I asked this on RealGM, but wanted to check here as well: Looking for a little help on Ike's TPE, or maybe TPEs in general. As far as I can tell and see, we have a 2.9 million TPE when we traded Ike. Which means if we wanted to, we can take on any contract amount up to 2.9 million in a trade if we wanted to, is that correct? If we found 3 guys making 900,000, we could in theory trade for all 3 of these players using the TPE? Unless either leading up to the draft, or before July 1st, we find a player making 2.9 million that we want in a trade, from what I gather, we will haev to renounce the rights to the TPE, since it counts against the cap. Seems to me, it would be in our interest to find contracts that work up to as close that as possible that we can to trade it for, provided those contracts are similar in nature to the contracts of Blake and Outlaw's, in that they are non-guaranteed deals. If nothing happens before June 30th, you cut those players the same we woudl have waived the TPE, no harm, no foul. But by finding players that equal up to the 2.9 million, it gives us greater flexibility in making a trade around the draft, or right afterwards, basically, before the 2009 cap numbers take effect. Right now, we could trade Blake and Outlaw, essentially 8 million dollars in immediate cap space to a team if they so wished, because they coul waive both of those players before July. We can not, however, combine the TPE with them. We COULD, though, combine the acquired players with them. Maybe it's a worthless exercise to get me through work, but it allows us to, in a way, have cap space before we ACTUALLY have cap space. If a team is looking to dump a 11 million dollar a year player, without taking any additional salary in return, we would be able to move Blake, outlaw, and whoever to them, and they could subsequently waive those players. It would still leave us with our cap space for the most part intact, minus a few million. If we were to do it after July 1st, we will have already have had to make a decision on Blake and Outlaw, and provided we decided tokeep them both, would limit our flexibility.
I believe we can only use a trade exception for one transaction, so those 3 players would have to be in the same trade. I could be wrong though.
I suspect KP will try to use the exception to obtain a player after the big free agents have been acquired, probably towards the start of training camp to pick up a 2-3 million dollars-ish player that somebody wants to unload and will give us some depth at whatever position looks like it needs shoring up.
In order to keep the exception, it would count against the cap. To maximize cap space, the exception, along with MLE and LLE needs to be waived. So it would be unlikely what you say would happen, as it would mean he sacrificed 3 million in cap space for the exception.
I think the only way that Ike's TPE might come into play is as a part of a deal to buy a draft pick or move up in the draft. The basic scenario would be the same as when we bought the pick that gave us Rudy for $3 million plus taking Jones off of the Suns hands, thereby saving them money. If that doesn't happen, then the Blazers would likely renounce the TPE and the MLE in order to maximize their cap space to pursue a FA or give them the maximum flexibility in making a trade.
I think this is where it goes as well. This is supposed to be a weak draft - and KP always seems to buy low - and it is easier to do so in a draft that has a weak reputation.
