I have a salary cap question. For a team over the apron, who can not sign another team's impending free agent through sign and trade, how long must they wait to do a regular 125%, salary for salary trade for a player who was an impending free agent, but opted to sign a 1 year extension with his team?
I know (because of the Wiggins situation) a team must wait 60 days to trade a recently signed draft pick, and have no timeline restrictions trading the draft rights to an NBA draft selection before he signs.
With an existing NBA player, I believe a team must wait 6 months to acquire an 'extend and trade' player who was a free agent but then decided to sign an extension instead of testing the free agent waters.
I'll use Dwayne Wade as an example. I hope this won't ever be the case, but let's pretend Lebron demands the F.O to do what it takes to bring Wade into the fold this offseason, and let's assume Wade wants paid his 20 million per season market value..
Under the apron, the Cavs would just simply sign and trade for Wade. Since they are over, the only realistic way of acquiring him would be to wait until his extension falls out of the 'sign and trade' seasoning a player enters into once signing an extension.
Again, this is only a hypothetical, let's assume Riley knows Wade is bouncing regardless and he's dead set on only the Cavs.
Riley, similar to Gilbert eventually deciding on to reluctantly execute a sign and trade with Miami when Lebron bolted, decides it's also better to receive something versus nothing without any leverage and agrees to extend Wade to a salary he's comfortable to play for In Cleveland . So on July 1st, Wade gets extended another year for 20 million. How long until the Cavs can trade for him? 6 months?
If I'm right, that would make it almost January, which shoul put the Wade to Cle preliminary rumors to rest now. Salary wise, the Cavs could realistically acquire Wade now even over the cap once January rolls around for Andy and one of either JR Smith or Shumpert. For a team without leverage and worried about losing a player for nothing, a return of Andy's expiring deal and a now locked up for the next 4 years SG Iman Shunpert wouldn't be something Miami would sneeze at.
Now this hypothetical would never happen In the first place, but also it sure as he'll wouldn't happen this season as Miami will be a contender in the Eastern Conference. I'm just curious to what's realistic an what's not come summer when you know the Wade to Cleveland wheels will inevitably start churning again.