How much will the Brooklyn Nets save by swapping DeAndre Jordan instead of buying the veteran pivot for the remaining two years and $ 20 million left in his contract before the Sept. 11 deadline to resign players? and stretch their salaries for several seasons?
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Friday that the Nets will send Jordan to the Detroit Pistons in exchange for two lower-wage reserves, Sekou Doumbouya and Jahlil Okafor. As an incentive to take on Jordan’s salary and seek to negotiate a purchase of their own, the Pistons will get four second-round picks, two from Brooklyn and two previously acquired from other teams.
Let’s take a look at what this means for a potentially historic Nets luxury tax bill this season, as well as what Detroit is giving up on adding several years of Jordan’s salary to get draft picks to the coffers.
THE TREATMENT
The Nets get: Rescue Doumbouya, Jahlil Okafor
The Pistons obtain: DeAndre Jordan, second round selection of Brooklyn 2022, second round selection of Washington 2024, second round selection of Golden State 2025, second round selection of Brooklyn 2027.
Brooklyn Nets: A
Assuming the Nets replaced Jordan on their roster with LaMarcus Aldridge (who Wojnarowski later reportedly agreed to sign with the team), they would have been considering opening the 2021-22 season with the incredible $ 41 million in tax. luxury, which translates into a $ 143 million payment in taxes alone. According to Spotrac data, this would have shattered Brooklyn’s previous record $ 91 million tax bill in 2012-13.
The Nets could have reduced that bill to $ 108 million by resigning from Jordan and stretching their remaining salary for five years, meaning a limit reaches just under $ 4 million. But that would have been costly in future seasons, as Brooklyn will surely continue to pay the tax and be a repeater from 2023-24, meaning that every extra dollar of salary above the tax line costs an additional 50 cents in compared to the current position.
Because we don’t know where the tax line or other Nets wages will fall, it’s impossible to accurately calculate the cost of pulling Jordan’s salary, but it’s reasonable to estimate about $ 60 million in additional taxes between 2023 and 24 .
Instead, Brooklyn replaces Jordan’s $ 9,900,000 salary with Doumbouya and Okafor, who earn a combined total of $ 5.7 million this season and have no guaranteed money beyond. (Except for an impressive Doumbouya performance on the training ground, the Nets will surely reject their $ 5.5 million team option for 2022-23). This reduces their tax bill to $ 117 million this year with the potential to save more money if they can use some of their remaining second-round picks to move Doumbouya or Okafor elsewhere.
Savings are even greater in 2022-23, when Brooklyn is completely free of the wage obligation with Jordan and plans to cut about $ 40 million from the tax bill. As Wojnarowski explained, this will make it easier for the Nets to use their mid-level taxpayer exception for 2022 or one of their business exceptions to add to the list sometime next year.
Fortunately, Brooklyn had amassed several additional second-round picks in a variety of exchanges to use here. The Nets still have their own second-round picks in 2024, 2026 and 2028, as well as the smallest of their selection and Atlanta in 2023. To make that kind of savings without giving up a first round you have to feel as a win for Brooklyn. even if that means the Nets can’t use cash in an exchange the rest of this year’s League.
Detroit Pistons: C +
In terms of this season’s payroll, adding $ 4 million in salary will not affect the Pistons, who will get ahead financially in the short term by receiving the maximum amount of cash possible in an exchange ($ 5,800,000). Detroit’s alternative cost is burning nearly $ 10 million in capitalization space next summer.
Making an exchange to bring the salary into space would probably have earned the Pistons a relatively similar performance. Detroit probably won’t have a player in free agency this summer anyway and has ways to create extra space in the salary cap using team options in two-year deals signed this low season by escorts Hamidou Diallo and Frank Jackson .
The most interesting aspect of this exchange from the Pistons ’angle is to treat Doumbouya, the No. 15 pick in the 2019 draft, as a wage ballast. Doumbouya burst onto the scene in January 2020, when he averaged 14.0 points per game and shot 41% from the three-point range in his first eight openings as a teenager instead of injured Blake Griffin. Unfortunately, this type of shooting was not sustainable for Doumbouya, who has shot up 25% from 3 to two NBA seasons.
After a regime change in Detroit, Doumbouya played fewer minutes in Year 2 and was ineffective offensively in both games he played for the Pistons Summer League team in Las Vegas last month. past. He’s not yet 21, it looks like Doumbouya will be looking for a fresh start elsewhere.