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The Current Finacial Situation 9/25/10

BabyPeterzz

Well-Known Member
Contributor
The Jazz are currently at $75,270,113 in committed salary for the 2010 - 11 season. That's $17,226,113 over the cap. This does not include Elson and Watson's salary.

Many of you are unhappy with the AK/Diaw trade, but the Jazz are going to need cap payroll relief regardless. I think it's unfair and stupid to expect the Jazz to pay $34 mil + in LT.

So what are the teams options?
 
I was about to add that my figures could be off a bit. I'm using the numbers posted by ESPN trade machine. They look accurate to me.

https://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine

Regardless, the money situation will have to be resolved at some point before the trade deadline, and AK's contract is the obvious target.
 
If you are right than this trade is critical for Jazz to save millions. There is no way they can afford this kind of money.
 
The Jazz are currently at $75,270,113 in committed salary for the 2010 - 11 season. That's $17,226,113 over the cap. This does not include Elson and Watson's salary.

Many of you are unhappy with the AK/Diaw trade, but the Jazz are going to need cap payroll relief regardless. I think it's unfair and stupid to expect the Jazz to pay $34 mil + in LT.

So what are the teams options?

They are not $17M into the Luxury Tax. They're about $6M into the Luxury Tax.
 
They are not $17M into the Luxury Tax. They're about $6M into the Luxury Tax.

Ok. I figured I could be way off here. Would you mind fleshing this out a bit? I thought the cap was set at about $58 mil. Where does the LT start?

edit:

After I quit being an idiot and looked it up the LT should be at around $70 mil. So YB is right, we're about 6 mil over right now, not including Elson and Watson's salary. So, right now we're probably around $ 10 mil over, so the Jazz owe $20 mill in LT.

That's till a lot and needs to be addressed.
 
I think the $75M exclude the non-guaranteed contracts of Gaines, Jeffers and Evans but include Fesenko's QO, which put the Jazz roughly $7M over the luxury tax theshold of $68M.

Trading Kirilenko ($17.8M) for Diaw ($9M) and Ross ($1.1M) should put the Jazz under the LT line. All in all, it means saving $7.7M in salary, about $8M in luxury tax and $4M in the league distribution on luxury taxes collected. That would save the Jazz $19.7M at one fell swoop. Seriously, I don't think KOC can be blamed for saving the franchise this much money.
 
I just added up these players (ESPN Trade Machine). I took out Gaines because we know he will be released (Watson Signing)

Bell
Evans (Will Most Likely stay with team)
Hayward
Jeffers (Thompson could take his spot but money won't change much)
Jefferson
AK
Miles
Millsap
Okur
Price
Deron
Fesenko (QO)

Total: 76,069,022

https://www.nba.com/news/cba_minimumsalary_050804.html

Elson (7 years) = 1,146,337
Watson (9 years) = 1,229,255

New Total: 78,444,614

Current NBA Luxury Tax = $70,307,000

Utah Jazz are over the luxury tax by 8,137,614

8,137,614 (x2 for penalty); Total Jazz Luxury tax savings if AK trade happens 16,275,228
 
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I just added up these players (ESPN Trade Machine). I took out Gaines because we know he will be released (Watson Signing)

Bell
Evans (Will Most Likely stay with team)
Hayward
Jeffers (Thompson could take his spot but money won't change much)
Jefferson
AK
Miles
Millsap
Okur
Price
Deron

Total: 74,981,522

https://www.nba.com/news/cba_minimumsalary_050804.html

Elson (7 years) = 1,146,337
Watson (9 years) = 1,229,255

New Total: 77,353,114

Current NBA Luxury Tax = $70,307,000

Utah Jazz are over the luxury tax by 7,050,114

7,050,114 (x2 for penalty); Total Jazz savings if AK trade happens 14,100,228

Thanks for the breakdown TT. 14 million to a team like the Jazz is significant. So it will be addressed.

Keep in mind, Fes may sign the QO, thats another 1 mil +.
 
Why is everyone pretending like there's not another year on Diaw's deal? I feel like I'm going to have a nervous breakdown trying to figure out why so many people are ignoring that.
 
Why is everyone pretending like there's not another year on Diaw's deal? I feel like I'm going to have a nervous breakdown trying to figure out why so many people are ignoring that.

I don't think Diaw is so much the issue, more so that the LT needs to be addressed this year, and AK is most likely the solution.
 
And then there's the spilt milk argument, i.e. WHY ARE THE JAZZ ONLY NOW DOING SOMETHING ABOUT AK'S STUPID ****ING CONTRACT?

But I understand, again, that's an argument that is ultimately irrelevant. But they could've saved this $7-$9 million in addition to however many years of salary and last years net LT penalty in addition to whoever the Jazz would've picked in the '09 draft that they wouldn't have had to dump. But, again, I know this is a moot point.

I guess AK WAS a top-ten player.
 
I don't think Diaw is so much the issue, more so that the LT needs to be addressed this year, and AK is most likely the solution.
AK is clearly the guy you have to get rid of to save the necessary money, but Diaw is worth talking about because his cap number is the one everyone is using to come up with the savings figure. And then conveniently or inexplicably not addressing the fact that Diaw has another $9 million left on his deal.

If Diaw was an expiring? I'd probably be on board.
 
