At the end of summary of tentative NBA deal there’s a small tweak to the trading rules:
Cash paid or received by teams in trades is limited to an aggregate of $3M per team annually.
Here’s my question: Which Owners did want Limited Cash in Trades?
Have big market teams said “we have enough of adding cash to every trade”?
Or have small market teams argued “it’s a competitive advantage for big boys”?
Or maybe some teams in the middle have wondered how do they fit into the picture?
Or maybe teams which usually aren’t active in trade market have felt they were left behind?
Frankly, I have no idea and I’m surprised with this change because I thought it’s a small and simple but effective… revenue sharing. So maybe that [allegedly] robust revenue sharing plan made whole idea obsolete?
Well, when in doubt, follow the money…
Larry Coon didn’t publish his CBA FAQ before 1999 so I don’t know what were the rules 15 or more years ago but according to prosportstransactions.com in the 1990s there were only 24 trades where cash changed hands!
In 1999 version of CBA there was a rule about possibility of adding up to 3 millions in a single trade and here’s what happened during next decade plus [still according to prosportstransactions.com]:
| Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
| # of Trades which included cash | 8 | 5 | 4 | 10 | 16 | 12 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 32 | 21 | 14 |
OK, so can I say it was a nicely growing trend until inevitability of lockout striked?
Let’s find out which teams traded for cash and which traded away this cash in the last 10 years.
Keep in mind that in most cases prosportstransactions.com doesn’t list amount of cash involved so I didn’t take it into consideration. In any trade it could have been 1k$ or 3M$ or something in between.
| Team (by name) |
Trades Where Team Acquired Cash | Trades With Relinquished Cash | Team (by #) |
Trades Where Team Acquired Cash | Team (by #) |
Trades With Relinquished Cash | ||
| 76ers | 6 | 10 | TWolves | 17 | Rockets | 19 | ||
| Blazers | 1 | 12 | Hornets | 11 | Mavs | 18 | ||
| Bobcats | 8 | 0 | Kings | 11 | Blazers | 12 | ||
| Bucks | 5 | 2 | Magic | 10 | 76ers | 10 | ||
| Bulls | 3 | 4 | Grizzlies | 9 | Grizzlies | 10 | ||
| Cavaliers | 1 | 8 | Suns | 9 | Heat | 10 | ||
| Celtics | 6 | 6 | Bobcats | 8 | Knicks | 10 | ||
| Clippers | 8 | 1 | Clippers | 8 | Nets | 9 | ||
| Grizzlies | 9 | 10 | Raptors | 8 | Cavaliers | 8 | ||
| Hawks | 5 | 1 | Wizards | 8 | Magic | 8 | ||
| Heat | 2 | 10 | 76ers | 6 | Raptors | 7 | ||
| Hornets | 11 | 5 | Celtics | 6 | Celtics | 6 | ||
| Jazz | 4 | 3 | Nuggets | 6 | Nuggets | 6 | ||
| Kings | 11 | 1 | Sonics | 6 | Suns | 6 | ||
| Knicks | 3 | 10 | Bucks | 5 | Hornets | 5 | ||
| Lakers | 2 | 2 | Hawks | 5 | Spurs | 5 | ||
| Magic | 10 | 8 | Mavs | 5 | Bulls | 4 | ||
| Mavs | 5 | 18 | Nets | 5 | Jazz | 3 | ||
| Nets | 5 | 9 | Jazz | 4 | Pacers | 3 | ||
| Nuggets | 6 | 6 | Warriors | 4 | Pistons | 3 | ||
| Pacers | 2 | 3 | Bulls | 3 | Bucks | 2 | ||
| Pistons | 3 | 3 | Knicks | 3 | Lakers | 2 | ||
| Raptors | 8 | 7 | Pistons | 3 | Thunder | 2 | ||
| Rockets | 2 | 19 | Spurs | 3 | Warriors | 2 | ||
| Sonics | 6 | 0 | Thunder | 3 | Wizards | 2 | ||
| Spurs | 3 | 5 | Heat | 2 | Clippers | 1 | ||
| Suns | 9 | 6 | Lakers | 2 | Hawks | 1 | ||
| Thunder | 3 | 2 | Pacers | 2 | Kings | 1 | ||
| TWolves | 17 | 1 | Rockets | 2 | TWolves | 1 | ||
| Warriors | 4 | 2 | Blazers | 1 | Bobcats | 0 | ||
| Wizards | 8 | 2 | Cavaliers | 1 | Sonics | 0 |
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that Minnesota liked this system ;-)
Also Rockets and Mavericks probably were fine with it ;-)
But it’s just a guess and the rest is even worse case of pure speculation…
Was Paul Allen fed up so he wanted a change?
Maybe Dan Gilbert wanted some piece of action?
Maybe Grizzlies felt they were too active on both fronts?
Lakers were surprisingly inactive so maybe there’s something to it?
I have no idea so please let me know if you do ;-)
Weak Side Awareness 