The CSL

This came up days ago, and in that discussion I understood that the luxury tax was computed in the offseason (as Marcos said), something that I did not understand since it made no sense in my opinion. However, now that I am reading the CBA v2.0, it says in page 4, section 1.3 (Luxury tax):

If a team's total payroll exceeds this value at the end of the regular season, they will be penalized with the loss of their Low Level Exception.

That implies, in the way it is written, that the luxury tax is actually computed at the end of the regular season.

That being the case ... I have a verbal agreement to a trade that can only be processed if my team is under the luxury tax. After the discussion from days ago and Marcos answer, I understood that I had to wait until either Monroe or Lowry signed their new contracts to be back under the luxury tax and process with the trade, because cap holds put my team over it. Since that seems to not be the case and my team was under the luxury tax at the end of the regular season, am I allowed to post that trade now?

I've always understood it to be the salary at the end of the regular season.

Otherwise, teams close to the hard cap would surely be over when their players' cap holds hit in the off-season. But no one would make the argument that they're in violation of the hard cap.

Similarly, you shouldn't be in violation of the luxury tax threshold if cap holds take you over.

There has never been a limit on trading if over the luxury tax line has there? Tax penalties should always be dependent on regular season spending though.

mgtr81 wrote:This came up days ago, and in that discussion I understood that the luxury tax was computed in the offseason (as Marcos said), something that I did not understand since it made no sense in my opinion. However, now that I am reading the CBA v2.0, it says in page 4, section 1.3 (Luxury tax):

If a team's total payroll exceeds this value at the end of the regular season, they will be penalized with the loss of their Low Level Exception.

That implies, in the way it is written, that the luxury tax is actually computed at the end of the regular season.

That being the case ... I have a verbal agreement to a trade that can only be processed if my team is under the luxury tax. After the discussion from days ago and Marcos answer, I understood that I had to wait until either Monroe or Lowry signed their new contracts to be back under the luxury tax and process with the trade, because cap holds put my team over it. Since that seems to not be the case and my team was under the luxury tax at the end of the regular season, am I allowed to post that trade now?

No sir. I believe you misunderstood everything, or, even better, is confusing two different animals.
Salaries from end of the season are used to check for PENALTIES only.

That means (END OF THE SEASON, KEEP THAT IN MIND):
- If you are over the LUXURY TAX, no matter how much you can cut in salary from renouncements or trades, you won't be able to spend your LLE.
- if you are over the LUXURY TAX: PENALTY ONE at the end of the season, you are going to lose your MLE, regardless of how much money you enter FA (say, for example, you manage to lower your CAP all the way to 70M, even though game allows you to spend your MLE, you will not be able to due to penalty breaches). You lose LLE as well.
- if you are over the LUXURY TAX: PENALTY TWO at the end of the season, you are going to lose your "best" (current or future) second rounder, plus MLE and LLE.
- if you are over the HARD CAP at the end of the season, you are going to lose your best 1st, your best 2nd, MLE and LLE eligibility.

Now for TRADES:
- If you are under the luxury tax (AT THE MOMENT THE TRADE IS PROCESSED, forget about end of the season here, you have to check the salary for the exact moment the trade was posted) you can use the 1,5x multiplier.
- If you are over the luxury tax, you can only use 1,25x multiplier. YES, CAP HOLDS MATTERS HERE.

And last but not least: FREE AGENCY DAY 1:

- If you are over the luxury tax once Free Agency day 1 hits, no matter how your salary looked like at the end of the season, you'll lose your LLE (because game will not let you offer it)
- If you are over the penalty one one FA day 1 hits, you'll lose both MLE and LLE.

SO YES, in order to be eligible for MLE (for example) once FA starts, you gotta be under luxury tax penalty 1 both AT THE END OF THE SEASON and START OF FREE AGENCY.
Same for LLE, but you gotta be under the luxury tax only.

This matter is well explained at CBA (I've just read it again, under FREE AGENCY section) and has been discussed between us. We're following the game and making it harder for those who spend money to use their exceptions. Any questions, feel free to let us know, but this will hardly get changed, so no complaining here please.

BTW Dennis' and Doug's trades have been put on hold because of what I've explained above. Just to better illustrate the example!
They can move on with that trade when they renounce their CAP holds, should they get under the luxury tax. But as CAP Holds do count, trade cannot be processed until then.

This makes it harder on teams to keep it's role players or have access at their exceptions, so bonus for those who knows how to control salaries as you've always claimed.

Believe me Marcos, I am not complaining. Just wanted clarification. Thanks.

mgtr81 wrote:Believe me Marcos, I am not complaining. Just wanted clarification. Thanks.

Yes sir, no problem there, I saw your intention and that's why I tried to clarify it better!
Hope it helps, anything else needed I'm around!

Marcos_Beck wrote:

mgtr81 wrote:Believe me Marcos, I am not complaining. Just wanted clarification. Thanks.

Yes sir, no problem there, I saw your intention and that's why I tried to clarify it better!
Hope it helps, anything else needed I'm around!

I admit I should have read more carefully everything, though.

Marcos - thanks for being so on top of this stuff and how the engine operates technically.

Just trying to make it clearer for you, I mean, everyone always shared knowledge here, I'm trying to add my little contribution here from what I've learned with DDS so everybody has a smoother experience rather than problems happening (like it happened to Brett's MLE last season) because of something nobody knew that was in-game.
DDS has lots of flaws so if I find any of them I'll be the first to share it so everyone is aware of it.