Infinity2152 wrote:Everybody entitled to their own opinion
. Like vet min is not going to be $4mill in 2026. Quick AI check came up with $3.9 mill, if you have a more accurate prediction, please share it if that's an important point to correct.
It's not a prediction. Just FYI, AI information is very, very routinely completely wrong on anything remotely technically related. The actual numbers are:
$ 1,361,969 = league minimum and amount of open roster spot cap holds (the number that matters for cap space discussions)
$2,457,009 = amount of the vet minimum for a guy with two years of experience. this is the cap hit for any vet minimum deal, including one for a guy with 10 years of experience, which is the $3,888,537 that AI failed with.
be If you think we're likely to have a bunch of $1-3 mill players, feel free to hold that thought. We're going into the summer projected to be a top cap team, just right for signing a ton of minimum contracts, lol. Half of the remaining 6-7 players make $5.7 mill or less already.
The point of him being worth a lot more to other teams is vital in the logic of retaining him as a trade asset. Particularly at team-friendly, read "bargain" deal. Re-sign Ayo, both Ayo and Tre Jones are trade assets in the summer.
I don't know why we WOULDN"T be thinking about role players when we expect 9 known roster spots. We're not adding 9 starters. I think your feeling that you can just get an equivalent guy for cheap weighs into this. Unless you think Huerter or Collins get $6-$10 mill next year, not really relevant. Long term is also relative, 3 yrs with team option year three I wouldn't consider long term at all. That's one more guaranteed year than you're suggesting with a one year deal for a 25 year old. How old are Huerter and Collins?
Because we need impact players and can easily get depth later AFTER we're capped out. I wouldn't be surprised if Huerter and Collins get less than 6-10 mil. They were throw-ins for a reason. It's VERY common for guys to get overpaid on their second deal, flame out, and be journeymen making at or near league minimum going forward. I'm not sure what you're referring to with the one year deal.
Doesn't appear you have a good view of Ayo at all, but he's played damn near starter minutes the last two years. I guess you could find a guy Billy is comfortable playing 30 minutes for $7 mill, but I wouldn't bet on it. Again, Ayo is just 25 and had season ending surgery last year, didn't he? What I don't see is how signing him to a team friendly deal would hamper us more than signing any other player in that price range this summer. We're not going to get four players that's are perfect fits for $8-$10 mill next year. Maybe another long forward would be better, because we don't have those? Starting center for $10-$12 mill?
If we extend him (now), we lose the flexibility to do a bunch of other things with that cap space. Extending him next summer as a FA is a totally different question that may be smart or silly.
Maybe one of the reasons we've been thoroughly mediocre is that a guy like Ayo has been playing starter's minutes for two years?
We already have Okoro locked up for an extra year, so i just feel Ayo needs to be WAY better than him to justify an early extension, because Okoro is the much more flexible deal for us. I agree we're not likely to sign 4 sub-MLE level deals in UFA next summer. That would be insane. If that's the best we can do, we should just sign guys to one year deals to punt on the flexibility for another year, the way we did with guys like Mirotic and Jabari Parker. The worst case is that we regress and do a mini-tank. The problem with punting for a year on free agency flexibility is that it's likely that Coby will still be on a much larger deal than his cap hold will be next summer.
If we don't extend Ayo, he's still here and playing! Not going to affect our record one bit whether or not we extend him, only whether we trade him. He would probably have more trade value if extended than expiring, right? If he's good enough keeping him gets us more wins, maybe that's a player we want to have in 2026 if it's a good deal?
If he's extended, he's going to get entitlement minutes for sure. That's how the league works, and should IMO. If he's not extended, he might not be playing at all. But my concern is long term.
It's just a general philosophy that's very common frankly - don't commit to role players before you have identified a legit core, which we haven't yet.
