the only teams with money over mle are us, chicago, and bkn. can't see either of those two wanting to pony up big for kennard. if we operate under the cap, his max with us would probably be room exception. so, he could theoretically be foregoing ~5m per on the open market. that's not nothing, but to get to play in la (big market, desirable location, fringe benefits, etc.), he might do it. especially if we give him the years and options he wants. yes--if we choose to operate over the cap, we can pay him the max! i suppose we could also sign him early to something over the room exception, but again, you sign him and lebron to their fair market value, and you've basically eaten up every cent of the cap space you worked hard to create. and maybe that's how we end up playing it. we'll see if the FO are believers in the playoff performances.
What a difference having a guy who can hit the broad side of a barn and doesn’t crap his pants when the game gets tight is making for us. I knew he’d be an upgrade but he’s absolutely thriving with us. No question a guy we need to keep.
Pay Kleber the max… give the man what he deserves. But you’ve brought up some good points. Who out of us, BKN and Chicago is going to offer him above MLE money - and of those teams that are going to have the MLE, there are various players that could be up for it: Coby White Rui Hachimura John Collins Tobias Harris Ayo Dosunmu CJ McCollum Kelly Oubre Jr Harrison Barnes Anfernee Simmons Kevin Huerter Quentin Grimes (probably not) There’s gonna be like what 6-7 teams with the MLE? I think it’s a good bet that we can get Kennard for the room exception at 9.1m.
tough to know now, but i think several of those guys are likely to be retained at just over mle by their current teams, right? so the teams with the mle might get a little desperate. historically speaking, people have kind of treated the mle like you treat the max for semi-star rookies--the available players just get it all bc it's the most you can offer. we'll see; like i said, i hope that he enjoys living/playing here enough to take a little less.
One thing that should matter to Luke is role/usage, not even volume but how. He didn't get to do this at his other stops. I do think having a great shooter as your coach who gets it and also knows you can probably do a little more than just shoot is a perk that I don't think is getting enough attention. I think before injuries to Luka and Austin, he was an $8-10m player. Now I think he's a $12-14m player.
Yeah. This is probably the biggest role he's gotten since 2020, or maybe ever. Even when Luka and Austin come back, he should maintain a big role and usage, and he should value that.
