NBA Trade Rumors: Boston Celtics, Josh Smith Update

Yesterday, we discussed the NY Daily News item that said that Boston was interested in dealing some of their core for "young studs", a group that included the Atlanta Hawks own Josh Smith.

Where there was smoke from NY, there were reports of a campfire from Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski via Twitter:

• That Rick Sund is partial to Ray Allen, not Garnett
• The Timberwolves and Hawks had discussed a draft day deal. Remember also that a couple of seasons ago there were rumors of a Love for Smith deal being discussed. Not that such a deal would happen today given Love's rise to stardom, but it does underline Minnesota's previous interest in Smith.
• The talks between the Celtics and Hawks were "exploratory" and nothing more.
• The Hawks don't want to deal Smith for only an expiring deal (such as Kevin Garnett's), and the Celtics aren't dealing any of their core for Marvin Williams level talent.
• The Celtics, if they don't get good players with good contracts, they're cool with letting Garnett and Allen expire off the cap.

Complicating any deal for J-Smoove is the 15% trade kicker that is in Smith's contract. I looked around the interwebs to see if anyone had any breakdown of what that meant for a trade and found that there was someone who looked specifically at Smith's kicker --- I was shocked to find it was me -- circa last June.

I looked at the ramifications of Smith's kicker in a rare moment of clarity for me: (Note: the percentages were based on the old CBA -- it is slightly changed, but the concept is the same)

But aside from the potential financial or otherwise reasons the Hawks have opened the door to trading Smoove, there is an extra in Smith's contract that, while not making a deal impossible, makes it slightly more complicated.

Smith has a 15% trade kicker built into his contract.

This means that if Smith gets dealt, he receives a bonus of 15 percent of the value of his remaining contract. So, as according to that Sham Sports link provided, this means Smith will be given approx 3.87M upon any deal involving him.

So while financially that's burdensome to whoever picks up the tab, let's look at the cap implications of dealing Smith with this clause in place.

The pay out is evenly divided into both remaining seasons, not pro-rated, per Larry Coon. So with Smith set to make 12.5M this season, 1/2 the 3.87M bonus, or 1.935M would be added to Smith's cap number in a trade.

The complication comes in because the Hawks (outgoing team) only count 12.5M in deal and can only take a max/min of 125% back, meaning salaries between 9.37M/15.63M. The team receiving Smith counts the full 14.43M toward them. This means at a max/min, the team trading for Smith has to deal salaries between 10.82M and 18.04M.

Which means the landing zone of salaries shrinks down to 10.82M and 15.63M if Smith is the only player from the Hawks in the deal. Not as impossible to deal as a Poison Pill Provision on extensions, which is 50% of contract value when applicable, rather than dealing with 15%, but narrows it a little bit.

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