Projected Salaries Breakdown

[Rafael122]

Adding a guy like Kirilenko could make us competitive. Very competitive acutally. I think he'd be a clear upgrade over Miller & Howard. When you throw acquing another late lottery pick, we could look like this:

A clear upgrade? I don't see it, it's a push at best. I'd take the versatility of Miller & Howard over Kirilenko any day.

With the starting lineup that's starting to emerge I think the biggest concern has to be center.

Against the teams that feature traditional centers Washington has a significant matchup problem. The biggest priority has to be find a competent center to take the pressure of McGee.

AK could guard the 3-5 positions. How is that not versatile? We'd be lethal rebounding wise. Are you kidding me...who would dare get into the paint with McGee and AK manning that?

[verbal8]

I no longer want Hinrich. This team needs an up-tempo, penetrating PG. I like Lowry best. Or maybe a "Bring us Your Dead" trade involving Indy and TJ Ford or New Orleans and Collison.

I think TJ Ford could be an interesting idea. However between Ford and Arenas it would tie up over 25 million in the PG position.

[Spence]

I no longer want Hinrich. This team needs an up-tempo, penetrating PG. I like Lowry best. Or maybe a "Bring us Your Dead" trade involving Indy and TJ Ford or New Orleans and Collison.

I think TJ Ford could be an interesting idea. However between Ford and Arenas it would tie up over 25 million in the PG position.

I don't know, but I suspect Nate is adding a mental preamble that Arenas would be off the team in some fashion.

[LyricalRico]

Instead of adding Peja+first, I wouldn't mind adding Ford+Foster+first. We get two stop-gap starters (assuming Gil is gone) and a higher pick. The problem is that the Pacers are only barely over the luxury tax and can get probably get under it without giving up the pick.

[Hoopalotta]

I no longer want Hinrich. This team needs an up-tempo, penetrating PG. I like Lowry best. Or maybe a "Bring us Your Dead" trade involving Indy and TJ Ford or New Orleans and Collison.

Hinrich looked awful the other night on the offensive end and I like the uptempo identity for us. He 'sets the tone', but his athleticism seems to have declined a lot.

I could still see Hiney if we could get two first round picks out of Chicago AND we move Arenas AND then also nabbed a little point guard to split the minutes with him, but we have to get good compensation for $17 million of Hinrich. Da Bulls picked up some kind of a future first from Charlotte in the Ty Thomas deal, but even that might not be enough.

Collison and Lowry would be nice pickups, but I can't shake the feeling that both guys would breakdown if you played them 36 minutes for 82 games a year. I think there's lot of points like that (Calderon, Ford, Jennings, J-Jack, Ridnour, etc.). I would see us needing to protect either of those guys with a rotation swing guard who moves between the two slots or just a platoon situation with a high quality backup. I like Lowry as the better defender and tougher player, but Collison has cagey start-n'-stop moves combined with that quickness, but his athletic strengths are more in quickness than anything else (Lowry on the other hand seems incredibly strong for his size). I still don't know what the ceiling is on DC, but I expect that there's a certain cap there and his stock might be a bit overly high now.

At this point, I think Collison is going to be expensive to acquire as far as the bad contracts that the Hornets would want us to take back. Consider that if we took back Stojakovic with Lil' Darren, say, for Nick Young, it would be like 1 year of Peja @ $2 million and Darren for 3 years @ $14.5 million with the rights to match after that (well, if my math is correct). It's not a terrible deal really, and probably comparable to what we'd pay to sign Lowry outright, but it is expensive in the short term. I'd love to think we could get him by taking on Mo-Pete, but I see the Hornets asking for a quite a lot.

I like uptemo guards though, yes, especially in conjunction with a younger long term guy who can bring what Howard was doing before he got hurt.

[Hoopalotta]

Thanks for the feedback on those scenarios, Verbal.

Chicago – I think they'd love to move Hinrich (2 years @ $8.5 & $9) or Deng (you don't even want to know how much money). They'd probably kick in their middle rounder to move Hinrich, but I don't see that as being enough or working with Arenas. Should Arenas go, I could see that working for us though.

