This exception allows a team to re-sign its own free agent to a salary starting at up to 120% of his salary in the previous season "exception" means "go over the cap"
This is CBA 101, guys http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/1...-option-cleveland-cavaliers-become-free-agent While the team does not have salary-cap space or own James' Bird rights, it is able to offer him a contract up to the max of around $22 million per year under league rules.
Do they have to have the cap space to this or can they be sitting at $1 in available space? If that is the case, there is really no difference between this and the Bird exception...
NON-BIRD EXCEPTION -- This is also a component of the Veteran Free Agent exception. Its name is somewhat of a misnomer, since Non-Bird really is a form of Bird rights. They can be $1 or more over the cap and still sign LeBron to $22M contract. The difference is 4 years for non-Bird vs. 5 for Bird Rights.
Yeah, this seems like a loophole for superstars to go wherever they please. I don't see how the nba was that stupid
The difference is it keeps a team from signing a guy for 1 year on a minimum deal then maxing them out.
I'm relatively certain that Denny is right (for once!). If it didn't allow the team to go over the cap, it wouldn't be an exception. For example, the maximum salary isn't called an exception, so this is not simply a rule limiting raises. Exceptions indicate uses of money that aren't subject to the salary cap.
If you have MAX cap space, you can. The non-bird rule only applies to the Cavs. They can sign their own FAs up to 120% of previous contract even if they have no bird rights or cap space.
If this worked like how your saying, then last year the Blazers would've used the MLE on Kaman, used this weird exception on Mo Williams, and would've used the BAE on a wing instead of Blake
The Bulls did not have Marco Belinelli's bird rights, as they signed him to a 2 year FA contract. When his contract was up, they could only offer him 120% of his previous contract because they were over the cap and had no exception to use. The Spurs offered him over 120% of his previous deal and he was gone.
They did use the MLE on Kaman. Williams signed a $3.75M contract with the Hornets. That was 144% of his previous contract. The Blazers could not match it. EDIT: he signed 144% contract with Minny who traded him to the Hornets.
