You are correct but as some others have pointed out, the order of operations are irrelevant. Unless we renege.
True, but couldn't it mean that Cronin has the opportunity to make a move or two first, before signing Payton, and as long as he ends up under the apron he could still use the MLE?
Sure but it’s kinda irrelevant. We have to have 13 players and we can’t exceed the apron. Whether we have Payton signed or not doesn’t really impact that.
I feel like there’s a misunderstanding about being hard capped. You guys are acting like we have more flexibility if we aren’t hard capped yet. That doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is at the end of the day, if you trigger the hard cap, you have to have a minimum of 13 players and you can’t exceed the hard cap for any reason. So unless we are planning on trading someone like Hart for a pick, we can’t really do much. We have to free up space to make any moves.
It’s totally hypothetical, but let’s say Cronin does one trade trade that ends up just over the apron and another that pushes it back below, as long as those two deals are processed by the league before Payton is signed, it looks to me like the MLE could still be used.