Why does trading a player result in a dead cap hit?

[Count Hawkula]

It has never made sense to me that trading a player results in a dead cap hit for the team trading the player. Why isn't the contract just absorbed by the other team resulting in cap savings? Is this supposedly a trade deterrent?

Thanks in advance! Go Hawks

 

[Count Hawkula]

Mods can u delete post? I found the answer in another post.

 

[kidhawk]

In case there are others out there curious about this I’ll toss out a quick answer. The simple explanation is that the remaining contract moves with the player but money already paid remains with the team, so things like signing bonuses already paid out but divided through the length of the contract are still on the cap for the team who paid it. The current and future salary moves with the player in most cases.

I said most cases, because there are times when a team wants a player but doesn’t have the cap space for them so the original team can pay some of that usually in return for a better trade value. We did this when we traded for Leonard Williams. The Giants reworked his contract to convert most of his remaining 2023 salary into a bonus to keep it on their books and in return we gave them a 2nd round pick which under normal circumstances would have been a little high for renting a player.

 

[Count Hawkula]

It has never made sense to me that trading a player results in a dead cap hit for the team trading the player. Why isn't the contract just absorbed by the other team resulting in cap savings? Is this supposedly a trade deterrent?

Thanks in advance! Go Hawks

In case there are others out there curious about this I’ll toss out a quick answer. The simple explanation is that the remaining contract moves with the player but money already paid remains with the team, so things like signing bonuses already paid out but divided through the length of the contract are still on the cap for the team who paid it. The current and future salary moves with the player in most cases.

I said most cases, because there are times when a team wants a player but doesn’t have the cap space for them so the original team can pay some of that usually in return for a better trade value. We did this when we traded for Leonard Williams. The Giants reworked his contract to convert most of his remaining 2023 salary into a bonus to keep it on their books and in return we gave them a 2nd round pick which under normal circumstances would have been a little high for renting a player.

Thank you. That was a better explanation than what I found.