<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dumpy @ Jul 26 2008, 11:32 PM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fly75 @ Jul 26 2008, 09:47 PM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dumpy @ Jul 25 2008, 10:13 AM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Netted @ Jul 25 2008, 09:43 AM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>We retain his rights so if he goes over there for a couple years and gets back into form we have first crack at him in the future. It gets tricky because we'd have to not relinquish our rights and his cap hold will be $5.7mm.
Would be nice insurance in case Yi, Lopez, and Anderson don't develop well.</div>
could you explain the concept of "cap hold?"
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Cap holds are what prevents a team from signing other teams players with its cap space, and then signing its own free agents that are qualified for "Bird" or "Early Bird" treatment.
Basically the free agent still counts against the teams cap at a certain rate until the team renounces their rights, or the player signs a new contract.
The Clippers got into cap trouble this summer on this issue. In order to free up cap space to sign Baron Davis , they had renounce their "Bird" rights to Elton Brand (since Brand counted at 150% of his previous salary, he was tying up an additional $8M above his prior year salary of $16M).
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so, to clarify, a cap hold kicks in when a player is a restricted free agent, or there is a team or player option to extend the contract for the following year. The point of the cap hold is to keep a team from "gaming" the system, by timing free agnect signings before resigning their own restricted free agents or exercising an option to extend a player's contract, thus allowing it to get around the salary cap (which teams could then do by signing all their players to one-year deals with a series of option years thereafter).
The question remains, though, whether a "cap hold" could cause a team to go over the luxury tax threshold . . . this would be an issue if a "cap hold" remains on the books if a RFA bolts to Europe for a season. Fly?
Also, does a "cap hold" go into effect if a team holds the rights to an unsigned player (such as Christian Drejer)? At, for example, the league minimum salary?
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Cap holds exists for all free agents of a team. For example, the Nets also had a cap hold for Boki.
Cap holds are not counted towards luxury tax calculations. For example, the Mavs had a huge cap hold for KVH all last year, but even if they hadn't S&T'd him, his cap hold would not have any impact on the Mavs luxury tax.
To summarize:
To calculate if a team is under the salary cap, the cap holds of all unrenounced free agents (both restricted and unrestricted) and unsigned 1st round draft picks are included.
To calculate team salary for luxury tax purposes, only the contracts of the players on the team (including those who were waived) on the final day of the regular season are included in team salaries.
