Mark Deeks of ShamSports has published his first column for SBNation.com, discussing how the Sixers' proximity to the salary floor has been overblown in recent weeks. As I wrote when I examined the issue last month, there's no real penalty for failing to meet the NBA's minimum payroll threshold, so there's no pressure on the 76ers to add unnecessary salary. However, as Deeks notes, the flexibility could open up a number of trade opportunties for the team.
Deeks also passes along a couple of cap details on other teams in his piece and in his latest update at ShamSports, so let's round up the rest of the noteworthy items….
- The Grizzlies and Raptors stretched the contracts of Fab Melo and Quentin Richardson, respectively, when releasing those players last week. That means that instead of a cap hit of about $1.31MM in 2013/14, Melo will count toward Memphis' books for about $437K for each of the next three seasons. For the Raptors, Richardson's cap hit figures to be about $467K for the next three years, rather than about $1.4MM this season.
- For both the Grizzlies and Raptors, the likely motivation was creating a little flexibility below the tax threshold, potentially accommodating further signings or trades.
- The Bulls also used the stretch provision when they released Richard Hamilton in July, as I suggested earlier today. That doesn't really create extra flexibility for Chicago, but it will reduce the team's tax bill for 2013/14.
- Josh Harrellson's two-year deal with the Pistons is partially guaranteed for $150K in year one, and non-guaranteed in year two, according to Deeks.