Should Plan A fail, or should the Knicks go after one maximum salary player and two $8 million players, they will have one trick up their sleeve. Those two $8 million players would be able to sign contracts with $2 million bonuses for making the playoffs. In salary cap parlance, those are known as "unlikely" bonuses -- unlikely because the Knicks did not make the playoffs this season.

And it is to the Knicks' benefit that two of the other likely heavy hitters in free agency, Chicago and Miami, cannot offer playoff bonuses because that money would be considered "likely" to be earned, and thus would count against those teams' caps.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/14992/the-knicks-secret-weapon-the-unlikely-bonus

GREAT NEWS!

iSergio wrote:

Should Plan A fail, or should the Knicks go after one maximum salary player and two $8 million players, they will have one trick up their sleeve. Those two $8 million players would be able to sign contracts with $2 million bonuses for making the playoffs. In salary cap parlance, those are known as "unlikely" bonuses -- unlikely because the Knicks did not make the playoffs this season.

And it is to the Knicks' benefit that two of the other likely heavy hitters in free agency, Chicago and Miami, cannot offer playoff bonuses because that money would be considered "likely" to be earned, and thus would count against those teams' caps.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/14992/the-knicks-secret-weapon-the-unlikely-bonus

GREAT NEWS!

LMAO! this sounds like an Onion article.

Ok, MDA is not as smart as he looks but Walsh gotta be smarter than he looks!

Nalod wrote:Man, Walsh and MDA are smarter then they look!!!!

Ok, MDA is not as smart as he looks but Walsh gotta be smarter than he looks!

"According to Larry ####'s NBA Salary Cap FAQ (http://members.cox. net/lmcoon/salarycap .htm): "In the first year of a contract the base salary, likely bonuses and unlikely bonuses must all fit within the salary cap or exception. The league also determines a team's available cap room by adding in the unlikely bonuses for all players who signed that season. This prevents a team from signing multiple players to lower salaries but with lots of unlikely bonuses, and therefore committing to more salary than it has cap room to offer.""

Sorry, but this looks like a mistaken claim...

Pharzeone wrote:Wait, aren't unlikely bonuses related to individual performance/situations and not team performance/situations. Players play under a CBA, so you can't have one player on your roster receive a bonus for the team reaching the playoffs without anyone else on the team not receiving the same compensation. That's why playoff bonuses are govern by the league and not individual teams to avoid the appearance of any wrongdoing. Unlikely bonuses include a player trade; making the all-star team; MVP, etc (all individual base). Not sure where the author is getting his stuff from but this is last year's playoff bonuses set by the NBA.

You know the NBA this year will distribute $10 million to teams for various performance-based achievements. According to the NBA, here's how it will be distributed:

* Best Record in NBA: $288,421
* Best Record in Conference, $252,369 per team
* Second Best Record in Conference, $202,842 per team
* Third Best Record in Conference, $151,421 per team
* Fourth Best Record in Conference, $119,000 per team
* Fifth Best record in Conference, $99,158 per team
* Sixth Best Record in Conference, $67,632 per team
* Playing in the First Round, $149,243 per team
* Playing in Conference Semifinals, $177,579 per team
* Playing in Conference Finals, $293,447 per team
* Losing in the NBA Finals: $1,173,474 per team
* Winning the NBA Finals: $1,770,947 per team

Weren't Lee and Nate both given a $1M bonus for making the playoffs on their 1 year deals?

MaTT4281 wrote:

Pharzeone wrote:Wait, aren't unlikely bonuses related to individual performance/situations and not team performance/situations. Players play under a CBA, so you can't have one player on your roster receive a bonus for the team reaching the playoffs without anyone else on the team not receiving the same compensation. That's why playoff bonuses are govern by the league and not individual teams to avoid the appearance of any wrongdoing. Unlikely bonuses include a player trade; making the all-star team; MVP, etc (all individual base). Not sure where the author is getting his stuff from but this is last year's playoff bonuses set by the NBA.

You know the NBA this year will distribute $10 million to teams for various performance-based achievements. According to the NBA, here's how it will be distributed:

* Best Record in NBA: $288,421
* Best Record in Conference, $252,369 per team
* Second Best Record in Conference, $202,842 per team
* Third Best Record in Conference, $151,421 per team
* Fourth Best Record in Conference, $119,000 per team
* Fifth Best record in Conference, $99,158 per team
* Sixth Best Record in Conference, $67,632 per team
* Playing in the First Round, $149,243 per team
* Playing in Conference Semifinals, $177,579 per team
* Playing in Conference Finals, $293,447 per team
* Losing in the NBA Finals: $1,173,474 per team
* Winning the NBA Finals: $1,770,947 per team

Weren't Lee and Nate both given a $1M bonus for making the playoffs on their 1 year deals?

I recall they both had all-star clauses in this latest contract. Nate will get a bonus for making the playoffs with the Celtics like Breen pointed out which comes from the league. Lee will get his all-star bonus once the season is over (unlikely). Here is an example of an unlikely bonus.

Making it to the All-Star Game for the first time comes with a bonus for Grizzlies big man Zach Randolph.

Randolph's selection by Western Conference coaches triggers a contract bonus of $333,333.

Randolph won't receive that money -- and it won't be added to the Grizzlies' payroll -- until after the season.

But the All-Star bonus in the 28-year-old's contract will now be classified as a "likely" bonus as opposed to an "unlikely" bonus, increasing Randolph's salary-cap number to $17,666,666 for 2010-11.

martin wrote:

Pharzeone wrote:

ATE wrote:Read the responses below the article:

"According to Larry ####'s NBA Salary Cap FAQ (http://members.cox. net/lmcoon/salarycap .htm): "In the first year of a contract the base salary, likely bonuses and unlikely bonuses must all fit within the salary cap or exception. The league also determines a team's available cap room by adding in the unlikely bonuses for all players who signed that season. This prevents a team from signing multiple players to lower salaries but with lots of unlikely bonuses, and therefore committing to more salary than it has cap room to offer.""

Sorry, but this looks like a mistaken claim...

Yeah, and those bonuses are individual base that Coon is referring to because they count against the cap. Playoff bonuses don't count against the cap since they are established by the league themselves. Sheridan must have had a late night.

Sheridan also thinks Lee's cap hold is $14M, which is very wrong.

Ridiculous.

Pharzeone wrote:

Allanfan20 wrote:Both Lee and Nate had playoff bonuses on their contracts. Obviously Lee doesn't get that bonus, but it was in the contract.

Every player has playoff bonuses in their contracts. It is CBA standard. Playoff bonuses are not unlikely bonuses and are paid by the league not the team. If you on a playoff roster you get a bonus which increases as the team advances.

Yes, but that's the standard. I think this might have been added in as an unlikely bonus, otherwise it wouldn't have been talked about like the way it was when they signed the contracts.