So this is how the Deron Williams would potentially work for both sides: Williams is due around $43.3M for the last two years of his contract (2016-17 is a player option at $22.3M, which he obv would exercise). If he and the Nets agree on a buyout, the buyout amount, whatever it is, becomes his cap number for the 2015-16 season. But Brooklyn would then use the stretch provision on Williams (he is eligible b/c his new deal came after the last CBA was adopted in 2011). If the Nets use the stretch on Williams this season they can stretch the new buyout number over five seasons. If they wait until 2016-17 to do so they can only stretch it out over three seasons, which is why there's incentive for the team to do it now. For example (this is NOT the amount; this is just an example to explain), if Williams & agent agreed to a $30M buyout of the last two years, Williams's cap number for '15-'16 becomes $30M. That gets stretched by the Nets over five years, for a $6M cap number for Williams for each of the next five seasons, starting in '15-'16, through '19-'20. That's a $15M reduction in his cap number for this season, which would give Brooklyn a chance to get under the $84.7M tax threshold for next season by waiving some non-guaranteed players for next season (Brooklyn is currently around $102.5M in salaries for next season, including the non-guaranteed players). And the cap number for Williams for 2016-17 would go down by $16M, giving the Nets significantly more cap room to go after free agents like Kevin Durant. Williams would then be free to sign with Dallas as an unrestricted free agent--for an amount that would presumably make up the money he gave up with the Nets, and allow him to be free in the summer of '17. (H/T Eric Pincus of the L.A. Times and Basketball Insiders, who stays on top of the actual salary numbers as well as anybody.)

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