Trader_Joe wrote:Coxy wrote:FNQ wrote:
Nails it
It's a bit weird to see fans wanting to improve our offense.. we are #1 there, comfortably. Our defensive rating, which used to be in the top 5, has dropped to 9th, although it has been trending up. That's where the issue is. If we're trading away offense, its not to get offense at a different position, and certainly not to get someone who's had attitude issues. That takes Cousins, Whiteside, and Drummond off the table immediately
Yeah, that's why Gobert is the guy I'd target if Klay is dealt. No way Utah do that though. Other guys like Robin Lopez, Nurkic, Biyombo and maybe even John Henson could be a better target and MAY be reachable without losing Klay.
Don't you need to send out long-term salary like Klay in a trade like that so that you can resign Durant since you don't have Bird Rights?
I don't think so, but I'm certainly no capologist. This piece below explains how they can get around it.
They won’t have his Bird rights by then, and any lowered cap number makes that trickier given their payroll.
But three things to remember in this case, as Curry and Durant both come up for new deals next summer:
1) The Warriors do have Curry’s Bird rights, so they can pay everybody whatever they have to under the cap, keeping Curry at his $16.4M cap hold, and after everybody else is signed–including Durant–THEN give Curry the max above and beyond the cap number.
You can always pay your own Bird rights players whatever it takes… so smart teams add the salary they have to under the cap… and then extend their Bird rights players above and beyond the cap line.
The Warriors might go into the luxury tax by doing this (as they did last season, but won’t in this coming season), but they’ve made a ton of money in the last two seasons.
I think Joe Lacob and Peter Guber can afford going into the luxury tax if that’s how they keep Curry and Durant.
2) If there’s a huge cap jam up next July and the Warriors can’t fit a Durant max, they can always give Durant a 20% raise from his current $26.5M max salary as a non-Bird free agent above and beyond the cap-line.
That’s not quite his max, but pretty good… and if they paid him that way, they would not need to fit it under cap space.
Under this scenario, Durant could opt-out next July and get $31.8M for the following season in another 1 + 1 deal, opt-out again, get another 20% raise to $38.2M and then build 7.5% raises off of that in a new four-year deal starting in July 2018.
That’s complicated. But none of it would have to fit under the cap, and that’s important.
If the Warriors don’t have to fit Durant under the cap next July, they can–for instance–keep Andre Iguodala’s and Shaun Livingston’s cap holds… or negotiate new contracts for beyond 2017 without much concern.
This summer, the Warriors haven’t signed any deals (other than Durant) beyond 2017 specifically because they don’t want to cut into their potential space for Durant’s new contract.
But if they don’t have to worry about that… many other things are possible.
If these projections are correct, Durant’s max next July would be $33.6M.
If he opted-out again, that max number isn’t projected to go much higher… in other words, there wouldn’t be a large
difference between his true max (which would necessitate cap space) and the 20% raise (which doesn’t use cap space).
Maybe it comes to this for Durant: The Warriors might need to either sacrifice Livingston or Iguodala to give Durant the full max (with cap space)… or he could take a little bit less (with the 20% raise not using cap space) and they could keep both.
3) Warriors management just figured out how to add Durant to their core four group by opening up a max slot and moving a handful of players while everybody else in the league looked on.
You think the Warriors couldn’t figure out a way to fit Durant next July? They would. They’re already planning for this. They’re good at planning.
Another thing: The lowered number is just a projection for a year from now and it has already changed once.
So essentially, if we don't add any payroll, then it should work out just fine. If there were some sort of Gobert deal, we would likely have to send out another player as well (Zaza maybe). Nothing is for certain though, and the extent of the success of this team this season will determine Durant's head space moving forward.
It's moot though, as the Jazz aren't giving up Gobert. They have Hayward, Hood and Hill for the wings.
