Here’s what you need to know about the LA Clippers salary cap this offseason.
When the offseason rolls around, everyone and their mother is quick to offer their opinion on what their team should do. They should make a package for X star. They should sign Y player for Z amount. We are all responsible. While that’s good and fun, it’s always nice to know exactly what is in the realm of possibility. For the LA Clippers, it’s a bit complicated.
Before we fully dive in, please understand I’m not a salary cap expert by any means. All of my knowledge comes from various sites and podcasts and if you want a truly comprehensive breakdown of the CBA and how every aspect of it works, take a look at Larry Coon’s CBA FAQ site. It has everything.
Current LA Clippers’ Salaries
First, let’s look at the team’s committed money. These are all the players currently under contract through the 2021 season.
- Paul George: $35,450,412
- Kawhi Leonard: $34,379,100
- Patrick Beverley: $13,333,333
- Lou Williams: $8,000,000
- Ivica Zubac: $7,000,000
- Rodney McGruder: $5,192,307
- Landry Shamet:$2,090,040
- Mfiondu Kabengele: $2,075,880
- Joakim Noah: $1,737,274 (non-guaranteed)
- Terance Mann: $1,517,981
There’s also one other player who has a player option which as of now, counts towards the cap figure. Should he opt out, that figure will obviously not count towards the cap.
- JaMychal Green: $5,005,350
These figures combined brings the team’s current salary cap allocation to $115,781,677. The projected salary cap this season is $109,140,000. In short, the Clippers are already above the cap before free agency even starts. Even if they don’t guarantee Noah’s deal and JaMychal Green opts out, they are right up against the cap. This doesn’t leave them a ton of wiggle room in the free agency market since they can only sign players using exceptions (more on that later) or veteran minimum contracts.
This is where re-signing players becomes important.
LA Clippers’ free agents
The Clippers have several free agents, some of which have Non-Bird and Bird rights. What are those? Per Larry Coon:
Bird Rights
"(Bird Rights) allows teams to exceed the cap in order to re-sign their own free agents, up to the player’s maximum salary…These contracts can be up to five years in length, with raises up to 8% of the salary in the first season of the contract."
Non-Bird Rights
"This exception allows a team to re-sign its own free agent to a salary starting at up to 120% of his salary in the previous season (not over the maximum salary, of course), 120% of the minimum salary, or the amount needed to tender a qualifying offer (if the player is a restricted free agent — see question number 42), whichever is greater. Raises are limited to 5% of the salary in the first year of the contract, and contracts are limited to four seasons when this exception is used."
In short, the Clippers can use both of these exceptions to re-sign their own players. Doing so would put them near or above the Luxury Tax Level (Projected to be $132,627,000) meaning Steve Ballmer would have to pay fines.
Here are the LA Clippers’ free agents along with their rights (if they have any):
- Marcus Morris – Non-Bird
- Montrezl Harrell – Bird
- Reggie Jackson – Non-Bird
- Patrick Patterson – Non-Bird
- Johnathan Motley – Restricted Bird
Marcus Morris is probably the most interesting player on this list if only because of his potential salary. With his Non-Bird rights in play, he can ask for quite a bit of money based on his $15,000,000 salary last season. 120% of that puts him in the $18 million range. The Clips can certainly re-sign him along with any of their other free agents but will have to be wary of how much they spend.
Sign-and-trades
Any of these players are also capable of being part of a sign-and-trade but there are caveats to that. The main ones are that the player being traded has to agree to the sign-and-trade, meaning you can’t just say “Hey Trezz, we’re shipping you to Charlotte”. The team you are trading with likely should be over the cap, since trading for a free agent doesn’t make sense if you have the money to pay them outright without giving up assets.
Sign-and-trade deals must be for a minimum of three years with the first year being fully guaranteed. The team taking the player in also cannot use their mid-level exception. For teams above the cap, this means that they must really want the FA and think he is worth more than the full price of their MLE.
The team who is receiving the player in the sign-and-trade also gets hard-capped at the apron level, a set amount slightly above the luxury tax. They can only sign players up to that amount and cannot go over no matter what.
Is a sign-and-trade likely? Brian Windhorst seems to think the Clippers will be aggressive in getting them done. We just have to keep all these rules in mind as we explore potential options.
LA Clippers’ potential exceptions
So, if the Clippers are over the cap to begin with and re-sign their own players, how do they add anyone to the roster?
It all comes down to exceptions.
Mid-Level Exception
This is the one everyone is familiar with but you might not understand it entirely. For the 2020-21 season, the Clippers have a Mid-Level Exception in the amount of $9,258,000.
That is to say, they can sign a player (or players) up to that amount while they are over the salary cap but below the apron. The amount of this MLE is counted when calculating whether or not they are above the apron. The apron is $138,928,000. If the MLE along with other signings takes them above that number, they cannot use the MLE and would instead have to use the Tax-Payer MLE, which is only around $5 million.
The MLE can be used on one player or multiple but the two player’s salaries cannot total more than that $9 million figure. For the Clippers, it probably makes more sense to try and use the whole thing on a single player in order to bring in a higher-value target. Think of someone like Serge Ibaka as a possible candidate. The MLE can be used to sign someone for up to four years.
Veteran’s Minimum
Once the Clips have re-signed their own guys and used their MLE, only one option remains to shore up their roster – the veteran’s minimum contract.
The veteran’s minimum is the least amount you can pay a player and it scales based on their time in the league. While that matters for the players, it doesn’t for the teams as much. Teams can sign veteran minimum deals to fill out their roster giving them options. For a team with championship aspirations like the Clippers, these contracts can be useful for older players who are chasing rings. Joakim Noah, for example, was signed using a minimum last season. Teams won’t necessarily get the cream of the crop but they can potentially get solid rotational pieces.
The cap is a lot more complicated but I hope this brief rundown at least gets you thinking about the right stuff. With all that in mind, let’s start looking towards free agency. What moves do you want the LA Clippers to make? Let us know on Twitter and continue to follow along here for all your LA Clippers’ news, rumors, and more!