UPDATED

I just added up these players (ESPN Trade Machine). I took out Gaines because we know he will be released (Watson Signing)

Bell
Evans (Will Most Likely stay with team)
Hayward
Jeffers (Thompson could take his spot but money won't change much)
Jefferson
AK
Miles
Millsap
Okur
Price
Deron
Fesenko (QO)

Total: 76,069,022

https://www.nba.com/news/cba_minimumsalary_050804.html

Elson (7 years) = 1,146,337
Watson (9 years) = 1,229,255

New Total: 78,444,614

Current NBA Luxury Tax = $70,307,000

Utah Jazz are over the luxury tax by 8,137,614

8,137,614 (x2 for penalty); Total Jazz Luxury tax savings if AK trade happens 16,275,228

You are also not including the amount of money the team gets by being out of the tax

Locke's numbers show the Jazz saving 20M by making this trade. Thats is half of the amount of money the Jazz make off home games in a season.
 
AK is clearly the guy you have to get rid of to save the necessary money, but Diaw is worth talking about because his cap number is the one everyone is using to come up with the savings figure. And then conveniently or inexplicably not addressing the fact that Diaw has another $9 million left on his deal.

If Diaw was an expiring? I'd probably be on board.

Ya this is only about savings this year.

If Diaw was expiring we would still use that money on somebody else (through free agency or trade). We really wouldn't be hurting next year. That is the reason for the trade. Save money.
Next year it wouldn't be a big deal Diaw is making 9 Million. It would suck because we couldn't sign any role players because his salary would take it up but it would not be nearly as bad as paying 16-20 Million extra this year for a guy who will always be the 4th or 5th option for scoring on the floor. I would rather pay Diaw 9 million for an extra year to play limited minutes rather than keep AK with those penalties.
 
You guys are idiots. Here's the real numbers, compiled from a number of sources and largely cribbed from my posts in the YB forum.

The luxury tax number for the upcoming season is $70.37 million according to Larry Coon.

Utah's current salary cap numbers (based upon the best info I can find)

Utah's current salary obligations:

AK: 17.823 million
Deron: 13.940 million
Jefferson: 13.0 million
Okur: 9.945 million
Millsap: 7.60 million
CJ Miles: 3.7 million
Bell: 3.0 million
Hayward: 2.356 million
Price: 1.381 million
Watson: 1.272 million (assuming veteran minimum contract)
Elson: $1.146 million
Gaines: .762 million (unguaranteed)
Jeffers: .762 million (unguaranteed)
Evans: .474 million (unguaranteed)
Thompson: .474 million (unguaranteed)

Total:

76.163 million guaranteed
78.635 million guaranteed + nonguaranteed

Add $1.088 million to each if you assume that Fesenko will be signed to his QO.

Utah's obligations post-trade:

Deron: 13.940 million
Jefferson: 13.0 million
Okur: 9.945 million
Diaw: 9.0 million
Millsap: 7.60 million
CJ Miles: 3.7 million
Bell: 3.0 million
Hayward: 2.356 million
Price: 1.381 million
Watson: 1.272 million (assuming veteran minimum contract)
Elson: $1.146 million
Ross: $1.0 million
Gaines: .762 million (unguaranteed)
Jeffers: .762 million (unguaranteed)
Evans: .474 million (unguaranteed)
Thompson: .474 million (unguaranteed)

Total:

$68.34 million guaranteed
70.812 million guaranteed + non-guaranteed

Again, add $1.088 million for Fesenko's QO.

After the trade Utah would have 12 players under contract (assuming they honor their agreement with Watson) If Fesenko signs the QO he's the 13th they need to meet the minimum.

That would push their salary to $69.428 million.

If Fesenko gets a $2 million offer from Houston, which the Jazz would pretty much have to match, the tax payout savings disappear entirely.

Locke's $20 million number is obviously wrong.

The reason this is magical Enron accounting: They take as a benefit all these saving this year and then pretend that the additional $9 million charge (and potential accompanying luxury tax payments and forfeited payouts) next season don't exist. They also pretend that this deal has no potential affect on their luxury tax level for 2011.

They're also claiming that they know they will receive a $4 million luxury tax payment this season. There's no way to know that, but that's a high end payment level historically. In any event, no one knows that number until you know how many teams are payers and how much they paid in.

They're claiming it saves them $18 million. It really saves them $9 million - (probability of luxury tax payment next season)(luxury tax payment) - (probability of luxury tax payment next season)(forfeited luxury tax benefit) - the difference between $4 million and the real luxury tax pay-out number this season.

So if you assess that there's a 20% probability the tax system stays in place and the Jazz will pay a tax bill of $3 million, forfeit a payment of $2.5 million (a more realistic number than the reported $4-5 million) next season, and there will actually be a $2.5 million luxury tax payout this season then the actual savings would be $6.4 million. Depending on your precise actuarial determination of the probabilities and numbers involved that number moves around some, but $9 million is the absolute "real savings" ceiling.

If Fesenko ends up signing a $2 million deal or the Jazz have to take on non guaranteed contracts, or people get injured and they have to sign someone for a small amount of money that pushes them over the tax line (since the margin is so small) then they forfeit the $2.5 million payment this season as well. That would make the actual savings number, using some very realistic assumptions and saying that not everything will go perfectly this season, at $3.9 million.

The $20 million estimate by Locke, when you actually think about the numbers involved, likely overstates the savings by between a factor of three and five.

Locke is an idiot, and if you're citing those numbers to defend the FO you're an idiot too.
 
Not sure how your post is that different from mine? A few Million or so maybe from Quinton Ross or assuming Fesenko will get a deal from Houston or keeping Gaines on roster when we know he will be released. or Keeping Thompson & Jeffers when one of them will be released.

How can the ceiling be 9 Million? That doesn't even make sense. You have to pay dollar for dollar when you go over the luxury tax (x2).
 
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