Quick says look for a trade on draft night for a center

I think max salary, I'll double check in a second, but I am pretty sure it is still based off of a percentage of previous year's salary.

 

No, you're wrong there. The maximum salary for a player is never less than 105% of his prior salary, so teams having the cap space can offer Howard in excess of $20 mil.

 

Does anyone have that much space?

 

Atlanta, Charlotte's close, Cleveland, Dallas is close, Detroit, Houston with some creativity, Milwaukee is close, NO, Phoenix is close, we're close, Utah.

And am guessing either a few of these that are close, or a few not mentioned, can get there by finding a team with space that know they aren't going to get Dwight(most the teams above) to take on a salary of theirs

 

The most likely spots for him to go outside of LA are the Mavs & Rockets. They both can have in excess of $20 mil in cap space to sign him.

 

No bet because we'll do a little better due to Olshey filling the bench with better substitutes instead of a preplanned tank season.

But we will miss Hickson's effort whenever our new frontline players imitate the lethargy of Aldridge and Batum.

 

The Mavs have an absolute shit team though. Houston would make sense because they have Harden and a few other young guys. Most of the teams that have cap space have very little talent. It would be Howard carrying the load by himself. Maybe that's what he wants.

 

Actually your wrong, Max contracts are a % of the available cap space.

The maximum amount of money a player can sign for is contingent on the number of years that player has played and the total of the salary cap. The maximum salary of a player with 6 or fewer years of experience is either $9,000,000 or 25% of the total salary cap (2010–11: $14,511,000), whichever is greater. For a player with 7–9 years of experience, the maximum is $11,000,000 or 30% of the cap (2010–11: $17,413,200), and for a player with 10+ years of experience, the maximum is $14,000,000 or 35% of the cap (2010–2011: $20,315,400).[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_salary_cap
http://www.nba.com/.element/mp3/2.0/sect/podcastmp3/PDF/CBA101.pdf

Dwight has only been in the league for 9 years so he will be getting 30% of the cap.

 

I saw that too, but then there's this:

"A free agent's maximum salary in the first year of a new contract is never less than 105% of his salary in the last year of his previous contract. For example, a ten-year veteran free agent who most recently earned $20 million has a maximum salary of at least $21 million, even if that is above the league-wide maximum. A free agent does not need to remain with the same team in order to receive 105% of his previous salary, although the team that signs him is subject to the same salary cap restrictions as with any other free agent."

http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q16

 

I'd be surprised if the Blazers don't take a stab at trying to get Howard. They would have to clear some salary in order to do it, but it could be done. Nic could probably be off-loaded to the T-Wolves or some other team in an unequal trade. Wesley is a possibility. Could get in the right neighborhood by unloading Freeland and Claver. We'd have another season with a really thin bench, but you'd have to take a shot at it. I'm not going to hold my breath over for a successful courtship, however.

 

I don't think you are going to move someone like Nic before-hand for the 5% (being generous) chance that you land Dwight.

 

And that's the problem. We'd have to essentially get a guarantee from Howard that he would come here, and then we'd have to open up the cap space to do it. Not an easy task to do, especially since we'd have to offload contracts for nothing. Maybe the Lakers would do a deal though.

If LA was convinced that they were going to lose him for nothing, maybe they would take on Nic and Wes. That would actually still give us cap space to make a go at someone else. Howard would come in at $20 mil a year, Nic makes 10 and Wes makes 6, so we'd lose about $4 million of our cap space. That should give us around $10 million to offer someone like Redick or Mayo a deal.

 

Well looks like i'm wrong. In the case you and E-Blazer specify they can go over the league-wide maximum salary. So whoever signs Dwight needs a shit ton of cap space.

 

Or he has to take less money. Or they have to do a sign-and-trade.

 

We're already moving Hickson on the 5% chance we sign a big FA like a Hibbert.

 

Oh hush child! Round these parts, we don't cotton to that new-fangled "common sense" stuff.

 

If Dwight goes to HOU, I bet we could make a play at Asik.

 

I agree.

 

The more and more I see whats available out there the more I am hoping and wishing that Dwight decides to go Houston (which would be the smart play for him) and that Asik becomes available. He would fit in nicely on our offense by not taking away shots from our go to guys and would do wonders for our defense. Although the almost $14.9 mil in owed in 2014 would be interesting to deal with but could open up a huge chunk of needed money at that point as well.

Although for the record I would love to see Leonard develop into a center that we can use going forward. My concern not so much does have the ability to develop but the time it will take in relation to the window of our other players contracts and windows

 

Asik is a noble player that defends and rebounds very well. I would be happy if we got him because he is cheap. I think our cap space and possibly a player like freeland will work on draft day. We have enough cap space to get ER done