This past Saturday, the OKC Thunder made the decision to sign free agent forward Spencer Jones to a two-year, $12 million offer sheet.
In the end, however, Denver opted to match the deal themselves, keeping the soon-to-be junior from heading to the Sooner State and, instead, remaining out in the Mile High City with Nikola Jokic and company.
With this move, GM Sam Presti finds himself falling short of attaining an impressive young 3&D forward, which, on the one hand, could be viewed as a bit of a letdown.
Of course, by not snatching up Jones, the Thunder can now keep their ability to utilize the $17.7 million traded player exception created in the Lu Dort-to-Atlanta trade they executed a few weeks back.
Thunder would have essentially been unable to use TPE if Jones signed
Outside of officially getting under the second apron, the biggest luxury of trading Dort to the Hawks was that it created such a lucrative trade exception in his wake.
This kind of asset essentially allows teams to trade for players within the allotted price range without being forced to send matching salary back in the process.
Such an exception is something that could come in handy ahead of February's trade deadline, especially if OKC ran into the same kind of injury woes they faced throughout last year's campaign.
Had they actually brought on Jones, however, it essentially would have made the TPE unusable.
With all roster spots being accounted for in this alternate reality, the Thunder simply would have had no room to bring on a new talent, regardless of the avenue they would theoretically take to do so.
Making matters more rigid, the Thunder would have had just about $840k of wiggle room to work with before entering such the dreaded second apron, and would have found their tax penalty skyrocket from $19.9 million to $43 million.
As a result of the new NBA CBA, ball clubs residing in the second apron are not permitted to make moves with their trade exceptions. Having Jones come aboard would have made their tax penalty margins become painstakingly slim.
So while the addition of the defensive-minded wing and last postseason's top long-range scoring weapon (shot a whopping 69.0 percent from deep with Denver) would have been a great low-risk, high-reward move for the Thunder to make, Denver matching Jones' offer now prevents the Thunder from being hard-capped at the second apron, thus allowing them to retain full autonomy of their lofty TPE.
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