They might be a landing zone for Arenas. Hinrich and Deng actually may not be a bad swap. I think they are only interested in Arenas if they sign a max guy.

That's definitely an interesting angle, I could see Gil playing next to Rose better than Wade could in some ways just due to the shooting. I don't think I could take back both Deng and Hinrich though, it only saves about $13 million and I'm wondering if Gil won't be easier to move than Deng. At least Gil is a first option, Deng's about a third option and has similar injury history.

I could see a scenario where Chicago signs Boozer or David Lee and has room to take Gil from us while giving up just Hinrich in a lopsided deal. If those deals started around $10+ million, it should fit.

That would work for me.

[LyricalRico]

^ Yeah, I wouldn't take Deng. I just looked at his deal and dude is making Danny Granger money. Yikes! But I do like Hinrich-for-Gil and just letting Chicago absorb the rest of the deal with their cap space. That's probably the only scenario where Hinrich's contract would be acceptable under our new plan.

[likwitdesi]

I no longer want Hinrich. This team needs an up-tempo, penetrating PG. I like Lowry best. Or maybe a "Bring us Your Dead" trade involving Indy and TJ Ford or New Orleans and Collison.

Hinrich looked awful the other night on the offensive end and I like the uptempo identity for us. He 'sets the tone', but his athleticism seems to have declined a lot.

I could still see Hiney if we could get two first round picks out of Chicago AND we move Arenas AND then also nabbed a little point guard to split the minutes with him, but we have to get good compensation for $17 million of Hinrich. Da Bulls picked up some kind of a future first from Charlotte in the Ty Thomas deal, but even that might not be enough.

Collison and Lowry would be nice pickups, but I can't shake the feeling that both guys would breakdown if you played them 36 minutes for 82 games a year. I think there's lot of points like that (Calderon, Ford, Jennings, J-Jack, Ridnour, etc.). I would see us needing to protect either of those guys with a rotation swing guard who moves between the two slots or just a platoon situation with a high quality backup. I like Lowry as the better defender and tougher player, but Collison has cagey start-n'-stop moves combined with that quickness, but his athletic strengths are more in quickness than anything else (Lowry on the other hand seems incredibly strong for his size). I still don't know what the ceiling is on DC, but I expect that there's a certain cap there and his stock might be a bit overly high now.

At this point, I think Collison is going to be expensive to acquire as far as the bad contracts that the Hornets would want us to take back. Consider that if we took back Stojakovic with Lil' Darren, say, for Nick Young, it would be like 1 year of Peja @ $2 million and Darren for 3 years @ $14.5 million with the rights to match after that (well, if my math is correct). It's not a terrible deal really, and probably comparable to what we'd pay to sign Lowry outright, but it is expensive in the short term. I'd love to think we could get him by taking on Mo-Pete, but I see the Hornets asking for a quite a lot.

I like uptemo guards though, yes, especially in conjunction with a younger long term guy who can bring what Howard was doing before he got hurt.

I want us to acquire BOTH Collison and Lowry this offseason. They complement each other very well and would give us a nice PG combo

[likwitdesi]

My plan is a Melo-centric strategy (sign in 2011) predicated on the following:

Priority #1 Find a way to dump Gil

As a couple of you guys have pointed out the teams that are going to get desperate after they lose out on LeBron/Wade/etc are going to need to bring in a star to appease their fans. I think Gil is that guy, especially with the Knicks who have bet everything.

Priority #2 Acquire some young top-of-the-line role players at reasonable prices that complement our current pieces

One of you guys stated that the center market is dead this offseason. I have two words for that: Yiannis Bouroussis. This guy is the top center in Europe and is a highly skilled young (26) player who is looking to come to the NBA next year. He nearly signed with the Spurs last year. Euro free agents generally enter the NBA on 3-year deals worth around 3 mil per. I think we need to totally get in on this and pitch to him that he would have the chance to be the starting center here. He really would be a great complement to Blatche.

