Written by: Daniel Mulitauopele
The decision by the Lakers front office to ship out reigning Sixth Man of the Year Lamar Odom was unusual to put it mildly. What is even more confounding about the situation is that his departure seems to be without purpose, and the intentions of Lakers management are not clearly visible.
What can this Lakers team gain from losing a key part of the heart and soul of this Lakers core: an emotional leader who gave his all for what he so lovingly described as his “family?”
All heartfelt disappointments aside, this decision seems to be perplexing from even a business standpoint. As Dirk Nowitzki appropriately put it; “to get Lamar Odom for a trade exception – and I don’t even know what that is – we turned nothing into a great player.”
Ouch.
To hear a Mavericks player rejoice at the Lakers’ loss stings, but Dirk has a legitimate question. What is a trade exception? And what does that mean for the Lakers? Can it help them in the Dwight Howard sweepstakes?
Larry Coon, ESPN writer and analyst, may be the best source to ask these types of “capology” questions.
Coon describes trading scenarios like this:
“Teams under the salary cap may make trades as they please, as long as they don’t end up more than $100,000 above the salary cap following a trade. But if a team is over the cap, or they are under the cap and a trade would take them more than $100,000 over the cap, then an exception is required. An exception is the mechanism that allows a team to make trades or sign free agents and be over the salary cap. Since teams are usually over the salary cap, trades are usually accomplished using exceptions.”
In NBA trades, no team can make a trade that puts them $100,000 over the salary cap. For teams that are already often already over the cap (projected to remain at $58 million this year) like the Lakers and the Mavericks, any trade they enact requires the use of an exception. There are three types of trade exceptions: the minimum salary exception, the disabled player exception, and the traded player exception. Lamar Odom’s case relates to the traded player exception.
Coon goes on:
“The Traded Player exception is the primary means used by teams over the cap for completing trades. It allows teams to make trades that leave them over the cap, but it places several restrictions on those trades. Trades using the Traded Player exception are classified into two categories: simultaneous and non-simultaneous…In some cases, teams have up to one year to acquire the replacement player(s) to complete a trade. These trades are considered non-simultaneous trades. In a non-simultaneous trade, a team can only acquire up to 100% plus $100,000 of the salary it gives up (as opposed to 125% plus $100,000 in a simultaneous trade). A trade in which more than one player is traded away can only be simultaneous; non-simultaneous trades are allowed only when a single player is traded away (although teams can sometimes find ways to configure multi-player trades as multiple single-player trades which are non-simultaneous).”
Next Page: What This Means for the Lakers
In short, shipping Lamar Odom to Dallas is an example of a non-simultaneous exception, and allows the Lakers his salary ($8.9 million) plus $100,000 to work with in future trades (the Lakers have a year to use the credit they received from the trade exception). With this newly acquired $9 million, the Lakers are free to trade with other teams in search of replenishing vacated spots in their lineup.
For many fans, the major question is how this trade exception can be used to assist in the quest to bring Dwight Howard to Los Angeles. Can L.A. trade Bynum for Howard and use the trade exception of $9 million to relieve Orlando of Hedo Turkoglu’s contract? The short answer is no. Hedo is scheduled to receive $10.6 million this year, and the trade exception is not large enough to take on his contract from Orlando. Unless Orlando suddenly desires to trade Howard for Bynum straight up (unlikely considering they recently demanded both Pau and Bynum for Howard), the Lakers’ inability to absorb Hedo’s contract is a major stopping point.
Others have vocalized the possibility of taking on Jameer Nelson’s contract with Dwight Howard, using the Odom exception to cover Jameer’s contract, and trading Bynum for Howard. This trade would give the Magic almost $10 million in additional cap space, plus a capable center in Andrew Bynum. At the same time, many also view this trade as unlikely, as it completely voids the Magic roster of any continuity (Howard, Nelson, Arenas and Bass would have all left to other teams, leaving very little to build around besides Bynum).
Undoubtedly, there are many options that the Lakers have at their disposal. The Lakers still have the $5.4 million dollar trade exception from the Sasha Vujacic trade a year ago, and with $9 million from this recent transaction, the Lakers have money to work with (although trade exceptions cannot be combined).
What they do not have, however, is the intangible qualities that Odom brought to this Lakers team. With Phil Jackson’s retirement, the lockout, a new system to learn and the fresh upheaval caused by the Chris Paul fiasco, continuity and cohesiveness is invaluable to this team. Let’s hope management knows what it is they’re doing.
But as GM Mitch Kupchak recently stated:
“We were hoping that things would change in a day or two, but his representative called me on Saturday and said it’s not going to change, and requested that (Odom) be traded. We worked together to find a spot that would give us the most flexibility going forward. There are a lot of teams in the NBA that would take a player like Lamar and you could probably do it in a day, but you’d have to take back players, and you might not like the players you were getting back, and there might be long (financial) commitments going out. That’s not something we were interested in doing.”
From a fan’s standpoint, it is hard to justify moving a player that we’ve come to love, but as Kobe reiterated, Mitch Kupchak and the Lakers front office have been very successful at keeping the Lakers competitive in recent years. Let’s hope they can continue that great tradition of winning, albeit this time it is at Lamar Odom’s expense.