<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">If you haven't seen it yet, the Orlando Magic have an offseason primer set up on their Web site, talking about the draft, free agency and their upcoming summer league. Based on what they have told Sentinel reporters Tim Povtak and Brian Schmitz and what they say in their online question-and-answer session with Magic GM Otis Smith and Vice President of Basketball Administration Scott Herring, they don't plan to try to move into the first round of the draft and just will make their two second-round selections. That would indicate that the key to their offseason upgrades will be free agency, not the draft. The Magic give no hints that they might make a big move to change the franchise on draft night as they have in the past. Of course, they have surprised fans before -- like the year they ignited a franchise-changing summer by trading Horace Grant for the draft rights to Corey Maggette and in 2004 when they made a deal with the Denver Nuggets to obtain Jameer Nelson to pair with Dwight Howard. So you never can rule it out. All the trade talk leading up to the draft seems to suggest that some big moves will be made by some teams on draft night, though -- and those deals might not necessarily involve the draft. You can read the Magic's entire question-and-answer session here. But to hit the high points: -- The Magic likely will take the best players available. They are drafting 44th and 54th, meaning it's going to be difficult to tell who still will be available when they pick. That makes it tough to draft for need. The Sentinel also has reported in the past that they are not likely to try to get a first-round pick this year because that player would receive a guaranteed contract, and the Magic need the salary-cap space for free agency. -- Since the Magic don't have a first-round pick this year after giving it up in the deal that brought Darko Milicic and Carlos Arroyo to Orlando, it's understandable that there hasn't been much news about the team bringing in prospects for workouts. Smith reveals here, though, that even in the traditional draft years, he and assistant GM Dave Twardzik put more emphasis on the players' body of work leading up to the draft process and interviews they conduct with the players to get to know them as people than on individual or two-on-two workouts. -- Teams can begin talking to free agents on July 1 but cannot begin signing free agents or even extending their own free agents until July 11. For those of you who have been asking, Herring tries to explain how it will be determined exactly how much money the Magic have to spend in free agency. Right now, they can't tell you for sure, and no, it's not a big conspiracy. They won't even know for certain until the salary cap is set by the NBA for next season because that will tell them the most money they can spend and it could set some parameters for what Milicic can get paid. For those of you confused about the salary cap because of the numbers posted on hoopshype.com, I think I can explain some of that confusion. If you look at the Magic's salaries, you can see some listed in different colors. If you add up the individual listed salaries, the total listed at the bottom of the chart does not include the salaries of one of two things -- either the players with player options on their contracts or Darko Milicic's qualifying offer. For the Magic, that would be Keyon Dooling and Pat Garrity. They picked up their options this week, so if the numbers listed on this salary chart are correct (and teams, in general, won't confirm the numbers), you have to add Dooling's $3.596 million deal and Garrity's $3.818 million deal to the total listed. So, if you add their more than $7.4 million in contracts to the $39 million total listed, that would be about $46.4 million. Last year's salary cap was more than $53 million, so that would leave them less than $7 million more under the salary cap. Now, the salary cap likely will go up, but probably not more than $3 million or so a year. -- If it's Darko's qualifying offer that is not included, you have to add in what Darko is going to get paid. Hoopshype.com lists Darko's salary at $6.810 million. That is the value of the qualifying offer that keeps him as a restricted free agent. However, in terms of figuring the salary cap, Darko could count as much as three times a designated salary against the salary cap until he actually is signed to a contract. That means he would have a much bigger "hold'' against the salary cap until they know exactly what the value of his contract will be. If he signs a contract that starts at more than $6.810 million, that additional amount also will cut into the cap space. At the very least, he would count $6.810 million. -- Another factor will be how the Magic handle the free agency of Grant Hill, Travis Diener and Bo Outlaw. The Magic must renounce their rights to those players, or those players must sign with another team, before a "hold'' in the Magic's cap space is removed based on what those players made last year and what they could be paid by the Magic if they sign them to new contracts. Basically, it's all pretty complicated. A lot of people are confused by the salary cap and luxury tax, and some think that teams can spend whatever they want but just don't want to pay the luxury tax. In the NBA, that's not really the case. If you try to create salary cap space to sign free agents outright at more than the midlevel exception (which any team can offer to one player each summer if they are over the salary cap), you have to get below the salary cap. The reason you would want to do that is so you can offer more money than all the other teams, which in most cases is likely to make your offer more attractive. In general, once your payroll gets below the cap, the only ways to add payroll above the cap is to get your payroll up to the cap, give your own players with two or more years with the team raises within the limits allowed by the NBA, sign players to the midlevel (available every year) and biannual exceptions (available every other year). These are exceptions teams are allowed by the NBA to exceed the salary cap and add talent to your team, but you have to be over the cap to take advantage of them. Or you can make a trade with a team and take back slightly more salary in the deal, but if you are over the cap, the value of the contracts traded must, in that particular year, be within 25 percent of each other under the rules of the collective bargaining agreement. It's not like in baseball, which does not have a salary cap. The NBA has set these rules to try to keep all the teams competitive -- not allowing one team to "buy'' a championship. You might wonder how teams like the Knicks and Mavs get such big payrolls then. They do it by staying over the salary cap (thus taking them out of free agency except for the midlevel exception), giving their own players big raises (sometimes over their value to the rest of the league), and signing players to the midlevel exception pretty much every year. They can keep them high by making trades that add years to the players they have making big salaries. For instance, when the Magic traded Steve Francis to the Knicks for Penny Hardaway's contract and Trevor Ariza, Hardaway's $18 million per year or so contract was expiring in the year the deal was made. So that much money came off the Magic's books last season. But Francis still had four years left on his contract. The Knicks would have dropped $18 million (I'm estimating, not sure of the exact dollar figure) from their payroll if they had decided to let Hardaway's contract expire. Instead, they are paying a lower amount to Francis (starting at about $12 million) for four additional years. The Magic have been over the salary cap pretty much since they signed Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady to contracts in 2000. In some of those years, they paid the luxury tax. They could be looking at dipping below the salary cap this year to be able to try to sign a free agent, but it won't be long before they will be back over the cap. If Milicic re-signs, his salary is expected to go up significantly. They are expected to sign a free agent or trade for a player that would put their payroll at least at the salary cap. And starting next summer, Dwight Howard's salary is going to basically double if he signs a contract extension this summer as expected. Of course, they will have other free agents then, too, and how they handle those deals will determine their payroll and how flexible they will be within the salary cap rules moving forward. If you are a longtime follower of the NBA, in a previous collective bargaining agreement, teams had salary "slots'' for some players. So if you traded a player with a big salary number for one with a smaller number, that gave you a big salary "slot'' with which to sign a player even if you were over the cap. Those "slots'' were eliminated in later collective bargaining agreements and no longer exist. I hope I haven't confused you even more. Part of the reason the salary cap is not discussed more is it is very complicated with a lot of intricacies. People's eyes can start to glaze over when you start talking about the details because most people just want to enjoy the game, not have to deal with how you get those players on the court.</div> Source Wow, that was a lot to take in.
