Sean Marks seemingly hinted that the Brooklyn Nets may be done with salary dumps, telling New Zealand’s Sport Nation last month that “we haven’t used all of four cap space. We don’t intend to right now.” But that second sentence offered some wiggle room. He doesn’t “intend” to “right now.”
And ESPN’s Bobby Marks — no relation other than they’ve both drawn paychecks from the Nets — thinks that Sean Marks could indeed wind up doing something before October 21, the date teams need to finalize their rosters.
For the Nets, it’s also the deadline to meet the minimum salary requirement, 90% of the salary cap, or face sanctions. including forfeiting their share of end-of-season luxury tax payouts and having a “frozen” cap hold added to their payroll. The first one is basically meaningless in the larger sense of things but the second is not something GMs want to deal with.
Meeting the so-called salary floor could be what drives the Nets final moves, Bobby Marks writes in a summary of 14 teams to watch as that deadline approaches.
Though the space has shrunk with the trades of Michael Porter Jr., Terance Mann, Haywood Highsmith and Kobe Bufkin, Brooklyn still has over $13 million in room and its $8.8 million room midlevel exception (the two cannot be combined) to be active in trade discussions.
The former Nets assistant GM says as of the moment, the Nets are above the floor, but if they waive the three players with team options — Jalen Wilson, Tyrese Martin and Drew Timme — they’ll be under it once again.
The Nets already have 15 players on guaranteed contracts, and the three aforementioned players have a combined $6.2 million in non-guaranteed salary.
What’s a GM to do? Bobby Marks thinks one route would be to trade for a player.
If the three are waived before Oct. 20, Brooklyn would need to trade for a player earning more than $4 million.
That, of course, would reduce the amount of cap space the Nets would take into the trade deadline, where they will still have more space than any other team. There are indeed possibilities, including another salary dump despite what Sean Marks said. Bobby Marks notes that several teams may want to get under the luxury tax threshold or the two aprons. The Knicks he notes may need to trade either Tyler Kolek or Pacome Dadiet by the 21st. Dadiet, a 6’8” 20-year-old wing is being paid $2.8 million this year.
There are other teams looking to make late moves as well so expect one more busy weekend before the games begin.
