Jamal Crawford and Atlanta Hawks have come to terms on a buyout

[Diesel]

Point is.. we paid 11 Million this year and 2.3 Million next year for a later first rounder...

 

Ok. Got it. 

 

[sturt]

Damn. No, this is not okay. Any time you let the other side walk away with more money than they started with, you've screwed over your own best interests.

At $11m, plus the ~$9m that Crawford is getting guaranteed from Minny, that's $3 friggin million more than he was getting guaranteed.

AT THE VERY DAMN LEAST, Travis Schlenk, you had to negotiate a deal that would be premised on what the player would be able to get in the open market, and thus, ensure that YOUR OWN BEST INTERESTS were fully served in your agreement with him.

The decision-making here is bone-headed, and represents an ominous cloud on our horizon going forward... if he wasn't discerning enough to work out something more fundamentally intelligent here, God help us that his talent assessment ability really is off-the-charts in order to compensate.

I've not been anti-Schlenk. Yes, I've pointed out discrepancies in the words C-Viv says that he said versus what he's actually done. And, I've also thought he's made some unfortunate comments that couldn't help his relationship with the head coach. But that's only trying to be objective. My attitude about the guy previously has been positive.

I'd given him credit where I thought credit was deserved in some of these FA contracts he's negotiated, but it appears that, in fact, the market itself was much more limited for Moose, Dedmon, and Ily than anticipated... so, maybe... given what this Crawford situations shows us, I was too quick on those to grant a thumbs up. 

I take that back. Not "maybe," but "probably."

 

[Diesel]

Hinkie wouldn't have made this deal. 

[sturt]

6 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Point is.. we paid 11 Million this year and 2.3 Million next year for a later first rounder...

 

Ok. Got it. 

 

You totally miss the salient point.

We're not competing for the playoffs this year. So, the measure isn't simply "we paid X for a later 1st round next summer, and a high 2nd from last summer."

Rather, the measure is "how much more could we have gotten from another team to rent out our cap space?"

And while we can speculate, we can only speculate. We can't know.

[AHF]

We could have gotten a first this year and then traded Crawford's almost nonguaranteed deal next year for another first at the cost of paying a disgruntled Crawford this season.  We did him a favor.

[sturt]

Yes. And in a corresponding move soon to be announced, Ressler has changed the name to the "Atlanta Hawks Basketball Charitable Organization."

IT ONLY STANDS TO REASON that Crawford was not going to balk at an offer that gave him the same money he was going to have as before, only getting it for playing with a different team.

WORSE... he probably wasn't going to balk at an offer that gave him a million or so less than that.

No-good-terrible-very-bad-day for me as a Hawks fan.

This just wasn't that hard. Different than almost any other decision a GM makes, this one had almost no subjective or hidden intel that would make one of us peon's decision-making any different than the GM's. It wasn't complicated, and yet, he totally flubbed it up.

Ressler the business man should be very concerned with the business acumen of his new employee over his most public business interest.

Bone. Headed.

 

[JTB]

I'm trying to understand what's going on...so did the Hawks buyout Crawford at 11m this off season and does that count towards the cap?

sorry I'm completely confused on what was done to buyout Crawford. We didn't stretch him apparently so where did the money come from to buy him out?

 

by the way please break it down in the most simple way possible lol

Edited July 19, 2017 by JTB

[Bankingitbig]

37 minutes ago, JTB said:

I'm trying to understand what's going on...so did the Hawks buyout Crawford at 11m this off season and does that count towards the cap?

sorry I'm completely confused on what was done to buyout Crawford. We didn't stretch him apparently so where did the money come from to buy him out?

 

by the way please break it down in the most simple way possible lol

Simple answer is Yes. Players and teams are allowed to negotiate buyouts to get out of contracts, which is what happened.

More complex answer below:

Hawks and Crawford agreed to a "buyout" of his contract to allow him to become a free agent. In the buyout arrangement, we agree to pay him only $13.2m of his $17.2m guaranteed contract over 2-years. This is ~76% of his guaranteed contract, so his cap hit this year will only be ~76% of what his 2017-2018 salary was supposed to be, which is where the $10,942,762 cap hit in 2017-2018 comes from. Next year, it will only be $2,304,2226 as a cap hit since he only had $3,000,000 guaranteed for the 2018-2019 season.

I believe where the stretch rumors came from is that the Hawks and Crawford in the buyout agreed to have his money paid over a stretched time frame instead of just the two years. But from a salary cap perspective, the Hawks did not choose to have his cap hits stretched and will incur most of his charge this year.

[Bankingitbig]

2 hours ago, AHF said:

We could have gotten a first this year and then traded Crawford's almost nonguaranteed deal next year for another first at the cost of paying a disgruntled Crawford this season.  We did him a favor.

