why they did it.

Beal coincidentally re-signed with LAC for a raise of the exact amount he gave up to facilitate the trade to LAC last year.

But if we are going off of reported comparable offers, Shams reported Trent had comparable offers elsewhere as well.

Didnt the 76ers do this with Harden as well?

kinda confusing, like was the promise structured? i feel like this is something every job i have ever had has done at initial hiring. hint at more money or whatever, then probably not deliver.

I get that. I’m just saying the cases are different

nothing like that happened behind the scenes to get brunson to ny lol

definitely definitely not

just ask rick

but would trent have been able to enforce that promise? seems like nothing was forcing the bucks hand.

With the way Kawhi came out ahead, I think Harris should be traded to the Knicks and given a $30M contract as punishment. Maybe build Gary a statue too like they’ll give Kawhi.

But Clippers are the new precedent, not Joe Smith, and they did much much much worse.

Wolves put it in writing.

Im aware

Not really. Draymond just picked up his 28M option. If they offered him 54M for 3 years instead, would that be cap circumvention?

Because they would have just cleared 10M in cap space for this year if they did. And this is “kicking the can down the road”.

Yes man. I’m just stating they are different.

Lots of teams wouldn’t mind fucking up their future cap to have more cap space now.

Basically every championship contender would say yes to having \(10 million extra to spend today to have \)15 million less in 2035. You think Spurs, Thunder, Nugget would rather have more money now or after Jokic, Wemby and SGA are washed?

It’s circumventing the cap which should not be legal. Have y’all ever competed against other people in anything before?

It should not be be legal because it allows teams to cheat by going for it now and paying later, but there’s a big difference - the wolves put it in writing. As long as the bucks were smart enough to couch it as “We think you’re a winning player, and we’d be interested in having a player like you for around X next year”, rather than “we’ll pay you X next year” it’s legal. And they’d be total idiots to do the former. So I expect penalties lol.

Both are circumventing the cap. It’s the entire point of doing it.

I actually think from a purely basketball perspective the Bucks one is worse. Kawhi got the max in 2021 covering that year until 2024. The Aspiration cap circumvention was in 2022. So on the court for those years the circumvention did not result in any illegal improvement of the team, only more money given to Kawhi than allowed in the CBA.

For the Bucks, reallocating the cap space from a year where they were competing and cap strapped meant that they had a better team than they could actually afford with the circumvention. The assumption is the Trent would not have signed for league min without the assurance that he would get more later on, so the Bucks should not have been able to sign him.

Now, if you want to argue that the Aspiration money led to Kawhi taking a lower deal in the 2024 extension to allow the Clips to keep PG, that’s fair and about the same thing basketball wise as the Bucks, but they are definitely in the same ball park.

From a competitive balance standpoint you’re negotiating player salary outside the bounds of the salary cap and it’s giving you an unfair advantage. Doesn’t matter how you do it, what matters is that you’re doing it.

Because it’s equivalent to Timberwolves and Joe Smith and they got a harsh punishment. Cap circumvention is still cap circumvention

Look, the Kawhi situation is worse from a fan perspective. But competitively on paper, saving actual cap space and ducking aprons to have access to better exceptions/trade options is worse - from a front office perspective. And the latter is the one the league would care about more when doling out punishment.

Not really

Where did I say we?

Edit- just saw it. Typo

The key is to not deliver

The Timberwolves didn’t make a handshake deal, that’s the problem

It was written down

And the Timberwolves got the same punishment the Clippers did, until they reduced it for cooperating with the league. If the Bucks aren’t being as cooperative and is taking the Clippers route instead, the consistent outcome would be them losing 5 picks as well.

It’s also something a lot of teams do to one degree or another. The Clippers ironically are maybe the most blatant example of this with Reggie Jackson and Batum.

Kawhis was not worse

Read this thread and see the reaction to his below market deals

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1loqnyu/charania_free_agent_sharpshooter_gary_trent_jr/

I think it’s more gray than that. Is it cap circumvention to give a contract to one of Giannis’ brothers in order to entice him to stay? Would the Bucks have made that move if Giannis wasn’t on the team? You can ask the same questions about hiring Brunson’s dad or drafting Bronny. Teams are always going to push up to the edge of what’s legal.

How is it cheating? He took less then and is getting more now. Is that not a thing teams do for guys who take pay cuts lol

Yeah i meant that comment 200% seriously and now adam silver has read it and is going to implement it and every player in the league will circumvent tax to get a supermax. Sorry guys my b.

