Disabled Player Salary Exception

Any reason Portland didn't apply for this with RLEC last summer? Or did they?

 

Because they didn't need to? I think that if we needed to bring in another body due to multiple injuries, we could have, but that situation never came up.

 

Yao might be back by the All-Star break, and Houston received Trevor Ariza as a reward. Houston got the exception within a day or so of applying for it.

The Blazers could have had ~$7 million to spend on a free agent last summer had they applied for it. Seems odd that they didn't, or if they did, why was it rejected?

 

A fair point, but the team ended up having to start a rookie at SF, and Martell Webster had shown nothing in his career to warrant not improving the SF position, regardless of his then unknown injury.

 

with the surgery yao had, the team expects him not to be back before training camp 2010, though i guess it's possible if everything happens perfectly he could come back sooner. i wouldn't really count on it though. i'm pretty sure there was a surgery option that could have had yao returning midseason, but he chose to have the surgery that should help his career last the longest rather than the one to get him back on the court the soonest.

i don't really like the existence of the injury exception. seems like injuries are just part of the game. but the rockets didn't get ariza as a reward, they got david anderson. ariza was going to be signed regardless of receiving an injury exception or not. but having the exception freed up the mle to use part of it on anderson(after getting his rights from the hawks).

 

It cleared cap space to sign Ariza that doesn't count against the salary cap. Isn't that how the exception works? They got Ariza for roughly the MLE but no tax due to the DPSE, and Anderson comes in as a bonus but is taxed.

 

Yao won't be back. Even if he's physically able to by that time, the Rockets won't risk a career ending injury. Not to mention the Rockets might be out of the playoffs by then anyways.

 

So even is Yao is healthy, the Rockets won't play him, yet they get the DPSE for their trouble regardless. Seems like a very quick reaction by the NBA on this approval.

 

i'm almost completely certain that the injury exception still counts against the cap and luxury tax. the rockets basically got another mle except that it could only be used on one player and could also be used to get a player in a trade.

the rockets agreed to a deal with ariza before they got the injury exception. they were going to sign him no matter what and his contract would count against their salaries the exact same. but since they got the injury exception, they were able to use it on ariza which freed up the mle to be split among other players. thus, the injury exception allowed them to get david anderson and even though they used it on ariza, he was going to be signed even if they hadn't gotten it.