One of the benefits of the “soft salary cap” in the NBA is that it purportedly enables a team to retain its own players easier than a “hard salary cap.” Teams can offer their own free agents more money and more years than any other team, thus rewarding hometown fans and promoting player loyalty. Of course, it is not a flawless system, and there will always be players who have their minds firmly set on taking their talents to a different market to play with different teammates. But for the most part, a player’s current team will virtually always be able to offer a more lucrative and longer contract.

Back in 2003, the Washington Wizards were able to take advantage of one of the few loopholes in this soft cap system when they outbid the Golden State Warriors for Gilbert Arenas, a restricted free agent (RFA) after being a second round pick in 2001. The Warriors were over the cap and thus could only use an exception to re-sign Arenas. Gilbert was classified as an “Early Bird” free agent, meaning he had played with the Warriors over the previous two seasons without changing teams. A team can use the Early Bird exception to re-sign its own free agent for up to 175-percent of his salary in the previous season or 104.5-percent of the league’s average salary, whichever is higher. Therefore, Golden State could only match an offer sheet, or extend Gilbert’s contract, for up to the amount of the Early Bird exception ($4.9 million in 2003, the league average at the time). The Wizards smartly (two words you don’t hear next to each other very often) signed Arenas to an offer sheet nearly doubling Golden State’s exception, $8.5 million in starting salary, and left the Warriors without an option to legally match within salary cap rules.

This loophole was seemingly closed in the 2005 CBA with the “Gilbert Arenas Provision,” where it was ruled that an offer sheet made to a restricted free agent in his first or second year in the NBA could not contain a first-year salary greater than the non-taxpayer mid-level exception ($5 million for 2012-13) and a second-year salary no greater than the standard 4.5-percent raise from the first year. The third year of the offer sheet has no such restrictions and could be as high as the player’s maximum, given the offering team’s cap room. However, if a raise from year two to year three is greater than 4.5-percent, the team proposing the offer sheet must be able to fit the average of the entire contract under the cap, rather than the first-year salary, and that is how it is applied to their ledger. But if the original team decides to match the offer sheet, the annual salary is applied to the original team exactly as it is laid out in the standing offer sheet. To put this in context of 2003, the Wizards would only have been able to offer the full mid-level exception in the first two seasons, which at the time was $4.917 million. Golden State therefore would have at least had the option to match this offer sheet for Arenas, if they chose to do so.

The So-Called “Gilbert Arenas” Provision

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“I’m a better player than the last time I was here, that’s for sure,” proclaimed Roger Mason Jr. on Monday night, after the fourth day of Washington Wizards training camp. Furthermore, he said, “I’m a better player than I was in San Antonio.”

At least this is what the Wizards are hoping for, but to what degree remains to be seen. Regardless of his chances to show himself as a player, Mason knows the role he signed up for in his return stint with Washington.

“My role is just to share some of the knowledge that I’ve learned,” said Mason. ”Learning from guys like Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, you know, pros… being with Amar’e Stoudemire. Those are things that I can bring to Andray Blatche, to let him know how Tim Duncan prepares for games. To let John Wall know how Tony Parker prepares for games. They won championships. So my role now is to come here and teach these guys what champions do.”

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[Editor's note: Below is the debut guest post of Arish Narayen. Arish is 23-years old and is currently in his second year at the University of Maryland School of Law. Arish has always been a basketball fan, especially of the Terps, but became enamored with the Wizards around the time Gilbert Arenas was hitting game winning shots and stealing game five from the Bulls in Chicago in the 2005 NBA Playoffs. The Wizards have gone nowhere but downhill from since, but somehow Arish has stuck around ... and now he wants to write about the Wiz for Truth About It.net. Go figure.

Check out Arish's debut below as he analyzes the Wizards' attempts to fill their potentially open small forward/wing position. Mike Prada has a quick breakdown of several wing candidates on Bullets Forever, but check out what Arish wrote too -- he worked on this post over the course of several days and goes in-depth statistically on a handful of players the Wizards are rumored to be interested in ... although Arish does use the much too vaunted 'Win Shares' stat that I recently went on a Twitter-rant against. I won't hold that against him. After all, the stat isn't good for nothing, it's just not all what it's cracked up to be. -Kyle]

The Wizards’ Small Forward Situation

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Most Wizards fans wouldn’t mind seeing Mike Miller on the team next year, but know there is virtually no chance of it happening, despite Miller’s offer of loyalty immediately after the last game of the season, and more recently telling Comcast’s Chris Miller, “the Wizards landing the number one pick changes everything,” and that he would “love to play with John Wall.”

We know Mike wants to play for a championship contending winner, desperately. His hunger was only increased by the sour taste of 2009-10 with the Wizards. And the 2010-11 Wizards won’t quench his thirst either.

We also know Mike is boys with LeBron James. We know Mike went so far as to name his son, Maverick, after the close friend and adviser of James, Maverick Carter … or so LeBron claims. We know that the 2010 NBA Free Agency dominoes are held hostage by Mr. James. Mike Miller knows this too.

“That’s when everything will start,” Miller recently told Stu Whitney of the Argus Leader, “LeBron and those guys will start making their decisions, and that will open the floodgates for some of the second-tier guys.”

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{flickr/Rob Inh00d}

I recently took part in a Wizards-related round-table at the DC Pro Sports Report. You should go check out the whole thing, but one question in particular got me pondering … What should the Wizards do with their cap space next season?

[Which, by my calculations, factoring in the salaries of the 1st, 30th and 35th picks, assuming that Quinton Ross takes his player option and that the Wizards do not extend Randy Foye a qualifying offer, will be around $21.4 million. Sham Sports used for salary info.]

Here’s what I wrote: Read more »

Before the final game of the season, Flip Saunders was queried a fair bit about a player, who in just 26 games (18 starts) since signing with the team in late-February, is the free-agent Wizards fans, and likely the organization, would most like to bring back. If you think Shaun Livingston is anything less than a keeper then you haven’t been watching. And that’s okay. But we’ll get to Livingston’s situation soon down the road.

In talking about what factors might influence Livingston, or any other free-agent for that matter, Saunders said, “When players have decisions, it’s based on money … money and opportunity. That’s pretty much what it is.”

That brings us to Mike Miller. He’s amongst the handful of the Wizards’ own free-agents that the team has some level of interest in retaining. The chances of keeping Miller may not be as high as Livingston, or even Josh Howard, in my opinion, but they are certainly higher than the chance of seeing Randy Foye in a Wizards uniform again. Basketball management thinks highly of Miller’s ability and character, and sources have indicated that Ernie Grunfeld refused to include Miller in trade proposals leading up to February’s deadline, including spurning strong interest from the Miami Heat.

Free-agency obviously depends on a number of factors. One, as Flip mentioned, is money. Priorities two and three might be money as well. But not necessarily for Miller. Even before the frustrations of 2009-10 started to show in his on-court emotions as the season wore down, it was easy to sense that Miller desperately desires to play for a winner. In 20 total career playoff games over five seasons (two with Orlando and three with Memphis), Miller has only two post-season wins to show, obviously never making it past the first round.

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