Looking at sham's salary page, the Bulls have $77M committed for next season. That's: Rose $17.6M Boozer $15.3M Deng $14.2M Noah $11.1M Taj $7.6M Hinrich $4M Butler $1.1M Teague $1.0M That's for only 8 players signed. Though I think the salary cap and LT thresholds may go up next summer, the safest thing to assume is that it stays the same. The LT threshold is $70.3M. So the Bulls are ~$6.5M over and still have to fill out the roster with 4 players. At minimum salary, those players would take another $3.4M. That puts the Bulls at $9.9M over the LT. Interestingly enough, the LT taxation levels starting next season are: $5M or less (over), tax is $1.50 $5M to $10M, tax is $1.75 $10M to $15M, tax is $2.50 $15M to $25M, tax is $3.25 (I don't know what happens if a team goes > $25M over) So the Bulls sneak in under that $5M to $10M tax rate, $1.75. By $100K. By design, no doubt. Let's start with the Boozer and amnesty situation. The Bulls will owe him $32.1M over the remaining two seasons of his contract. This is what the Chairman has to pay, whether they amnesty him or not. I assume he'd be a nice expiring contract at $16.8M a season later if he's not amnestied. The amnesty scenario removes $15.3M from the Bulls' payroll of $77M, or $61.7M. This leaves the Bulls about $8.3M to sign 5 players to fill out the 12 man roster and stay under the LT. $80.5M + tax of $17.3M = $97.8M (with Boozer) $70M + $15.3M (amnesty tax) = $85.3M So even paying Boozer $32.1M to play PF for Miami saves money. We'd be replacing a ~20 PER player with Belinelli/Mohammed/Radmanovic type reserves to round out the roster. See ya, Booz! So: Rose, Hinrich at guard Noah at center Deng, Gibson at forward with a bench of: Butler, Teague, and 5 end of the bench type players. Maybe the Bulls can bring over Mirotic for cheap. Cheap is the plan!
More thoughts. Bulls will still be paying Boozer's $16.8M final contract year. Deng's contract expires a year later. But if the Bulls can pick up 2 players for $7.1M each who give us a replacement SF (or Deng himself at $7.1M) and a starting SG, the team could be a lot better in 2 seasons. Looking at the lineup of Rose/Hinrich/Deng/Gibson/Noah, it is hard to see that being a championship contender. Consioder: 1) Even Hinrich for Bogans is a downgrade 2) No Asik 3) No Boozer or other 20 PER player to replace him The Bulls can decline the options of Butler and Teague, not resign Deng, and they'd be at the salary cap. No FAs for the Bulls. Reinsdorf will be $25M richer. Yay
Seems like the Bulls' payroll just keeps going up and up. Good to see that we can all still agree that Reinsdorf remains a cheap SOB. As I've opined before, in order to bring Mirotic over, the Bulls will need to put their payroll in a position that allows them to offer the full mid-level exception. This means that they'll need to get their cap position to about $69mil. This can't be done without erasing one or more of the team's high-salary players (Rose, Boozer, Noah, Deng and Gibson). Since Mirotic projects to be a PF, the Boozer amnesty route stands out among the alternatives. Last I heard, Mirotic most likely won't come over until the 2014-15 season. One technical note is that, if Boozer is amnestied, the amount the Bulls must pay him is reduced by what he receives from another team (likely in the $5mil neighborhood).
If they intend to stay below the LT threshold, they'll need to get rid of two of the high-salary players. The bench crew will become even motlier. If "motlier" is an actual word
