Wednesday, August 31 is the last day that an NBA team will be able to waive a player who has a guaranteed salary for 2022/23 and stretch that player’s ’22/23 salary across three seasons.
[RELATED: Hoops Rumors Glossary: Stretch Provision]
A player who is waived between September 1 and the end of the 2022/23 season can still have his cap hit(s) for 2023/24 and future years stretched across multiple years, assuming he’s owed guaranteed money beyond this season. But his ’22/23 cap charge would remain unchanged in that scenario, unless he reaches a buyout agreement with his team.
The stretch provision allows teams to gain some short-term relief at the cost of reduced long-term flexibility. It’s used most frequently by teams in the luxury tax that want to either lower their tax bill (or duck out of tax territory entirely) or by teams that want to create a little extra cap room to accommodate a specific roster move.
Teams haven’t employed the stretch provision very frequently over the last couple years, but we saw it utilized in a couple instances last month. The Pacers waived three players with modest 2022/23 salary guarantees and stretched their cap hits across three seasons in order to help make room for their offer sheet to Deandre Ayton.
In that case, Nik Stauskas had his $2,106,932 partial guarantee turned into annual cap hits of $702,311 through 2024/25; Juwan Morgan‘s $1,728,689 partial guarantee was stretched to become three annual cap hits of $576,230; and Malik Fitts‘ $1,665,650 partial guarantee turned into three annual cap hits of $555,217.
The Trail Blazers, meanwhile, stretched Eric Bledsoe‘s $3.9MM partial guarantee across three seasons for equal cap hits of $1.3MM through 2024/25, which allowed Portland to narrowly sneak below this season’s luxury tax line.
Conversely, when the Spurs waived Danilo Gallinari, they simply applied his $13MM partial guarantee to their 2022/23 cap rather than stretching it across three seasons. Stretching that $13MM would’ve created an extra $8.67MM in cap room for San Antonio, but the team had no immediate use for that extra room this season, and opted to keep Gallinari’s dead money off its books for 2023/24 and ’24/25.
There aren’t many remaining candidates to have their 2022/23 salaries stretched, but the deadline is still worth keeping in mind for the possibilities it will take off the table.
For example, while multiple reports have indicated that the Lakers have no plans to waive-and-stretch Russell Westbrook and his $47MM+ cap hit, it’s still technically an option for the club up until next Wednesday. Once the calendar flips to September 1, stretching Westbrook’s salary is no longer a possibility for L.A., and the only way for the club to reduce his ’22/23 cap hit would be to agree to a buyout.
The only way to stretch Westbrook and make it useful would be if they could stretch it over 10 years, otherwise best to just take their medicine in one gulp.
10 years? That’ll still be almost 5 million a year lol. That’s a roster spot or a mid-level exception or taxpayer exception or whatever. Still a lot of money. They’re going to sleep in the bed they made one way or another unless a team comes at the deadline saying “our guy or two guys haven’t worked out.. we’ll take Westbrook expiring for them.”
We have already taken that Deng before…No thanks
Westbrook had sacrificed and opt in the contract
Why stretch？
Why didn’t Lakers resign Westbrook $32m Compare to Harden?
It needs 2 future Firsts to take on Westbrook contract?
One more week and teams will no longer have the opportunity to needlessly burden their cap for the next 3-5 years. This W&S thing came in the hard cap, and was designed to be used in a pinch as a work around the tax and apron lines. Not a comprehensive cap space strategy. The way cap space is computed, nothing is worse than dead money. You can’t even credit a roster hold for it.
I wonder what % of this board even understands your last 2 sentences
So “credit a roster hold,” does that mean in Westbrook’s case the 3 years would be about 17 million per year stretched. Does that mean I can now, if I was able to credit a roster hold, which would be, to wait and look for, and then sign a guy for that 17 million? Or am I way off?