I think there's a potential here to start playing things very smartly. Dame's extension won't kick in until the Big Cap Year of 2016-17. That means that even if the whole starting lineup is super-maxed this summer, we would have a close-to-tax year 2015-16 and probably go over in 2016-17, except that that's the big cap (and tax) jump. Who better to pay than people who you know are good, who are for the most part in their prime, and who like it here? The trick is: don't mortgage draft picks now, because you'll have the ability to do the Spurs thing and keep reloading from within (keeping costs low) for your 5-9 guys. Because you can still hit home runs with them (as well as having 9 years of cost control)
Agree with this. I would HATE to lose Rolo but Batum does so much that people just don't see apparently. Our team identity is built around a player SF being an initiator of others and doing the dirty work. With that said there aren't any upgrades for Rolo either that won't take Max.
Gasol or Hibbert. With Gasol you could then get rid of Batum because Gasol can also be used as a distributor on offense.
Sure but those are both Max guys. You made it sound like we can't get rid of Nic without getting someone who is Max (Which I agree with) but we can get someone instead of Rolo easier. Those are also the only two Centers I can think of that we would even want. So very small list for Rolo alternatives.
So for you salary cap gurus - If we do sign Aldridge to a max, and then Wes and Rolo to huge contracts/max as well, where does that leave the team as far as other off-season acquisitions are concerned? And would that hurt our flexibility in the years ahead or no?
Are you implying Hibbert's % is low because teams don't have to guard West and are double-teaming him consistently? I really think your overestimating the gap in offensive ability between Hibbert and Lopez. I don't think it's very substantial, if it even exists. I say this as someone who has Hibbert on his fantasy basketball team Rolo can score, he just doesn't need to as much with this team. Still his ppg are pretty close to Hibberts and at a higher FG%.
we still have the MLE...probably the taxpayer MLE (3.376M). If we used the full MLE (5.46M) then we're hard-capped at the tax line. LMA at 20M, Wes/RoLo at close to max at 16M everyone else under contract at 29M (Nic at 11M, Kaman at 5M, Dame at 4M, CJ/Meyers at ~3M each Blake 2M player option, Crabbe 1M---no Freeland, Wright, or Robinson) comes out to ~81M, which would be close to tax unless there's a huge uptick. So basically, we can keep our top 11 (aside from Freeland) get our #1 pick (~1M) and be right around tax line next year. Or sign Freeland (keeping Blake and Kaman's options), be in the tax, and use the 3.376M taxpayer MLE.
I don't believe he is worth the max. But if it takes maxing him out to retain him, I can think of worse players to give it too. His teammate (Nic) being one of them. One thing you get from always and forever is his heart and toughness. There is no price tag on that.
This, along with the fact that there are more decent Cs in the league than there are SFs. Losing Wes/Nic would set us much further back than losing Rolo/LMA. Right now it's impossible to find good SGs/SFs, but there are plenty of good PGs/PFs/Cs. Also, I agree with a previous post that if we lose in the 1st/2nd round we have to shake the roster up. If we make it to the WCF/Finals then bring everybody back, regardless of the cost.
