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In case you couldn't tell, contracts and finance are two of my favorite topics in the NBA. Now that the offseason is over, the dead weight has been shed, and the Wolves' roster is down to 15, I thought it would be valuable to run down the details of the payroll.

This is where the Timberwolves stand immediately, except for Juwan Howard's buyout which I don't precisely know yet. Red font indicates team options, blue font indicates player options, green font indicates a qualifying offer and gray font indicates a partial guarantee. For a detailed description of what all these mean, see Larry Coon's definitive FAQ.

Now, I think it's safe to say that Antoine Walker will not have his third and fourth years guaranteed, nor will Greg Bucker. Below is an estimate using those two points as well as an estimate of Howard's buyout using the minimum salary figures for a player with his experience.

This picture, then, represents the "lowest" cap figures moving forward. There are other possible moves, like not extending a qualifying offer to Telfair or not exercising McCants' or Green's team options, but IMO those moves don't make sense.

Regardless, looking at those figures you see the much bandied-about 2009 cap figure: $24,221,358. Free agency here we come! Not so fast KFAN listeners. With Big Al, Gomes and Smith all up for contracts next season (or extensions now) and then McCants and Green up for free agency in 2009, that $24 million cap figure could easily become $50 million.

Let's take a look at what that might look like. If Al Jefferson gets a $65 million extension over 5 years (which I think would be a good deal) and the Wolves structure the contract as flat (which I think would be a good idea), that's $13 million per. Now, just hypothetically, let's say Gomes gets a Walton-esque deal for 5 years and $25 million and Craiggers gets a Blatch-esque 5 years for $15 million.

As you can see, with 3 quick signings (at rates that I think the Wolves would be happy to get) the 2009 cap space quickly dwindles. If the cap grows at 4% over the next two years, it should be about $60 million in 2009. Yes, that estimate leaves $15 million in cap space. However, McCants and Green are up for contracts that year, with Randy Foye the year after. The Wolves have the potential to be players on the market in the near future, if they want to do it they'll have some difficult "No"s to hand out to some producitve players.

A major part of people's reactions to the Buckner/Hassell trade has been money. There's the leadership aspect and on-court performance, but this trade was largely about the comparative size of Buckner and Hassell's contracts.

The contract executed when Kevin McHale matched the Trailblazers' offer-sheet to Hassell had three years left on it; all three years were at $4.35 million. The last year was an early termination option (again, think player option) that was likely to be paid out. Including that option, Trenton is owed$13.05 million over the next three years.

Buckner, on the other hand, has four years left on his contract. As reported in the Star-Telegram, Buckner had a 5% trade kicker in his contract. I could have left you with the tripe that I just wrote, but when I asked for details from a resident cap expert (thanks Dunkenstein) at RealGM, he gave me a much clearer explanation: Before the trade, Buckner’s pre-option salaries were $3,500,000 for 07/08, $3,759,259 for 08/09, and $4,018,518 for 09/10. Those three years totaled $11,277,777. We ignore 10/11 because it is a player option year. [and therefore is not used to calculate trade kickers] 5% of $11,277,777 equals $563,889. This is the amount of the trade bonus that is payable within 30 days of the trade. The proration is distributed based on the proportion of guaranteed [money] each year. 07/08 is 100% guaranteed. 08/09 is 100% guaranteed. However, 09/10 is only 24.88% guaranteed (only $1,000,000 of the $4,018,518 was guaranteed). So the $563,889 trade bonus gets prorated $250,746 to 07/08, $250,746 to 08/09, and $62,398 to 09/10. That makes the new cap hits as follows: 07/08 is $3,750,746, 08/09 is $4,010,005, 09/10 $4,080,916, and the 10/11 player option stays at $4,277,777.

Got that? The real kicker, though, is that this trade gives the Wolves more cushion against the $67.865 million luxury tax level. Before this trade shaved about $600,000 from their payroll this year, the Wolves were right at the luxury tax (possibly over it, depending on how much they guaranteed John Edwards). Now, though, even with Chris Richard and Edwards, Glen Taylor can feel safe from missing out on the season-end check all on-luxury tax teams get from the big spenders (*cough*Cuban*cough*Dolan*).