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Cleveland Cavaliers guard Mo Williams drives past Charlotte Hornets guard Jeremy Lin in the first half of an NBA game on April 3, 2016, in Cleveland.
(AP Photo)
Former Alabama basketball standout Mo Williams was on his fourth NBA roster of the 2016-17 campaign on Friday, even though he hasn't played in a game this season and probably won't.
The Philadelphia 76ers claimed Williams off the NBA waiver wire on Friday. But Philadelphia didn't keep Williams on the roster long. They've already waived him to sign guard Chasson Randle to a 10-game contract.
That means Williams has been with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Denver Nuggets and 76ers this season without so much as practicing with any of those teams.
That's because Williams has more to do with accounting than basketball this season.
The Cavaliers announced on Sept. 26, the first day of training camp for the 2016-17 season, that Williams had decided to retire after winning the NBA championship in his 13th pro campaign. But Williams didn't file his retirement paperwork and had surgery to remove bone spurs from the joint of the tibia and fibula in his left leg on Oct. 12.
That left Cleveland, a team faced with paying a luxury tax for being so far over the NBA's salary cap, on the hook for Williams' $2,194,500 salary for 2016-17. Williams stayed on Cleveland's roster until the Cavs traded him and Mike Dunleavy to the Hawks for Kyle Korver on Jan. 7.
On Wednesday, the Hawks moved Williams along, sending him with an undisclosed amount of cash to the Denver Nuggets for the draft rights to Cenk Akyol - a player reported to be retired for a player who hasn't played in the NBA since being drafted in 2005. Akyol plays professional basketball in Turkey, and his draft rights have now been traded five times in the NBA.
The Nuggets didn't want Williams any more than Atlanta did. But they did want his contract. And so did Philadelphia.
The NBA has a salary cap of $94.1 million, and any team that reaches $113.3 million in spending is subject to a penalty called the luxury tax. But the NBA also has a salary-cap floor. Each team has to spend at least $84.7 million on salaries. If it doesn't, it has to pay the difference between its actual spending and the salary floor to the players on its roster at the end of the season.
So what good is trading for a player who'll never play for the team?
The salary-cap and -floor rules are complicated under the NBA and NBA Players Association collective-bargaining agreement, but, basically, the acquiring team gets to apply the player's full-season salary to its books, but only has to pay him on a proportional basis. In Williams' case, he'll have been paid by the Cavaliers, Hawks, Nuggets and 76ers this season, with Philadelphia on the hook for whatever amount is left on the contract, assuming he doesn't wind up being claimed by another team.
The Nuggets were almost $10 million under the salary floor when they got Williams. Thanks to the 76ers, they still are.
ESPN reported Philadelphia's waiver claim kept Denver $9.9 million away from the salary floor while pulling the 76ers within $5.6 million of the necessary number, and its payout to Williams will save the team about $1.1 million, since Philadelphia owes Williams about half of his season's salary but gets to apply his full $2.2 million salary to the books -- $2.2 million the Sixers won't have to pay for being under the salary floor.
Williams' knee problem limited him to 41 regular-season games in the 2015-16 season, but he played in 13 postseason games in Cleveland's title run. Williams averaged 8.2 points and 2.4 assists in 18.2 minutes per game last year -- all his lowest figures since his first NBA season in 2003-04.
Williams reached the NBA All-Star Game in 2009 during his first tour with Cleveland. Traded by the Cavs during the 2010-11 season with Jamario Moon to the Los Angeles Clippers for Baron Davis and a first-round draft pick that turned into Kyrie Irving, Williams also has played for the Utah Jazz, Portland Trail Blazers, Minnesota Timberwolves and Charlotte Hornets.
In his 818 NBA games, Williams has averaged 13.2 points and 4.9 assists.
Last season, Williams joined Jason Caffey and Robert Horry as former Alabama players who played on NBA championship teams.