Aerolithe_Lion
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Can someone explain why trading amari Cooper would cost $6 million in dead money? I have never understood that.
Guaranteed money is often prorated, meaning they pay it all now but the cap hits spread over up to 5 years of the contract.
So when Dallas gave Dak a 66m$ signing bonus, it wasn’t a 66m$ cap hit in 2021 because they spread out the cap hits.
However, if you were to cut a player before the spread out cap hits are all on the cap, they accumulate what’s left and all hit right then. They’re like Salary Cap IOU’s. he already got that money and you’re on the hook for it one way or the other. So if Cooper has 2m left as cap hits from his signing bonus for each of the next 3 years, they all immediately happen when he’s cut/traded… which is 6m$.
So big signing bonuses and guarantees like with what Zeke has make him more or less impossible to get rid of right now, because the cap hit you’d take is way bigger than the current cap amount he costs due to the accumulation of prorated cap hits pushed back into later years.