Trying to Get a Cap to Fit

Some people look at a salary cap and see a limit. Irwin Mandel, the Chicago Bulls’ senior vice president for financial and legal affairs, sees a challenge.

“You have to be very aggressive and creative,” said Mandel, who has worked for the club for 32 years. “I try not to take no for an answer, and I sort of take it personally if the salary cap prevents the Bulls from doing something the Bulls want to do.

“That’s not to say that in 100% of the cases you can get around the cap legally. My philosophy is that it doesn’t do any good to say, ‘Darn, this can’t work.’ If alternative one doesn’t work, go to alternative two. You try to figure out a way to get done what the general manager wants done.”

Mandel’s philosophy should be duly noted by his counterparts in the NHL, where crunching numbers will soon be as important as crunching opponents.

With the NHL and the players’ association set to vote this week on a collective bargaining agreement that includes the league’s first salary cap, club executives are warming up their calculators. They’re about to learn what their NFL and NBA brethren already know: A good capologist -- someone who knows the cap rules and can utilize them to his club’s advantage -- can be as valuable as a first-team All-Star.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have said they’re looking for a capologist. The Detroit Red Wings hired lawyer Ryan Martin, who was a scout and agent, for the new job of director of hockey administration. The Edmonton Oilers chose Scott Howson, a former player who became a lawyer and has handled many of their contract negotiations.

Brian Burke, the Mighty Ducks’ new general manager, said he analyzed the cap systems of NFL teams to prepare for the NHL’s new economic era. He assigned the capologist role, if not that title, to assistant general manager David McNab.

“The role of capologist, with the teams I studied, is quite significant yet doesn’t change the chain of command,” Burke said. “There’s the talent side and the economic and financial people, side by side. The football people still make the decisions.”

The Kings were so sure they’d need a capologist -- and that the role was meant for Kevin Gilmore, a Canadian-born attorney who has been their assistant general manager since 1999 -- that they repeatedly repelled rivals’ efforts to hire him away.

“Kevin is our Nostradamus. His job is going to be to predict the future,” King President Tim Leiweke said. “The key with this CBA is not just what the cap is today, but next year and going forward. It’s how to spend money to keep your kids and re-sign your own free agents and, with the age coming down to 27, factoring in the ever-expanding free-agent pool.”

Dan Rosenbaum, an economics professor at North Carolina Greensboro, has studied NBA capologists and found two models: teams that hire a lawyer or accountant to oversee cap compliance and perform other duties, and teams that designate a “basketball person” who’s also involved in personnel evaluation.

“I personally think it’s a mistake that a lot of teams go with having their accountant be the capologist. If you’re going to go outside your basketball people, you’re better off with lawyers,” he said. “Accountants are trained to catch people who are breaking the rules. They’re not generally good at thinking of ways to exploit the rules.”

Mandel, the Bulls’ cap expert, is an attorney and a certified public accountant. “It’s an advantage if a capologist has both,” he said. “They have to know very well what the players in the league are making and what the going rate is for players of varying ability levels.”

Rich McKay, general manager of the Atlanta Falcons and a recognized NFL cap guru, is an attorney, “but I don’t want to say it’s a prerequisite,” he said.

Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, said via e-mail that the job is “not as hard as it sounds. We have a capologist, but only really use him for the issues regarding the minutiae of the cap. On a day-to-day basis, anyone who knows how to use a spreadsheet and spends time reading the CBA will do fine.”

And maybe not.

McKay said it’s vital to know the nuances of the rules and to form a consistent strategy. As general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he tried to re-sign core defensive players before they became free agents and signed free agents to support them. The toughest part of getting accustomed to a cap, he said, was anticipating what opponents would dream up in their efforts to explore the legal limits.

“There are a lot of creative teams in this business, and I was surprised with what some of them came up with,” he said. “You don’t want to copy them or overreact, but you want to understand. ... Teams came up with option concepts that weren’t contemplated when the agreement was written.”

McKay said he knows the cap rules by heart. Mitch Kupchak, the Laker general manager, said during a phone interview this week that he had a copy of the NBA’s labor agreement “eight inches from my hand,” to consult as needed. He said he shares the main cap duties with the club’s general counsel, Jim Perzik.

“The important thing is to understand the basics, and a lot of times, because the thing is all-encompassing, the only way to get to know things is to do deals,” Kupchak said. “There may be a clause you use once every five years, and if you don’t use it, how can you expect to understand it? If you hit a snag, you pull out the book.

“Most GMs say, ‘Just tell me the rules and let us do our jobs.’ We can adapt. We want to be able to go and do our job.”

He said the Kings haven’t asked for advice, but he’d tell them to be patient.

“The first year, the whole concept, it will take some time,” Kupchak said. “Most agreements I’ve seen, though it might take time to get used to, they end up being pretty fair.”

Mandel said he would discuss the NHL cap with the Blackhawks if it’s implemented. He never tires of cap talk.

“The rules get more complicated every year, but it’s great fun. I love it,” he said. “It’s the most interesting part of the job.”

McKay relishes it too. He’d just prefer a different title.

“I get the meaning of capologist as one who likes to maneuver and manipulate,” he said. “I look at it as living within the CBA, not maneuvering around it.”

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The NHL Players’ Assn. has invited Commissioner Gary Bettman and Executive Vice President Bill Daly to participate in a news conference Thursday in Toronto after players vote upon the proposed collective bargaining agreement. NHL governors are scheduled to vote Friday in New York.

“We agreed with the PA that we should try to do a joint press conference even if schedules wouldn’t permit us to make ratification announcements simultaneously,” Daly said Tuesday in an e-mail.