Starting this season as part of the Nike NBA Earned Program, a new partnership between the athletic apparel giant and the NBA, the 16 teams that made the playoffs the previous season will be awarded an exclusive alternate uniform. The program released the new jersey designs today, receiving the typical fan range of emotions: everything from vomit emojis to heart-eye/crying emoji combos to the least creative response a person can give, “meh.” We will start seeing these uniforms on-court Christmas Day, according to the NBA website.

Spencer Dinwiddie becomes eligible to sign an extension today,  December 8, 2018. The deadline to sign the extension is June 30, 2019. What options do the Nets have? Take a look below for a quick break down:

Extension: The Nets can extend Dinwiddie for four (4) seasons, providing for a max contract value of approximately $50 million.  Extending his contract would get rid of his cap hold and keep him from entering free agency where he is likely to have significant interest. If extended for a contract greater than allowed in an extend-and trade, then he cannot be traded for six (6) months.

Trade: Dinwiddie could be traded this season up until the trade deadline. Note that his contract value is low, making it difficult to execute a trade because of the salary matching involved. Of course, player salaries could be aggregated in a simultaneous trade.

Extend-and-Trade: As alluded to above, the Nets could also extend-and-trade Dinwiddie. In this instance, the team could only sign Dinwiddie to a three (3) year extension, including the remaining year on his contract. The raises are also limited to 5%. This likely won’t happen though. The last extend-and-trade involved Carmelo Anthony in 2011, so they are rare.

Sign-and-Trade: Equally as rare as an extend-and-trade is a sign and trade. This is not likely to occur though because the team would then be hard-capped at the apron (a theoretical line which is always $6 million above the tax threshold), thereby inhibiting the team’s ability to sign big time free agents, which appears to be a priority for them next summer given that they have cleared so much cap space. Also, the BYC rules would likely come into play and drastically reduce the outgoing value of his contract in any trade.

Resign Dinwiddie using Bird Rights: It’s possible the team just re-signs Dinwiddie next season too. They will have a big decision to make between D’Angelo Russell and Dinwiddie. If just resigning him, the team could offer him a max which projects to be about $144,970,000 over five (5) seasons. Dinwiddie could not be traded in this scenario for three (3) months or until December 15 of that season, whichever is later. However, if the BYC rules are triggered, then he cannot be traded for three months or until January 15 of that season (whichever is later).
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Of course, the team can let him walk next season. I should note that Dinwiddie’s cap hold is actually going to be less than his current salary, which is a weird CBA quirk. So there is little value to renouncing his bird rights this off-season as it won’t impact their cap room by much.

By: Matthew Emery
​12/08/2018