Cuban's contract writing creates FA/trade leverage for the Mavs?

The trick is, the player + agent have to be okay with limiting their guaranteed money. No one's eager to sign a 5 yr deal that's really only good for 4.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing catches on. It really is beneficial to be able to trade "dollar for 20-cents-on-the-dollar" contracts without bumping up against salary cap rules.

And one other salary cap wrinkle that I don't think gets enough use is the "no-raise" or even "declining salary" contracts. The default way to sign contracts in the NBA is to offer full raises every year. But once you get deeper into a career, the player is invariably going to start producing less and less each year, yet they constantly get paid more and more. And if you have a bunch of contracts that are flat rate, or declining, then your salary commitment doesn't constantly grow every year making your cap situation worse and worse.

Now for max level players, there's really isn't an option because they're going to feel entitled to the money and wouldn't appreciate non-market offers. But for non-max players, if the money is going to be the same, then why not. It's the same amount of money, just structured differently.

These type of deals aren't unheard of but they are rare. David West has a contract that has a declining salary each year. And Monta Ellis and Biedrins have flat contracts that don't raise or decline.

Morey would be wise to fill up our team with similar deals. It makes it a lot easier to manage the cap when salaries don't automatically go up 10% every year.

 

But if the options are a 4 year deal for 40 million or a 5 years deal with 42 million in guaranteed money and 50 million if your option gets picked up, what would you do. All the GM's need to do is offer that one extra year that they otherwise might not have gotten.

 

Despite all his shortcomings, I think cuban is one of the true innovators in the NBA. I think he is really the one who started the trading crap for contract deals. I remember he traded a lot contract for howard and then traded howard for something. Eventually it ended with them netting the no 5 (Harris) pick and stackhouse.