Another guy we should pursue is Josh Childress. Some of you are saying that we should offer Howard (maybe no longer) or Miller a 3-year deal worth 21 mil. I'd rather offer that to Childress and I don't see Atlanta matching with their focus being on Joe Johnson. Is Childress worth 7 mil a year? Well, the MLE represents the average salary and Childress was absolutely an above-average player when he was in the league before. In Europe, he has gone on to improve his perimeter game a bit too. He is ridiculously efficient, a good defender, truly understands the game, has great intangibles, and is a teammate of Bouroussis. So, if you can land Childress, you could also potentially land Bouroussis.

The third role player we should pursue is Lowry. I think if you have been reading this board enough, you know why.

Priority #3 Acquire picks/young players with the Bring on the Dead strategy

At this point, if we can successfully dump Gil and sign these 3, we should have enough room to take on a couple bad deals to take on young talent. At this juncture, I would absolutely be willing to take on Peja's contract in exchange for Collison. If Thornton can continue to up his stock, we can throw him to get NOH to bite (NOH does need a SF).

If we can do all this (which is doable), we would have a core of Melo, Blatche, Collison, Childress, Lowry, McGee, Bouroussis, a 2010 lotto pick, and a mid 2011 1st (because this team pre-Melo is a playoff team). That, my friends, is a championship team.

[nate33]

Interesting suggestion on Childress. We could sign him to a deal worth just more than the MLE, but with a declining salary so that the long term cap damage is minimized - something like a 3-year deal worth $6M, $5.5M and $5M over the next 3 years respectively.

I wonder if any of the other under-the-cap teams are keeping a watchful eye on Childress.

[AceDegenerate]

Carmelo Anthony, Brand Jordan's Carmelo Anthony is going to sign with the Washington Wizards? Yeah. Okay. But LeBron isn't going to NY guys!!!! lol.

[Rafael122]

Doesn't Atlanta still hold Childress' rights?

Anyway, Nate...question...

If we renounce everyone, does that mean we lose the LLE and MLE? I think I read something on this board about the Knicks, and in order to have max cap space, they have to renounce everyone and everything, including the LLE and MLE.

I ask because I think I've seen enough of Singleton that I'd offer him a 2 year deal at LLE money. He can ball, and is a pretty good hustle player off the bench.

[LyricalRico]

If we renounce everyone, does that mean we lose the LLE and MLE? I think I read something on this board about the Knicks, and in order to have max cap space, they have to renounce everyone and everything, including the LLE and MLE.

Yes, in order to have cap space, you have to renounce all exceptions and cap holds for FAs.

[nate33]

If we renounce everyone, does that mean we lose the LLE and MLE? I think I read something on this board about the Knicks, and in order to have max cap space, they have to renounce everyone and everything, including the LLE and MLE.

Yes, in order to have cap space, you have to renounce all exceptions and cap holds for FAs.

Right. You can't use all your cap room to sign free agents, and then turn around and resign your own free agents with exemptions.

When we resign Singleton, we'll be using raw cap space to do it.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

If we renounce everyone, does that mean we lose the LLE and MLE? I think I read something on this board about the Knicks, and in order to have max cap space, they have to renounce everyone and everything, including the LLE and MLE.

Yes, in order to have cap space, you have to renounce all exceptions and cap holds for FAs.

Right. You can't use all your cap room to sign free agents, and then turn around and resign your own free agents with exemptions.

When we resign Singleton, we'll be using raw cap space to do it.

http://www.shamsports.com/content/pages ... -deals.jsp

Between Howard's team option, Ilgauskas's $12 million expiring (after a trade kicker), the incumbent big expirings of Mike James and Mike Miller, plus the smaller ones of Oberto, Singleton, Randy Foye and Javaris Crittenton, the Wizards now have only 6 players under contract for next season;

Gilbert Arenas - $17,730,693
Andray Blatche - $3,260,331
Al Thornton - $2,814,196
Nick Young - $2,630,503
JaVale McGee - $1,601,040
Quinton Ross - $1,146,337 (player option)
Total = $29,183,000.

When factoring cap holds of roughly $4.5 million for their own first round pick and for the one they obtained from Cleveland in exchange for Jamison, plus cap charges for having too small of a roster, the Wizards will have roughly maximum cap room available next season.

sham's covered all the moves the Wizards have made over the EG years in that article.