How the NBPA’s decision affects Orlando Magic free agent plan
The NBPA decided at the All-Star Break they would not phase in the expected bump in the salary cap from the new TV deal. This could be bad news for the Magic.
The NBA All-Star festivities were not all about celebrating the best players in the league. It was also about the ascendancy of one of the best players in the league to one of its most powerful positions.
The NBPA was very busy this weekend, notably naming LeBron James as the NBPA’s first vice president. But the league’s union also made another important decision.
The face of the NBA’s salary cap and collective bargaining agreement is going to make a dramatic change in a few years. The league’s new television rights deal is going to bring a ton of money to the NBA and cause the salary cap to balloon. Balloon exponentially.
The NBA wanted to scale in this shock to the salary cap and lessen the blow. The Players Association said, in plain terms, “No.” Players Association head Michelle Roberts has been making a lot of news lately actually.
The salary cap then is expected to skyrocket from a projected $66 million to nearly $90 million in 2016. The league wanted to spread out the increase and the players wanted and, for now, will get it all at once when it naturally occurs. No amount of fancy accounting will change this.
This decision is going to have major effects on the Magic and their planning.
This summer, Tobias Harris and Kyle O’Quinn are restricted free agents and that will greatly restrict what the Magic may want to do in free agency. More than that, this is not a particularly strong free agent class — LaMarcus Aldridge and Marc Gasol are the big gets, but both seem prepared to stay put.
Orlando does not have a ton of money committed for next season or the year after and it would appear that the summer of 2016 was the summer they were targeting for their big free agent move. Of course, with the cap increasing as it is, every team in the league is going to have cap room.
This would appear to be an unexpected wrench in the Magic’s rebuilding plan.
It is still unclear what effect the new salary cap had on the activity at the trade deadline. There were a ton of moves made last week that shocked everyone. But it followed a somewhat familiar pattern — teams that felt they could not match offers let players like Brandon Knight and Reggie Jackson go.
However, something else peculiar happened. The Sixers gave up on Michael Carter-Williams for the hope of another low-salary draft pick. The expiring contract was not seen as particularly valuable either. Cap room matters more and more in moving players unless a team is picking up a commodity that carries some certainty for the team’s future plans.
Before the deadline, Zach Lowe of Grantland suggested big salaries like Channing Frye could become significantly more palatable because of the increased cap coming down the pike in the next two years. Bloated contracts like Josh Smith‘s are easily stretched. That decision was truly revolutionary in thinking about how to deal with bad contracts in the face of a crazily rising cap.
"Non-glamour teams are looking more at those guys as agreeable trade currency. [Ty] Lawson and [Kenneth] Faried aren’t perfect fits for this model of player, since Denver itself isn’t a traditional free-agency hot spot. But a guy whose contract looks even just a tad weighty might be more movable than it seems if any number of teams pivot in unexpected ways — Faried, Nikola Pekovic, Kevin Martin, Marcin Gortat, Channing Frye, Chris Bosh, Avery Bradley, Rudy Gay, and others fit the description to varying degrees.Those guys aren’t necessarily on the block; Bosh is a star on a team that loves him, and Gortat is a valuable two-way center — even if he somehow can’t get on the floor in fourth quarters. Bradley’s deal is fine. Frye hasn’t fit as well as expected in Orlando, and his four-year, $32 million contract looks fat as a result. But he can be a weapon on the right team, and if I were the Magic, so far from the playoffs, I’d at least sniff out what Frye might draw."
It should be noted, none of those players actually got traded on a crazy trade deadline. Teams were probably completely unsure of what to make of this new reality. The biggest “free agent move” was the Suns acquiring Brandon Knight and his restricted free agent rights and the Heat acquiring Goran Dragic ahead of his free agency.
The Nuggets gave the 76ers a first round pick to take on JaVale McGee and the remaining $23.25 million left on his deal. That amounted to the biggest salary dumped (Kevin Garnett is more a nostalgic trade than anything else).
The 76ers gave up on rookie of the year Michael Carter-Williams and only got a highly protected Lakers first round pick in return (if it falls out of the top five, it heads Philadelphia’s way, if not it is top-three protected next season).
It was a strange deadline in that sense.
The NBPA’s decision to decline the phasing in may not have affected things regarding this year’s trade deadline. But it undoubtedly affects what the Magic are trying to do for their rebuild.
As noted previously, the Magic are preparing to spend their cap space and make their move. The Magic spent a little bit of money last season in signing Channing Frye, but largely stayed out of the free agent hunts, choosing to turn the roster over to their young players and letting them germinate through growing pains.
The thought might be that the team gets supplemented with more complementary veterans and the young players mature next year into Playoff contention. Then in 2016, the strike occurs.
That seems like a logical progression.
The summer of 2016 was already going to be a free agent bonanza with Kevin Durant hitting free agency. It is still far too early to suggest the Magic will be in those sweepstakes — the Magic do not have a championship ready team to present to him.
But Orlando figured to be one of the few teams to have cap room to make that max offer he certainly deserves. Without changes to the salary cap rules — a “max player” can make anywhere from 25-35 percent of the cap — there are suddenly going to be a lot of teams with lots of cash to throw at these kind of players. The sweepstakes just got deeper.
And the Magic, unless they land a surefire star in the Draft or develop one in the near future, had to figure they would have a pretty strong pick of the free agent crop that season. Now there are a lot of teams entering that fray. It should raise the alarm bells to make significant strides and make significant win-loss gains in the 2015-16 season.
The NBPA’s decision to reject phasing in the new TV money into the salary cap was done in its own interests. No one can blame them for making this decision. A lot of players stand to make a lot of money.
The Magic once again fall victim to poor circumstances and bad luck in timing. That seems to have befallen Rob Hennigan in his three-year tenure so far.
This new information will have to be factored into his planning. The time to spend is coming. There just may be more competition looking to spend with Hennigan and the Magic.