Amnestied contracts count towards the salary floor

The salary of any player waived via the amnesty clause will continue to count toward the salary floor. This could be of major interest to a team such as the Wizards, who would fall so far under the salary floor (about $49 million per team) by using amnesty on Rashard Lewis as to make the provision almost unworkable for them this season. But if Lewis’ $20.6 million salary continues to count toward that floor — and not against the cap — even after amnesty, the provision is more useful in the short term.

via Zach Lowe of SI.com – Details of amnesty provision emerge

This means that even if Travis Outlaw is amnestied this year — a possibility I warned against — his contract would count towards the required $49.3 million salary floor, meaning that the Nets only have to spend about $8 million in free agency/trades this year regardless of their plans with Outlaw.

Given the recent news about his broken hand and the general consensus about his broken talent, I’d now expect Outlaw to be thrown onto the amnesty chopper soon.