“It’s been a long day of looking at spreadsheets, reading NBA cap rules and rubbing my eyes” – Mark Cuban

Usually a four team trade is a giant blockbuster.  Today’s four team trade between Memphis, Toronto, Dallas and Orlando was a blockbuster in circumventing the NBA cap.

The Mavericks to acquire Shawn Marion (via a sign and trade) and Kris Humphries from Toronto and Greg Buckner from Memphis.  Marion will receive a five-year contract worth an estimated $39 million.

The Grizzlies acquire Jerry Stackhouse from Dallas, Quincy Douby from Toronto and a substantial cash payment to buy out Stackhouse’s contract. Only $2 million of Stackhouse’s $7.25 million salary next season is guaranteed, as long as he is waived by Aug. 10 (make no mistake the Grizz will buy him out.)

The Raptors will receive Devean George and Antoine Wright from the Mavericks and Hedo Turkoglu from the Magic (via sign and trade)  Turkoglu will receive a  five-year deal worth an estimated $53 million.

So why did this need to be so complicated?  Since the Mavericks are over the cap the only way they could bring in a free agent is by using their mid-level exception (a contract as long as five years starting at $5.8 million.)  The Mavs intend to sign Marcin Gortat with their mid-level exception therefore the only way to acquire Marion was via trade.  The Mavs enlisted the help of the Grizzles to facilitate a trade.  In exchange for buying out Stackhouse (which the Grizz are getting paid for anyway) Memphis gets to dump Buckner’s bad contract and acquire Quincy Douby.

No here’s where things get even more complicated.  Instead of just singing Hedo Turkoglu outright he was signed and traded from the Magic to the Raptors.  Why would the Magic agree to do this?  Since the Raptors, were, under the cap the Magic get a valuable $10 million trade exemption.  The exemption allows them to trade for any player who’s starting salary is $10 million or less without giving up anything in return.  So say, for example, at the deadline the Clippers are looking to shed salary the Magic could trade this exemption straight up for Marcus Camby.

This works out better for the Raptors as well.  By sign and trading for Turkoglu they won’t have to renounce the rights to players to fit him under the cap (i.e Carlos Delfino.)  They also acquire expiring deals in Wright and George who can be used in future trades.  The final caveat for Toronto is they retain their mid-level exception which will allow them to bring in another free agent this year if they so choose.

After all the dust has settled all the teams in the deal got better.

The Mavs added Gortat, Marion and resigned Kidd to a team that won 50 games last year.  They can start Kidd, Howard, Marion, Dirk and Gortat with Terry and Dampier off the bench.  They also now can go small with Kidd, Terry, Howard, Marion and Dirk.  That’s going to be a tough lineup to defend.  For a team that was up against the cap the Mavs got an awful lot better by spending an awful lot of money this off-season.

Toronto shelled out a lot of money this off-season and they are certainly better…but are they a legit contender?  Their starting five is Calderon, DeRozan, Turkoglu, Bargnani and Bosh.  It’s Euroball at it’s finest and while it’ll be fun to watch in the long run I’m not sure where it gets you.

Turkoglu’s big contract made the Vince Carter trade make a lot more sense for the Magic.  As long as their owner doesn’t get stingy the trade exemption can be used to push this team to the next level.

And as for Memphis…There still going to be terrible but at least they saved some money.

The NBA where economic turmoil happens.