Mark Deeks‏@MarkDeeksNBA Toronto trades one second round pick to dump Steve Novak's $7.2 million and yet Chicago trades two to dump Anthony Randolph's $1.8 million.
I haven't done the math (actually can't because the Gasol, Mirotic and Hinrich deals are only estimates) , but it seems clear that the Bulls need every penny of cap space they can get their hands on. Also, good thing the Bulls have been stockpiling 2nd round picks for the past few years 'cause they're giving them away like candy at a parade this offseason. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I did the math in the article, based on the reported deals for Gasol and Mirotic. I'm sure the actual first year salaries will wind up being real close to what I guesstimated. And Hinrich's deal is exact, according to reports he got the Room MLE of $2.732 million. 2 years, $5,586,940 total.
Its almost like the team is not some haphazard brainless dollar eating megashark and might actually have a clue. or maybe it really IS the Illuminati, the Elders of Scion, the Trilateral Commission, Skull and Bones etc behind these roster moves. Certainly it was not planning to better the team.
Mirotic's contract at ~$17M is exactly MLE with 4.5% raises and $600K to help him with his buyout. When you do your salary cap calculations, you can't include that $600K part of his contract. That is, when they say $17M and it includes the $600K for buyout, the cap hit is $16.4M.
The Bulls don't have the MLE, but you still make a good point that it's possible they gave Mirotic the amount of the MLE out of their cap space and then included the 600k in the total contract value. That would take Gasol's first-year salary up to $7,128,763 or $22,348,672 over 3 years.
Why would they choose almost exactly the MLE if they don't have it? Woj says they signed him with the MLE. Ironic that Gasol's contract is roughly the same as Taj's. Hrm....
Are you trying to say that they traded Taj for Gasol? That would be awesome, it would open us up to more moves, using the non-guaranteed contracts. It would allow us to sign Mirotic with the MLE, and resign Hinrich with Bird Rights, meaning we would still have the BAE to spend. The ONLY way to have the actual MLE is if we stayed over the salary cap, it would be awesome if we did that. Of course, trading Smith and Randolph for nothing would make zero sense if that were the case, but who knows?
