I don’t remember the salaries of the VC trade, but I do remember that there was a salary difference. The Nets got a trade exception, and thus that trade became non-simultaneous.

One easy way for fans to understand the difference is that simultaneous is completed right away (as the Robbins article states) but that a non-simultaneous isn’t. Trade exceptions, and future draft picks are usually the reason that I’ve run across. The big thing is to not get bogged down in the terminology.

There are some rules related to that trade exception. To make it work, the Magic must tack on a future draft pick.

The actual rule on this is something of value. It can be a player too. Players, and draft picks are the only things of actual value. Cash is only considered supplementary for instance and can only be a PART of the trade. (Personally? I’m glad the limit of cash you can get is 3 million. There are people who would wish it was higher. But that only gives cash rich teams easier opportunities to buy players. I’d rather teams hold onto their players than just give them away for a short term infusion of cash.)

Here’s a thing to remember about trades that Coon is famous for saying: Just because a trade is simultaneous for one team DOESN’T mean that a trade for another team won’t be non-simultaneous. A famous example of that is the Washington/Dallas trade over the last trade deadline . For Dallas it was simultaneous because all they got was the players they traded for. But from Washington’s POV there was also trade exceptions involved which made the transaction with Dallas (and later the Clipps) non-simultaneous.

This is important and I’m glad Robbins noted it:

But the Magic cannot combine that $7 million exception with a player to acquire a more expensive player. In other words, the Magic cannot trade the $7 million exception and a player due to make $10 million to receive a player who is due to make $17 million.

I see a lot of fans, on OPP and StR and elsewhere, make this mistake. Please don’t.

For novices, I’ve found this Larry Coon archive at Hoopsworld explaining some of this helpful. It’s not his FAQ, and it’s not Sham (the best salary site around at the moment), but it’s helpful in explaining some complicated stuff that has taken me some time to figure out on my own. And, I even learned a few things about non-simultaneous trades that I explained above from the Coon stories on Hoopsworld. Normally I avoid Hoopsworld like the plague, but this is Coon. He’s not the plague.

All a budding capologist needs is the Coon FAQ, Sham’s salary (and the various other stuff on there) and you’re set. Everything else is window dressing IMO.

I’ve made this offer before, but if people need help interpreting stuff I’m glad to help. The more people who know the cap make informed decisions IMO.

Actual amount is $6,864,200 + $100K…fwiw