MartinToVaught wrote:We're not screwed at all if DJ leaves. Our salary-cap woes are done with starting next summer if he walks.
Next summer is a fairly un-inspiring summer of free agents outside of KD. So unless the Clippers have somehow or will somehow become his favored destination, and his foot issues aren't worse than presumed, then the Clippers will have to make some signings and be back in the world of salary cap woes. Considering Carroll got $15 million, Green about $10 million, etc.
Al Horford is probably a guy you would have to spend the lower max to get next off-season. Outside of him you have Hibbert who would command a similar amount, of course we're assuming the Clippers are somehow convincing them to leave their teams who will likely be good teams. At SF, I think the best bet is Batum, but Charlotte will likely give him a sizable contract, so again, depends on him. After that, I'm not sure there's anyone specifically exciting. You have guys like Chandler, J.Green etc who you will likely have to give about $13 million a year themselves.
If the Clippers don't like their options, then the team either has to fill out the roster with the good but not necessarily "high" impact FA players on larger short contracts. Overpay a guy for one year so that you can give him a team option for year 2, then jump back into the market in 2017. You don't want to essentially waste two seasons in Blake and Paul's prime's chasing after cap space and "potential" signings.
So we do have to also consider the downside of not really getting much from this off-season, it's not going to necessarily be easy peasy to just fix it all. Now, the cap space does open up some trade avenues that the Clippers could work with, so there are options, but certainly no guarantees.
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In terms of this off-season, Clippers are over the cap even without DJ. The cap is projected up to $69 million, Clippers will have like $71 million or something in contracts. This gives the MLE, but if that is used, Clippers are hard capped, but the team should be well off, I think the hard cap number will go up to about $88 million.
Probably harder to get a competent C for the minimum than a competent enough SF. So Biyombo for MLE, probably have to re-sign Austin, minimum players for the most part, then hope to trade Crawford for a useful player.
Paul / Redick / ???? / Griffin / Biyombo
Watson? / Rivers / Stephenson / ???? / ????
Insert minimum player or guy Crawford is traded for. Maybe McGee is an option instead?