Literally nobody believes that. Proof is not required here. Just more likely than not guilt.

Um but directly after that season they signed him for nothing. You seem to be conflating any possible explanation with a reasonable explanation. There all kinds of things they can say to explain their actions, but if none of those things make logical sense to a reasonable person then it doesn’t really serve as cover.

yes i’m aware of the training day quote of “not what you know, what you can prove”

but even that seems like it warrants more of a league minimum or MLE prove it contract, not 4 years for 60 million, i just don’t buy it

He signed a 64m contract when he’s worth not much more than the minimum. So he could lose 50m plus

The players union would fight it which is why it rarely ever happens

If they didn’t do that to Leonard, they’re never going to do it to anyone ever.

lol what?

The bucks essentially deferred the cap hit. It’s explicitly against NBA rules so it’s dumb and they deserve a punishment, but it doesn’t inherently destroy the concept of a salary cap. Other salary cap leagues like NFL have built in deferral mechanisms and work fine. You save money in the short term but then have to overpay for it later. Yeah they got cheap Gary for a few years, but now they’re stuck with way overpaid older Gary. If everyone in the league does the same thing it becomes a balancing act of when it is worth it to leverage the future for short term benefit, but the basic league revenue sharing structure stays in tact.

Clippers paid a second salary entirely outside of the cap. If the bucks used that strategy, they could have had Gary on the minimum and then never had to deal with overpaid older Gary. If that strategy gets used league wide then the salary cap means nothing because anything a player is missing in his contract a rich owner can just make up for in off the books money.

It’s not worse at all, granted I am a Bucks fan. But play out what would’ve happened if each team didn’t do this - there’s a good chance the Clippers took Leonard from another team that was after him in free agency. If the Bucks didn’t do this with Trent, they would’ve probably just signed another minimum player who had less production. This didn’t change whether Giannis stayed, it doesn’t really change the teams construction at all. You could argue the Clippers majorly impacted many other teams roster construction because of Kawhi. I’d argue there’s a chance he resigns with the Raptors in 2019 if the Clippers didn’t agree to their terms.

It’s not worse nor is it closer to cap circumvention than the most literal textbook case study of cap circumvention - where a team illegally paid a player outside of the cap in order to pay them beyond the cap.

The Bucks thing is much closer to tampering, which, albeit not to this extent, a lot of teams to do secure bird rights on a player.

I mean they’re both cap circumvention, but I agree what the Bucks did is potentially way worse. Imagine if the Clippers had been able to pay Kawhi and PG the vet minimum because of future money promised, they would’ve been able to build an absolute super team

For real if the bucks are guilty of circumventing the cap they need to get fucked or everyone will do it.

exactly, a bad contract on a tanking team is nothing. maybe cost them a few 2nd round picks they could have taken with other bad money.

But when they were good and trying to keep Giannis, they reaped the benefit of signing a free agent they wouldn’t have have been able to if they followed the rules.

As long as it’s messing up their own books it shouldn’t be an issue.

Neither are acceptable they tried to go around the cap to build a contender they shouldn’t get away with it because they failed (if it turns out to be true)

If they wanted to pay Trent less to fit in with their contending roster and then spike his salary later when they suck, then they need to sign him to that contract. If thats not valid under NBA rules (i think they may have banned these kind of contracts to stop shenanigans around restricted free agents signings a while back), then you can’t make that deal. By paying him under market price, they are able to have a player on their roster that they shouldn’t be able to afford, which is unfair to the other teams.

“I’ll get someone else to pay you a fuck ton extra on top of the metric fuck ton I’m paying you now”

that’s literally what endorsements are.

The problem with the clippers/kawhi arrangement was that the money ultimately still came from the clippers. NOT from someone else.

Is the suggestion in the article that he was getting paid on the side? Or did he take a team friendly deal when they were contenders with the promise his next contract would make up for it? First is illegal, second is not

Edit: I guess the second is illegal per NBA rules. That’s kinda dumb. You see bridge deals all the time in the NHL

They also put it in writing lol

wolves put that shit on paper which was the problem

i think it would be an issue if the bucks were punished on the appearance of potential impropriety because that would be the league saying you can’t pay players what you want if we don’t think they earned it (which player’s union would have a ball with)

I believe the initial punishment was announced as 5 first round picks as well, and then they later rolled some of that back. So I think that’s a pretty good sign that the league does (or at least used to) take this type of cap circumvention seriously. I think the comments here would also be a lot different if the Bucks did this with a superstar and got a ~$50 million discount in years they were contending.

