The Dead Money
The Pacers have over $6 million of cap space that is occupied by dead money, aka money that is stuck on the books no matter what.
That half dozen million dollars is split over two players. One of them is Al Jefferson, who the Pacers waived earlier in the summer. His original three-year, $30 million contract only had $4 million guaranteed in the final season, so the Pacers waived him to save $6 million. That was half of the money they used to sign Tyreke Evans, essentially. The decision to waive Al was a no-brainer, but it is a bummer that some money has to stay on the books for one more season.
The other dead money comes from Monta Ellis…
Updated the Pacers cap sheet to reflect the Myles extension and the waivers that happened last week: pic.twitter.com/lw964WCKmD
— Tony East (@TonyREast) October 15, 2018
The Pacers are going to be paying Ellis $2,245,400 every season until 2022. This is because last summer they waived and stretched him when they released him from the roster. They had two options: the team could not stretch him and keep his $11 million plus on the books for just one season, or stretch that number over five seasons. They chose the latter.
It seems like a bonehead move now, but it really wasn’t. Stretching Ellis gave them almost $8 million in cap space, which allowed them to make all the signings they did last summer (Darren Collison, Bojan Bogdanovic, etc.). Without stretching Ellis, they could not have signed all of the guys that they did get. It was the right move.
Thankfully, the Moore money and Jefferson money will likely be off the books next season, which will give the Pacers about $5 mil extra in cap space to add someone else. But the Monta money will be around for a while. Now you understand all of the intricacies of the Indiana Pacers salary cap ledger. Unfortuantely, it will all dramatically change next year.