I was thinking about this as well. But I was surprised there weren't many non-guaranteed contracts traded this offseason for teams above the tax or close to it to use as way of shedding salary. For example, Utah couldn't find anyone for Diaw's completely non-guaranteed contract of $7m. Currently right now for 2018-2019 we have ~$33m in cap space counting only guaranteed contracts, close to a 9+ year veteran max. Generally when trading a non-guaranteed contract like Crawford's you have to take back equal salary. I think Shclenk is just choosing to have the cap space for next offseason instead of the potential to get another first by letting a team dump salary to you. It's probably the safer move right now, especially when looking at the free agents for next year.

[MaceCase]

37 minutes ago, Bankingitbig said:

I was thinking about this as well. But I was surprised there weren't many non-guaranteed contracts traded this offseason for teams above the tax or close to it to use as way of shedding salary. For example, Utah couldn't find anyone for Diaw's completely non-guaranteed contract of $7m. Currently right now for 2018-2019 we have ~$33m in cap space counting only guaranteed contracts, close to a 9+ year veteran max. Generally when trading a non-guaranteed contract like Crawford's you have to take back equal salary. I think Shclenk is just choosing to have the cap space for next offseason instead of the potential to get another first by letting a team dump salary to you. It's probably the safer move right now, especially when looking at the free agents for next year.

Agreed, outside of fostering player/agent relationships as a first time head GM this also fits within the suggested asset acquisition timeline that Schlenk offered while not eliminating at all the ability to still take on bad deals next offseason by utilizing capspace again if need be.

[AHF]

2 hours ago, Bankingitbig said:

I was thinking about this as well. But I was surprised there weren't many non-guaranteed contracts traded this offseason for teams above the tax or close to it to use as way of shedding salary. For example, Utah couldn't find anyone for Diaw's completely non-guaranteed contract of $7m. Currently right now for 2018-2019 we have ~$33m in cap space counting only guaranteed contracts, close to a 9+ year veteran max. Generally when trading a non-guaranteed contract like Crawford's you have to take back equal salary. I think Shclenk is just choosing to have the cap space for next offseason instead of the potential to get another first by letting a team dump salary to you. It's probably the safer move right now, especially when looking at the free agents for next year.

I look at the Melo deal and see the Crawford contract of next year as being enough to make that happen with payoffs from both teams.  You would then have to take on salary coming back.

I think we will see teams struggling to free up cap space next season and don't see much cost to us holding and waiting to see.

Bear in mind what the difference is in cap room for next year:

$3M (guaranteed portion of his contract for next year) versus $2.3M (cap hit for next year after buyout)

So for a cost of $700K in next year's cap space we could have waited and seen if there was a deal that would have made it worth taking on one or more dump contracts.  A team like Boston was handing out Avery Bradley for cap relief this year so real value can follow when you enable another team to free up that space.

[marco102]

6 hours ago, Diesel said:

Point is.. we paid 11 Million this year and 2.3 Million next year for a later first rounder...

 

Ok. Got it. 

 

Point is the the Hawks will pay Crawford  approximately $2.6 million over 5 years.   These payments have no affect on the cap.  

The cap hit is NOT $10,942,762 as being reported because Crawford signed for more than veteran minimum.  His actual cap hit is about $7,811,000 due to "right of offset" rule.   The cap hit next year is about $1,700,000.  

 

[sturt]

58 minutes ago, marco102 said:

Point is the the Hawks will pay Crawford  approximately $2.6 million over 5 years.   These payments have no affect on the cap.  

The cap hit is NOT $10,942,762 as being reported because Crawford signed for more than veteran minimum.  His actual cap hit is about $7,811,000 due to "right of offset" rule.   The cap hit next year is about $1,700,000.  

 

So wait... this might be the news that's somehow avoided me, yet I've so wanted to hear...

I'd understood our total cap hit = whatever our total payout is.

But if this is correct, then our total cap hit is about $9.5m... not about $13m.

That's still not good. All the leverage was on our side, and the Hawks best interests could not be served for agreeing to anything more than whatever would result in a $7m cap hit ($8m being the break-even number, and granting that Crawford's age and desire to chase a ring is more compelling than who we're going to have in our 15th roster slot during a season that we already know will not aspire to serious contention).

 

[marco102]

1 minute ago, sturt said:

So wait... this might be the news that's somehow avoided me, yet I've so wanted to hear...

I'd understood our total cap hit = whatever our total payout is.

But if this is correct, then our total cap hit is about $9.5m... not about $13m.

That's still not good. All the leverage was on our side, and the Hawks best interests could not be served for agreeing to anything more than whatever would result in a $7m cap hit ($8m being the break-even number, and granting that Crawford's age and desire to chase a ring is more compelling than who we're going to have in our 15th roster slot during a season that we already know will not aspire to serious contention).

