I thought that I would post this thread here for everyone to see how our cap is shaping up for the next couple of years. This past year we had $77,094,368 in cap. Some of the big losses are Penny Hardaway's 15 mil and Doug Christies 8.2 mil. Here is what players we have under contract for this season and the following season... <u>06-07 Season</u> Grant Hill- $16,901,500 Tony Battie-$7,000,000 Hedo Turkoglu-$5,883,300 Darko Milicic-$5,218,622 Dwight Howard-$4,806,720 Carlos Arroyo-$4,000,000 Keyon Dooling-$3,348,000 Pat Garrity-$3,230,000 #11 pick-$1,888,680(estimation) Jameer Nelson-$1,272,120 2nd round pick-$450,000 2nd round pick-$450,000 <u>Grand Total</u>-$54,448,942 I used the estimation from the spots picked last year. Since Fran Vasquez isn't under contract, I used Andrew Bynum the #10 pick from last years salary number and I used Monta Ellis(#40 pick) for #41. That would also lead us to have 3 more spots on the roster which more than likely will be taken up. 1 spot will probably be minimum players while another spot will likely be for Marcin Gortat(2nd rounder last year from overseas) and the last spot will likely be taken by either Trevor Ariza(2-3 mil) or Deshawn Stevenson (4-5 mil). So all and all I would predict having us around 57.5-60.5 million in cap this year. <u>07-08 Season</u>(Assuming we don't come in the Top 5 and lose our 1st pick in the Darko trade) Hedo Turkoglu-$6,373,900 Dwight Howard-$6,061,273 Carlos Arroyo-$4,000,000 #11 pick-$2,030,280(estimation) Jameer Nelson-$1,961,609 2nd rounder in 06-$718,000 2nd rounder in 06-$718,000 2nd rounder in 07-$450,000 <u>Grand Total</u>-$22,313,062 Darko would likely get signed for at least the qualifying offer of $6,810,302(could be more) and Keyon Dooling has a player option worth $3,596,000. Also this would count either Deshawn Stevenson(4-6 mil) or Trevor Ariza(2-4 mil) and more than likely Marcin Gortat(for cheap). So before FA I see us having at least 37 mil in salary, but more than likely closer to 40-42 mil. If the cap number is $55,000,000 then we would have 13-15 mil to spend and I believe the number for a max FA is around 12,000,000. Just for kicks here is what 08-09 is like right now. Hedo Turkolgu-$6,864,200 Dwight Howard's qualifying offer is $7,879,656 Jameer Nelson's qualifying offer is $2,810,985 ----------------------------- So basically I feel like we really need to just sit still this year and resign Ariza and not go after any FA this year so that we have enough cap next year to get someone good.
Just for kicks, I will show you what we would look like if we did the Pat Garrity and 2nd for JR Smith deal and traded up to get the #8 pick(we'll say by using Fran). <u>06-07 Season</u> Grant Hill- $16,901,500 Tony Battie-$7,000,000 Hedo Turkoglu-$5,883,300 Darko Milicic-$5,218,622 Dwight Howard-$4,806,720 Carlos Arroyo-$4,000,000 Keyon Dooling-$3,348,000 #8 pick-$2,162,880(estimation will likely be higher) Jameer Nelson-$1,272,120 JR Smith-$1,067,400 2nd round pick-$450,000 <u>Grand Total</u>-$52,110,542 That doesn't count possibly resigning Trevor Ariza or Deshawn Stevenson and having 3 other spots open for Gortat and other summer league players. So the salary goes down a little for this year, let's see what the following years would look like.... <u>07-08 Season(Assuming we don't come in the Top 5 and lose our 1st pick in the Darko trade)</u> Hedo Turkoglu-$6,373,900 Dwight Howard-$6,061,273 Carlos Arroyo-$4,000,000 #8 pick-$2,325,000(estimation-will be higher) Jameer Nelson-$1,961,609 2nd rounder in 06-$718,000 2nd rounder in 07-$450,000 <u>Grand Total</u>-$21,889,782 This doesn't include JR Smith's team option of $1,641,661 and potentially resigning Trevor Ariza or Deshawn Stevenson from the year before as well as Tony Battie, Grant Hill or others this year. It doesn't include Darko's qualifying offer either. It also doesn't include Keyon Doolings $3,596,000 player option. So with this trade it would add a couple million more on the cap(300,000 for the 8th pick to 11th pick and JR Smith's 1.6 mil) and we would have around 12-13 mil, so we would be able to max out 1 player and then we would be resorted to have to sign 7 other players to the minimum to fill out the roster. So basically we have to include other players with Garrity to do these trades if we want enough salary to max someone out or hope that Dooling doesn't pick up his player option or that we don't pick up JR Smith's player option.
