On the surface, Wednesday's trade between the Trail Blazers and Sacramento looks innocuous: Portland's seldom-used Ike Diogu heads to the Kings for forward Michael Ruffin, who hasn't played this season because of injuries. Ruffin was traded Wednesday from Chicago to Sacramento, then flipped to Portland.
But the real story in this trade is what is quickly becoming a Blazers trademark in the Tom Penn era: the trade exception.
In this deal, the Blazers have received a $3.13 million trade exception, which means the Blazers can make a trade with a team for a player worth up to $3.13 million without having to send a player back in matching salary.
In simple terms, a team gets a trade exception when it trades a player with a higher salary than the player they get in return.
Where this gets interesting is how the Blazers play this card. They have 365 days to use the exception, and you can bet in these cash-crunched times there will be teams willing to unload a $3 million player onto the Blazers. But what the Blazers have done in the past is demand that a first-round pick be added to their deal in compensation for taking the $3 million player off the other team's hands.
A trade exception from the Zach Randolph/Channing Frye trade is how the Blazers secured James Jones from Phoenix on the night of the 2007 draft, while also getting the Suns to throw in their late-first round pick ... a guy by the name of Rudy Fernandez.
The 2007 trade exception that netted James Jones and Fernandez was largely credited to Penn, the Blazers assistant general manager, who had just been hired. Penn, who came from Memphis with a reputation as a salary cap guru, suggested late in the talks about adding Fred Jones to the Knicks trade in order to get a trade exception.
