Justin Hamilton’s career as a member of the Toronto Raptors didn’t even last 24 hypothetical hours.
While the trade that brought him to the Raptors in exchange for DeMarre Carroll and two picks isn’t even official yet, the Raptors are already moving on from the 7-footer. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reports that the Raptors will waive Hamilton once the trade goes through and use the stretch provision to spread his cap hit out over the next three years.
As predicted in the write-up of the trade, stretching Hamilton buys the Raptors a little bit of extra flexibility now at a small cost later. Hamilton is owed $3 million guaranteed for this season, and the stretch provision allows the Raptors to instead have a $1-million cap hit on their books this year and the next two. Considering their proximity to the luxury tax, this could wind up not only saving them in terms of tax payment but also pushing them below the line, meaning they’d be on the receiving end of tax payments.
There’s still a lot of offseason left, of course, and this might not just be about savings. Stretching Hamilton now also buys the Raptors a little bit of wiggle room under the tax apron in case they plan to try to open up the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception. The team is already hard-capped at the apron because of the sign-and-trade acquisition of C.J. Miles, so there’s no longer a flexibility cost to using the larger MLE, if they can create the room. Their team salary for luxury tax purposes right now is roughly $119 million (only including Alfonzo McKinnie’s guarantee for now), about $6 million below the apron – they’d need to shed a salary, maybe Lucas Nogueira, to open up the full space, but it’s a lot easier now than with Hamilton completely on the books.
(I’m juggling a few articles at once right now so my numbers might not be perfect – I’ll do a full cap sheet update when we get numbers for Kyle Lowry and Miles.)
And parting ways with Hamilton is fine from a roster perspective. He’s a useful third center, but he’s the least interesting of the Raptors’ gaggle of big men. There was never going to be a use for him here, and he was simply the cost of unloading Carroll in a deal that worked for both sides (along with, you know, two picks). This is mostly just a bookkeeping note, then, one that might become a lot more important as the rest of their offseason unfolds.
