The new rules in place this season for NBA teams operating above either tax apron dictate that those clubs are prohibited – in most cases – from taking back more salary than they send out in a trade.
That restriction will make it difficult for two teams operating above the apron to make a trade with one another, but the Knicks and Timberwolves provided a blueprint with this week’s Karl-Anthony Towns blockbuster for one way it can happen — find a third team to take on some extra salary.
In the Towns trade, the Hornets acquired approximately $6.8MM in salary from the Knicks without trading away any themselves, which allowed both Minnesota and New York to send out more salary than they took back in the deal. Charlotte received three second-round picks – two from the Knicks and one from the Wolves – for their troubles.
That’s not the only way for two apron teams to trade with one another, but it’s the most straightforward path, particularly in bigger deals like the Towns one. With that in mind, it’s worth considering which teams around the NBA are the best candidates to be the next Hornets, acting as facilitators in deals involving two clubs facing apron-related restrictions.
There are essentially three characteristics that make a team an ideal candidate to be a third-party facilitator in this sort of trade:
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