Well, we've freed up pretty significant room for next year today, so perhaps Ben's not gone after all.
No, it's not a 100% sure thing. Just a reasonable supposition based on his injury, fatness, likelihood of ever playing again, and the league rules.
I saw an estimate, that if the Bulls can get Jerome James medically retired, they can give Gordon $67 million over 6 years. That's a more than fair deal for Ben.
It sounds like Paxson's plan is to re-sign Gordon, trade Hinrich for dogfood, make Salmons the backup at both guard spots, and then swing a trade for Amare/Bosh using the young bigs and his plethora of expiring contracts.
Just double-posting this to offer up a mea culpa on Jerome James. http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q53 So yeah, that sucks. That means he won't come off our cap. Although I'd imagine if the Bulls really wanted to they could pawn him to a team under the cap. Since insurance is going to supposedly pay 80% of his $6.6M contract, the receiving team would be liable for only $1.32M, which we could reimburse with cash (and add another million and a half or so for their trouble.
Funny, I didn't get that sense at all from his comments. I think it'll come down to how Salmons plays and what kind of deal BG holds out for. If BG wants more than 8-9 million and to start, I think Pax will try and sign and trade him. If he signs a 3 year $24 mil type of deal and is at least amenable to the idea of being a sixth man then they move Hinrich for whatever they can get assuming Salmons can fit in. But Pax certainly didn't sound to me like he was planning on tying up all of his cap space for BG with his comments about flexibility. And you just don't give away a player of Hinrich's caliber and value.
That's pretty much the dumbest thing I've read all day. Thanks for that. Sounds like reality has set in that Ben Gordon is being pushed out of town, Kirk has more value in the league and your pissed. Tough shit.
So bye Ben. That leaves the following possible uses for James: * Scrub our cap by trading him to a team under the cap. I'd imagine if the Bulls really wanted to they could pawn him to a team under the cap. Since insurance is going to supposedly pay 80% of his $6.6M contract, the receiving team would be liable for only $1.32M, which we could reimburse with cash (and add another million and a half or so for their trouble). * As a trade chip. Like a mini Raef LaFrentz, we could include James in a trade to another team, who wouldn't have to pay most of his salary. Could help in round II of the Amare/Bosh talks. One can dream, right? * As a multifaceted way for the Bulls to spend less. He's on the books for $6.6M, meaning they can't sign anyone else, but he actually only costs the Bulls $1.3M. Hurray for operating income.
Or yet another waste of salary cap space, but this time a guy who won't complain about the lack of PT.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it's not enough just to trade Kirk (or anyone else) in the summer. Because unless you're trading with one of the teams with lots of cap space, you have to take back nearly as much salary as you give out, so it doesn't really do much to facilitate re-signing Gordon. It can be done, but it limits the market quite a bit. Also, the problem isn't limited to signing Ben, it's also true of signing and trading Ben. Because again, the Bulls won't have the flexibility to take back a player of comparable salary to whatever Ben gets, because that player would also put them over the LT.
According to your salary page, the Bulls have $9.5M in cap space (minus Gordon), which could be used to sign him. The trade exception is going to expire, I believe.
^^^ and a bunch of expiring contracts to deal: Miller @ $12.5M James @ $6.6M Thomas @ $6.5M Enough to facilitate a pretty big S&T with BYC involved.
I would imagine that Gordon is in the team's future plans given how Paxson called him valuable, while not even mentioning Hinrich once during the entire press conference, saying that another trade may be needed to re-sign Ben. (That would be Kirk). Don't be shocked if we do a draft day trade for a marquee player. If Phoenix misses the playoffs, I think the chances of a Bulls/Suns draft day trade is big. Especially with Jerome James offering some money relief.
Realistically, BG's not going to get more than about $10 mil/per. And that deal could start as low as $8-9 in the first year depending on how it's structured. So the bulls could almost take back somebody on an MLE, right, or is it a base year thing? And MN could still take Hinrich for draft picks this summer. Or they could give away some cheaper players.
OKC is back in the market for Ben, and the Pistons might make a run at him too, as well as Boozer. I think Ben is the Bulls for the taking, as long as they're willing to go into the luxury tax. With the economy the way it is, I don't see Ben getting grossly overpaid by a team for like $15 million a year. But I could see him easily getting $8-9 million per a year from Detroit or OKC. And Bulls can easily give him something like $60 million over 6 years, which is a solid deal for the Bulls. We need to keep Gordon. He's a great three point shooter and he's fourth in the NBA in fastbreak scoring this year. If we are building around Derrick Rose, I think one of the top fastbreak players in the league is someone you want to keep around.
You're really grasping at straws. Can you imagine any scenario where Pax would call BG anything but "valuable" that doesn't involve a bottle of tequila or a gun pointed at his temple?
Yeah, the $71M is based on historic averages, but all signs are pointing it being lower at this point. I'll update the numbers when I have some sort of reasonable basis to make an estimate, but at this point I'd just be substituting one guess for another. I read (no link, unfortunately) the league was estimating $68.4M due to the fast and steep drop in revenues they're facing. So if that's the case, the Bulls would have only $3.9M in which to fill 4 roster spots. And two of those will be first rounders on some sort of rookie scale deal. So my guess is that, like this year, they'll be extremely close to the LT threshold just trying to fill out their roster.