Just because it only happened with Gary Trent doesn’t mean it’s not cap circumvention

FFS, they also have Kyle Kuzma in their rotation; how much more punishment do they need??

No it isn’t, paying a dude like that as a tanking team is barely any punishment at all. It’s maybe costing them a few 2nd round picks worth of cap space.

Nah they need to have future first round picks stripped

Yeah but thats Joe Smith circumventing, not Kawhi. Also, both of these players are good. Gary Trent Jr is awful currently. The bucks have already harmed themselves in making thr deal lol

So what? There’s different levels to it. Handing out the same punishment across the board to every transgression is stupid.

The league can punish teams on the basis of circumstantial evidence.

On the one hand, you have people laughing at the Wolves like “why would you be dumb enough yo put it on paper?” But on the other hand, you’re right, the player has no way to ensure they follow thru unless they get evidence they can release to screw the team over if they don’t honor it. If the player demands there be something, emails/texts/whatever, then the team would have to decide how badly they want the guy and how much risk they will take with leaving evidence. Once the team does give the contract tho, the player should want to delete all that shit so the NBA can’t void the contract.

Any previous examples?

The woe is me small market tiny violin thing really doesn’t work as well when one of the biggest market teams owned by one of the 10 richest people on Earth just got punished.

It’s still cap circumvention, even if it’s not as severe.

Dumbass

Has there been an situation like Gary Trent Jr in where someone gets paid the minimum, has a worse season, then gets 16 AAV that you can point to?

both are paying extra outside the cap.

Taking less money to avoid cap ramifications with a promise to get paid more down the line is worse. The clippers paid kawhi his max value plus some with outside ventures.

if he played better he probably would have gotten even more money.

I’m going to keep correcting this error every time I see it. You wrote “recently Brunson took less than a max…”

That is incorrect. Brunson took the max for which was eligible at the time he signed his deal:

“Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks signed a Veteran Extension to much hullaballoo. Brunson signed a four-year, $156.5 million extension. That was the maximum that Brunson was allowed to sign for at this moment.” (Emphasis added).

2024 Sportstrac Article

Could he have signed for more had he waited an entire year? Yes. Could he also have blown out his ACL during the 2024-2025 season or sustain some injury that would have hurt his bargaining position in July 2025? Also, yes.

Investigating Brunson would say “a player is not allowed to trade security for future potential earnings that depend on his continuing health and elite performance.” There shouldn’t be an option for an early veteran extension if it triggers suspicion to actually utilize that provision of the CBA. The players bargained for the option to secure their future earlier and I’m surprised more players who haven’t yet had a nine figure contract don’t take the earlier option and allay all doubts about the future security of their families.

People in the NBA haven’t really openly talked about it though. The Harden thing was a secret deal that Morey then backed out of, which is the only reason we heard about it. And even then the league looked into it and couldn’t find substantial evidence outside of Harden’s unofficial testimony. If there had been more concrete evidence then that situation would’ve been punished much more severely. The Wade thing wasn’t anything the team would’ve agreed to beforehand (which is what actually makes it cap circumvention). The Brunson thing is kind of a myth

I guess the difference is how blatantly obvious it is, so sucks to be the Bucks on that one. I fully support it. If they find a reason to investigate the Brunson deal, I’d support that too. Under the table deals are the opposite of integrity and fairness.

And people definitely wanted old man Wade to be happy for all his sacrifices, but he literally left bc he was mad the Heat wouldn’t do that. They did things the right way by making no promises.

It certainly does not “fall within he objectively measurable player salaries” because it’s a bunch of hidden shady shit. It’s basically a 6-year deal where they manipulate when they want to pay and avoid taxes and penalties. Can’t believe I have to explain why this is actually bad.

And regardless of outcome or intent, the rule is the rule. We probably shouldn’t be changing the punishment based on whether the team is good or for what reasons they did it. There’s a salary cap with luxury taxes and so on…operate within the system.

I mean both are bad. They are also different kinds of circumvention. We don’t have to have them compete. The rules are the rules.

Shams said he had comparable S&T offers.

Bro, this is nonsense. Kawhi’s deal absolutely advantaged the Clippers. They got to keep him on their roster and he’s an amazing player. Gary Trent isn’t even a good NBA player at this point in his career. Again, both are bad, but KL’s is worse.