One new wrinkle in the CBA that does hurt the Nets --and a league executive says few things do-- is a new restriction on the use of cash in trades. In the past, teams could send up to $3 million in cash considerations per deal. It was a great sweetener. Now, teams have a season long limit of $3 million...and also new, teams can receive no more than $3 million in a year.
From June 25, 2010 till June 24, 2011, the Nets used $7.5 million of Mikhail Prokhorov's cash to facilitate deals: $3 million in the Yi Jianlian salary dump to lessen the cap load before the 2010 free agent rush; $3 million in the Deron Williams trade and $1.5 million to acquire the draft rights of Bojan Bogdanovic. The restriction will also hurt the Knicks, who spent $7.75 million in that same period, including $3 million each to the Nuggets and Timberwolves in the deal that brought Carmelo Anthony to New York.