 

From Hawksfantic first article, that will be the cap hit, but the Hawks will not get the reduction until after the season ends.   That's why you are seeing the $10.9 being reported, but it gives them more flexibility before the draft next  year.

[sturt]

Okay.

Having said that, I'm concerned that we not make more complicated what is simple, in terms of evaluating what a fair split between us and Crawford would have been and what was actually given to him.

We had the leverage by virtue of the fact that he is 37, and the time is very short for him to achieve a ring... whereas what we would be sacrificing in this environment where we don't even care to contend is the 15th roster slot.

What he wanted was simply to play for a contender without losing any of the money he was guaranteed to have. Anything else was icing on the cake. So... satisfying him would have amounted to ~$17m total over the next two seasons on checks signed by a probable playoff team.

What we gave him was an agreement that ends up granting him ~$22m all-told guaranteed the next two seasons on checks signed by a probable playoff team.

It's as simple as that. No matter what our actual cap hit, Schlenk left ~$5m on the table.

Did the agreement contain a specific number? It seems so. But given how long it took to learn what the real numbers were, it's conceivable that there was some formula asserted, instead, and that until certain other numbers could be established, the final numbers for the agreement could not.

And that, in fact, is what should have happened.

But if it did happen, then how ever that formula was written, it was egregiously inadequate to recognize the Hawks best interests and the leverage that the Hawks had in the negotiation.

I'm perplexed what is complicated about this. The formula written into the agreement should have incorporated Crawford's next contract's guarantee, so as to avoid this very thing, and in fact, there's a stout argument that says we should have come out of this at least $1m to the better than he did--again, given that the leverage was all ours. But even if it had been simply 50/50, at least we didn't lose money... to lose money is just dereliction of duty. Incompetence. Honestly, I'm hoping I'm wrong. I hope there is some factor out there that I'm missing--and to be fair, that's plausible. But I'm waiting for someone to bring it to my attention.

So far, the only thing anyone has proposed has been that the CBA somehow constrains teams and players to define the buyout amount before the player can be released. I'm not saying it's not there, but I am saying that I've yet to find it. I don't believe that's the case because it's not apparent why such constraints would be established in the first place--whatever the two sides deem to be "fair" seemingly ought to be good enough.

[Diesel]

The bottom line is why did we trade for Crawford in the first place.

What we got is a late first round pick.   I'm sorry.  Next year's draft is not loaded so we tied up capspace that we could have used for something else for a late first and a prospect??  Some of you talk about how bad Hinkie ran the 76ers firesale.  In my eyes, this is a move that we didn't have to make. 

 

[marco102]

I was wrong. Looks like the Hawks only Get $1.5 million in cap reliefif the stretch provision is used.

https://www.peachtreehoops.com/2017/7/20/16001664/atlanta-hawks-salary-cap-jamal-crawford-buyout-details-breakdown

 

[sturt]

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

The bottom line is why did we trade for Crawford in the first place.

What we got is a late first round pick.   I'm sorry.  Next year's draft is not loaded so we tied up capspace that we could have used for something else for a late first and a prospect??  Some of you talk about how bad Hinkie ran the 76ers firesale.  In my eyes, this is a move that we didn't have to make. 

 

Nah. I'm sorry.

Once the decision has been made to re-build, put me down for a 1st and a prospect above what appears to be 9.5m in cap space. Cap space when you're in this environment is mainly to be used for gaining exactly what it was used for... renting it out in exchange for young prospect talent. Who knows if there might have been some deal out there that could have rendered something better than what we got... if there was, then of course, that would have been preferable. But some fans sometimes like to fallaciously imagine themselves as omniscient. Truth, we don't know what we don't know, and so, I'm content to say that at least the deal made is consistent with the current philosophy.

[Diesel]

2 minutes ago, sturt said:

Nah. I'm sorry.

Once the decision has been made to re-build, put me down for a 1st and a prospect above what appears to be 9.5m in cap space. Cap space when you're in this environment is mainly to be used for gaining exactly what it was used for... renting it out in exchange for young prospect talent. Who knows if there might have been some deal out there that could have rendered something better than what we got... if there was, then of course, that would have been preferable. But some fans sometimes like to fallaciously imagine themselves as omniscient. Truth, we don't know what we don't know, and so, I'm content to say that at least the deal made is consistent with the current philosophy.

That capspace could have been used to facilitate a Baze trade.   To use it to take a late first is wasteful.   Which is what this GM looks to be doing.. .high risk, low reward type deals. 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

So looking back on this deal, what are your thoughts now.

We ended up taking Omari Spellman with the pick acquired in the Crawford trade which was made possible by trading Dwight for Plumlee and Beli.