Well, technically….
Again, non-simultaneous trades are not available when a team trades away multiple players (aggregates). Let’s say a team has a $4 million player and a $5 million player, and uses the Traded Player exception to trade for an $8 million player. Even though they trade away more salary ($9 million) than they receive ($8 million), the fact that they aggregated the two players means they do not gain a Traded Player exception. However, it is sometimes possible to reorganize these trades so that players technically are not aggregated. A good example of this occurred in 2004 when Houston traded Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley and Kelvin Cato to Orlando for Tracy McGrady, Juwan Howard, Tyronn Lue and Reece Gaines. As a single trade, it could only be simultaneous since multiple players were moving each way. However, Houston was able to reorganize the trade into three separate trades. In one trade, they acquired McGrady and Gaines for Mobley and Cato. In another trade, they acquired Howard and Lue using an existing Traded Player exception from their earlier Glen Rice trade. That left them trading Francis essentially by himself for nothing, which generated a new Traded Player exception in the amount of Francis’ base year value. From Orlando’s perspective, it was a single, simultaneous three-for-four trade.
via NBA Salary Cap FAQ.
That’s irony you can cut with a knife.
