Hornets OFFICIALLY obtain Robin Lopez and Hakim Warrick

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Published: July 27, 2012

After two days of confusion, the three-team trade sending Robin Lopez and Hakim Warrick (and $1.15 million) to the Hornets has become official. In exchange, the Hornets will send Brad Miller and Jerome Dyson to Phoenix, and Minnesota will receive the two second round picks that were originally sent to the Hornets in the initial Brad Miller trade.

In addition, the Suns will receive a Wesley Johnson and a lottery protected 1st round pick from the Timberwolves. Robin Lopez (24 years old) will reportedly sign a 3-year contract worth around $15 million. Hakim Warrick (30 years old) will make $4 million in 2012-13, and has a team option for another $4 million in 2013-14.

Though the trade is official, I haven’t talked to one person who understands how or why it is legal. The CBA explicitly states that “teams cannot trade players for two months after receiving the player in trade, if the trade aggregates the player’s salary with the salaries of other players for teams over the salary cap.” The Hornets must aggregate the salaries of Miller and Dyson to bring back the salaries of Lopez and Warrick and are over over the salary cap, so the CBA clearly says that trading the two together is illegal. We’ll have to wait and see where the loophole is that makes this trade permissable, no one seems to have an answer at the moment.

UPDATE (7/27/12 at 2:30 PM) – Dell Demps has just provided clarity to the situation at hand regarding the legality of today’s trade.  Because Brad Miller was received by NOLA using room under the salary cap (not an exception), they were allowed to trade him immediately with another player. Though it was unclear in the CBA FAQ, the Hornets being over the cap right now does not matter as long as the player being dealt was received at the time by using cap space. (We’ll ask Mr. Coon to include that in his excellent site for future reference.)

I’ve hit you with enough on this trade over the past 48 hours, so I’ll leave it at this for now. Everyone can take comfort in knowing the deal is done, and the Hornets finally have a legitimate center on a pretty good contract despite giving up next to nothing for him! Great work once again by Dell Demps the Chessmaster.

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