The Van Vleet signing made me think more about what possibilities we have at roster construction once Dame is off the books. This is actually very exciting, considering we haven’t had this kind of cap space in so long. The last time there was this cap space, it was spent on Meyers Leonard, Allen Crabbe, and Evan Turner. Right now, there are these contracts on the books: - Ant ($75m, 3 years) - Grant ($160m, 5 years) - Nurk ($55m, 3 years) - Nas ($22m, 3 years) - Scoot (rookie) - Sharpe (rookie) - Murray (rookie) - Walker (rookie) - Rupert (rookie) Whatever comes back for Dame will come in the form of expirings (like Lowry’s remaining $30m and Simmons’s remaining $79m) + other young guys + picks. Nurk and Little will be moveable. Ant will also be moved at some point during the season. So Scoot, Sharpe, and Grant (?) are the guys who will be here the next few seasons. Murray, Rupert, and Walker who are young guys who still can get better. We are going to get a whole boat load of picks. We’re also going to have a lotto pick and possibly more 1sts next summer. With Grant’s $30m and Simmons’s remaining $40m as the only big salaries in 2024-25, would you take a swing at overpaying someone that summer who will help Scoot and Sharpe develop? Nothing would make me happier than to flip off the Raptors FO by offering OG a 3 year/$130m deal. OG is still going to be in his prime, and is just an expiring salary by the time Sharpe will be in his max extension. OG is also just an example of what we can do. We could also give overpaid offer sheets to guys like Okungwu. Or draft Bronny, and maximize the cap space to see if Lebron would come here with the possibility of moving of Simmons for a second guy to come here. What are you doing with extra cap space for the time being?
This is off-topic but I didn't want to start yet another topic and was afraid it'd get buried in the Free Agency trade. Highkin mentioned in one of his recent podcasts that, apparently with the new CBA, you can trade for players into TPEs? Does anyone have even the faintest clue how that'd work? Could we combine that with a player to bring back more salary? Might that be why we've done literally nothing in FA yet?
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/2024/ufa/ It's not an overly inspiring list of guys. It it was literally just for cap space, we could (and have MANY times) do worse -- and that's as a generally anti-Pascal guy...
Not interested in Pascal either. But OG is actually a guy we could give a big 3-4 year deal to. He would actually help Scoot/Sharpe/Grant. Someone else mentioned in another thread the possibility of moving Grant to the Cavs for Allen. There seems to be so many more avenues to building a solid team around a small guard this time around.
?? not sure what you're saying. Using a TPE to trade for a player is common. Just have to fit salary into the TPE allowance. The 'old' CB prohibted combining exceptions with players in a trade. Maybe the new CBA has changed that but I don't know Highkin was wrong about when Dame could be traded, so he might not be an expert of the CBA
Sorry, meant MLE -- I just finished the craziest 2 months of my professional life and am absolutely on vacation mode. Things blurring together...
