The clause enacted in 2005 allowed teams to waive a player only for luxury-tax purposes; they still had to pay the waived player, and his salary still counted against their cap figure.

The luxury tax won't really do much to pare down the budget deficit.

That owner Stan Kroenke is willing to pay the luxury tax is nothing new — Denver began last season on course for the dollar-for-dollar hit, and those Nuggets were careening toward irrelevance.