Stretching(Cutting) Eric Gordon

Michael McNamara at BSS has come up with a 2 part article exploring use of the stretch provision on Eric Gordon. At first glance it seems like something you'd wait and use next year.

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With a weak free agent class in 2014, it probably would not be worth giving him the entire $30.4 million to not play for the team. You go into the season hoping that he is healthy and playing well so that you can move him the way that the Raptors moved Rudy Gay with a similar contract this year (one year guaranteed, one year player option). If you can’t move him by the deadline, you hope against hope that he opts out of the final year before 2015 free agency hits. If neither of those things happen, you can use the stretch provision, and all of a sudden his 2015-16 cap number plummets from $15.5 million to $5.17 million.

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Part 1

However, because if a team signs him you can offset part of the cap hit based on what he signs for, it could make sense to stretch him this offseason.

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Let’s say that the Pelicans go to Eric Gordon this summer and say they will buy him out of his final two years for $20 million. Might he bite? Heck, he might consider opting out after this season, and he would only get $14.9 mil from the Pelicans in that scenario. Let’s assume he takes the $20 million and gets his freedom. Five million would come off each year, meaning he would be a $9.9 million hit this year and $10.5 million next year. Now, let’s assume, he finds that two-year, $12 million contract elsewhere. The cap hit goes down to $7 million this year and $7.6 million next year.

They can keep the entire first year on the books, and then stretch the final year over three years, meaning his cap hits would be reduced to about $2.5 million over those next three years. You save about $8 million in cap room this year, $13 million the following year, and just have to add $2.5 million over the following two years in order to do that.

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Part 2

The question is, should paying Gordon to play somewhere else be something we do as a last resort next offseason, or do we think someone will pay him around $6 million per year if he's a FA this year making it more affordable now? Another question is would Gordon get as much money as he could, or as little out of spite. Before you say they always choose more money, Andray Blatche chose to stay in New Jersey on an minimum deal this season mainly to spite Washington who was still paying him via amnesty.