It's not Lame, it's the 10 days of Christmas - On the 9th day of Christmas...

by Basketball John on Dec 24, 2009 2:00 PM MST in Ten Days of Christmas Comment 0 comments

...the Utah Jazz gave to me... "Cap casualty"

This is a late-comer but it's definitely one of the top stories of the year. Generally a cap casualty is generally associated with the NFL when a good player is cut solely for financial reasons.

Well, Eric Maynor became a cap casualty for the Jazz when the team had to include him in a trade to Oklahoma City in order for them to take Matt Harpring's contract off of Utah's hands (and books).

As a result, the Jazz were able to cut more than $10M off of their total salary and get pretty close to being under the cap completely. This was possible because OKC had plenty of cap room in which to absorb both contracts. They'll get most of that cap space back in the summer when Harp's deal comes off the books.

It was probably something that we should have seen coming given that the Jazz had likely planned on going over the luxury tax a bit in order to re-sign Millsap. But as soon as everyone opted back in, the financial hit was going to probably be too much for the Jazz, even if it was one year.

And had been mentioned, the Jazz now have some flexibility going forward whether it be a trade or come this summer.

This could also come back to haunt the Jazz a bit should Maynor develop into a PG that haunts the Jazz four times a year.

So good luck to Maynor. It's too bad that we had to lose him at all, let alone this way.

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