2023-24 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

I would agree and I have no problem with keeping them at a significantly lesser price.The time comes when their results on court out weigh continuity

 

I think signed, or signed and traded. Just like when Golden State signed him, he's a movable asset that is strategic in nature. You don't let him go for nothing IMHO.

 

Simmons was all NBA, 1st Team All Defense, that's a significant talent. There is more than one way to play in this league. We don't have to have Russell in order to be successful at all. We ended up pulling D'Angelo because if he can't score, he presents no value.

As I've said elsewhere, that wasn't the only trade that would have worked. What we have isn't the only way to move forward. I'm speaking specifically of moving 1 person, maybe 2.

The playoffs are the ultimate test of your roster, we aren't in this to have fun and win regular season games. Russell needs to go IMO.

Simmons is just one example, I like a lot of guys more than D'Angelo. His contract makes him useful in acquiring them too.

 

hmmm...could we know that at this point? i've looked at the FA market, and i don't think you're going to find a sg better than beasley, a c better than bamba, and a pg better than russell for less than bamba/beasley's option numbers or dlo's likely price point. do you have names in mind?

also keep in mind that with AD/lebron/vando/reaves/christie/rui, you're looking at about 130 million-ish in salaries already on the books when you go FA hunting. meaning you've got the full mle and the BAE to replace the value of those three players.

that's what i'm talking about above. i think there's a good chance one of beasley or bamba is simply dropped and almost no chance both of those guys are back with us on the team options. but i also think the clearest route to contention is bringing back the starters + rui (and schroder, tbh), then fiddling on the margins.

if we can't find a good trade for beasley, i'd like to just bring back lonnie using the non-bird rights and drop beasley entirely. and if we can't find a veteran center good for 20mpg, i think just picking up mo's option makes the most sense.

lebron 50
AD 43
russell 20
rui 16
reaves 12
bamba 10
lonnie 5 (non-bird)
vando 5
schroder 3 (this one's a stretch)
christie 2
wenyen 2

something like the above keeps us around 170ish. if we could entice bamba into signing for two years at 7 per, it would give us the wiggle room we need, i think.

but that's a team that will win 50+ games and be very flexible for trade opportunities if things go wrong, imo.

 

1) Kings aren't contenders.
2) He doesn't change that.


He's likely just being polite to the local reporter's team, but come on.

 

been digging around a bit on the new cba since FA is coming up, and some of it is pretty complex (still processing the frozen draft pick rule, for example). but this was something i hadn't seen reported:

• Teams below the minimum salary floor (90% of the cap) on the first day of the regular season will not receive an end-of-season tax distribution from the league’s taxpaying teams.

jsm was asking what players got, and this is maybe something. the spurs and pacers went into last year pretty far below this line, iirc, which just means fewer dollars out there for players. they banked on opportunities arising (and indy used it to give turner a bonus, basically), but now they'd have to take care of all this prior to the season starting.

i also wasn't sure about the timing, but here it is:

• Teams will be permitted to begin negotiating with their own free agents one day after the NBA Finals conclude.

The buyout rule is weaker than i thought, though:

• Teams above either tax apron won’t be permitted to sign “buyout” players. A “buyout” player will be defined as anyone waived that season whose pre-waiver salary exceeded the non-taxpayer mid-level exception.

oh, and the tpmle isn't available to apron teams, but there's a 5 million exception that's close enough, so we could use that to retain schroder in my scenario above.

 

Yeah but what exactly is the hard cap figure? I can't imagine many teams going over the 2nd apron at all. We don't have to either, is the Hard cap 170+ million, 160+?, I know it's more than 136 million

This article gets deep off into it, if you have the time to read it. There is a link in it to Coon's extensive look at the CBA. I get the impression that a hard cap is somewhere around 170+ million.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...nt-from-salary-cap-to-free-agency-and-beyond/

 

I thought it was 179.5 M

 

179.5M is the figure that I am using in all the scenarios that I am running.

 

Lonnie's non-bird number is a 7.8 million. He can be signed for up to 4 years starting at 7.8 million per year, with raises. Part of me thinks that is a bargain contract, but I am not sure how much playing time there would be for him, and I am not sold on him as a shooter. Yeah I have been figuring for months now that Beasley, and Bamba would be gone. I thought Dlo would get 30M + though, so maybe now if he gets 20-25, we could keep Mo.

 

i'm pretty sure it's closer to 170? 169.5. and it's only triggered in certain circumstances. what i outlined above is legal even though it goes a bit over 170 because we don't use any of the triggers (mle, incoming s&t, bae, etc.).

edit: no, you're right, it looks like the second apron is 179.5.

 

Yep that's the number I got from this Laker Tom article I posted. Tom is saying we should hardcap ourselves at 169 million. Yet I've seen this figure change depending on who is talking about it. This hard cap due to the BLE, NTPMLE doesn't seem new, Coon was talking about it in reference to the 16-17 season too.

179 million isn't terrible

https://lakertom.medium.com/four-re...-hard-cap-themselves-next-season-73d0e1e75f37

 

The first apron is 170.5, and the second apron is 179.5. The second apron is the super tax. To my understanding, if you go over the first apron, you are hard capped, and if you go over the second apron, you are subject to all those new penalties by the CBA.

 

Yeah hard cap is 170.5, super tax is 179.5 .

 

that's why i've been using the 170 number as the no-fly zone.

 

But if you are hardcapped at 170.5, how can you legally reach 179.5 afterwards?

Agh..already being over that figure to start with. IE Golden State and the Clippers.

 

I mean, you could go over the 170, but if you use the ntpmle, bae, or receive a player in a sign and trade, you cant exceed that. You could use the 5M TPMLE exception though. If we are willing to not do those three things, we could go to 179.5. I hope that is correct, but idk ill be honest i got confused right now.

 

hard cap has to be triggered by the use of certain exceptions. so you can blow past it. but being over the second apron is where a bunch of stuff starts happening that you don't want.

https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2023/04...nbas-new-collective-bargaining-agreement.html

 

Friggin Brain teaser lol

 

the plan i outlined above works in this way. it would put us over the second apron, but i'm not sure we care too much about the provisions there at this point. we wouldn't be hard-capped, but our ability to take in salary in trade would be limited, and buyout options would be limited, as would some options to trade future 1sts (this part i still haven't grasped).

BY THE WAY: nobody is talking about this, but the clippers payroll stands at 180 BEFORE paying gordon or plumlee. let that sink in. if that was us, the media would be breathlessly discussing just how desperate we would be to move off covington, batum, or (especially) marcus morris. their boy westbrook also has to take a HUGE haircut to stay there.

phx is at 165 with 6 players under contract!

atlanta's at 170 with murray coming up for FA next year. they've got bogdanovic coming off the books, but that's basically treading water. they need to move collins for lower, shorter-term salary, imo.