How much cap space is left?

[Vae Victus]

By my reckoning using Capulator, the Clips have 3m cap leftover, before the PG13 trade, and before the caphold PatBev, Zubac, and MacGruder re-signings then topped off with a JaGreen Room Exception re-signing.

NewEra, i think, on the general board in the JaMychal Green re-signing thread, says the Clips have 4.4mil left.

Anyone know for sure whats left? I'm pretty sure my number is correct, but i'm just wondering if im missing something.

3-4.4mil, either figure is the perfect number to go get a true backup vet PG. Cmon Jeremy Lin, Los Angeles is beckoning to give you another chance to save your career, and to stick it to the Lakers for your crappy treatment there. Would be great to have another true PG that can load manage PatBev so as to minimize the risk for injury for him (he ALWAYS gets hurt, its why im surprised he got as much as he did).

Also would be a helluva story for LA's Asian fans (of which i am one) to bring Lin back and see him have a late career renaissance.

I spoke JaMychal Green for Room Exception into existence. By the bball gods im gonna speak Lin for whatever is left into existence

[esqtvd]

for what it's worth
says he works for USAToday

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[QRich3]

They should stop looking for ways to spend those 4 million and instead front load Bev, Zubac and McGruder’s contracts. The room will be more needed in years after than in a 3rd string PG now.

[esqtvd]

By my reckoning using Capulator, the Clips have 3m cap leftover, before the PG13 trade, and before the caphold PatBev, Zubac, and MacGruder re-signings then topped off with a JaGreen Room Exception re-signing.

NewEra, i think, on the general board in the JaMychal Green re-signing thread, says the Clips have 4.4mil left.

Anyone know for sure whats left? I'm pretty sure my number is correct, but i'm just wondering if im missing something.

3-4.4mil, either figure is the perfect number to go get a true backup vet PG. Cmon Jeremy Lin, Los Angeles is beckoning to give you another chance to save your career, and to stick it to the Lakers for your crappy treatment there. Would be great to have another true PG that can load manage PatBev so as to minimize the risk for injury for him (he ALWAYS gets hurt, its why im surprised he got as much as he did).

Also would be a helluva story for LA's Asian fans (of which i am one) to bring Lin back and see him have a late career renaissance.

I spoke JaMychal Green for Room Exception into existence. By the bball gods im gonna speak Lin for whatever is left into existence

you're right, we need a PG
Pat and Lou are not true PGs

having an Asian guy would be great for marketing
but Lin's asst/TO ratio is under 2-to-1 lifetime [4.3/2.3]

we need somebody with handles

there's a reason Toronto is letting him walk

https://raptorsrapture.com/2019/03/13/toronto-raptors-worry-jeremy-lin/3/

So far, Jeremy Lin has been atrocious offensively. He’s shooting poorly, turning it over more than he dishes it out, and the team has struggled whenever he is on the court. Not much positive to gather.

His playmaking isn’t much better. Lin’s AST% is just 16.2, significantly below point guards Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry, and even slightly below Delon Wright. Despite playing with much more shooting and other capable offensive weapons, Lin’s assists have dropped since coming to Toronto.

He continues to turn the ball over at a somewhat high rate. His AST/Turnover ratio is worse than a few non-point guards like Pascal Siakam and Marc Gasol. That’s not good.

His 2.8 turnovers per 36 minutes are a slight reduction from his time in Atlanta. Turnovers have followed Lin throughout his career, and at this point, are probably something you just need to deal with.

His individual statistics are worrisome. However, the impact he has had on the team’s offense is even worse. With Lin on the court, the Raptors are scoring 19.1 fewer points per 100 possessions.

The offense is shooting horribly with him on the court and turning it over at an alarming rate.

[esqtvd]

They should stop looking for ways to spend those 4 million and instead front load Bev, Zubac and McGruder’s contracts. The room will be more needed in years after than in a 3rd string PG now.

My understanding is, once you blow past the cap, you're never getting back under it again until your megasalaries leave. That's why Bird rights are everything to us right now--you can re-sign your own guys without limit. So might as well just blow it all up bigtime.

That $4M will never tip the balance except maybe for the luxury tax, which to Ballmer is tip money and which he'll be paying very soon and then for the foreseeable future. We don't really have to think about getting outbid for Trezz next summer. JaMychal too, after he opts out as expected. If they want to stay, it's done.

It seems to me the strategy should be to get people's Bird rights under our roof now if we think we might want to keep them long-term.

[Vae Victus]

He had a bad run with TOR, that I’m willing to chalk up to not having a training camp together. For all intents and purposes he seems like a system PG who great at working his way into a role when given time to work with his teammates.

He had a great stretch with ATL after he shook off some rust from missing season and I’m willing to bet that he’s prolly gonnaxsettle somewhere around a high end back up PG level.

I mean PG spot is thin and there’s nothing left on the market. If PatBev suffers an injury, which isn’t inconceivable, it’s best to have some veteran insurance to let him rest and rehab proper than rush him back at a lesser easier to injure state. Especially when the team has a window to win it all.

[esqtvd]

He had a bad run with TOR, that I’m willing to chalk up to not having a training camp together. For all intents and purposes he seems like a system PG who great at working his way into a role when given time to work with his teammates.

He had a great stretch with ATL after he shook off some rust from missing season and I’m willing to bet that he’s prolly gonnaxsettle somewhere around a high end back up PG level.

I mean PG spot is thin and there’s nothing left on the market. If PatBev suffers an injury, which isn’t inconceivable, it’s best to have some veteran insurance to let him rest and rehab proper than rush him back at a lesser easier to injure state. Especially when the team has a window to win it all.

well, Lin had an OK January before ATL dumped him

12 ppg/4.8 apg/ 2.3 TO per game

but that's still a lot of TOs for 23 mpg


I agree we should have somebody in the wings, though

[madmaxmedia]

They should stop looking for ways to spend those 4 million and instead front load Bev, Zubac and McGruder’s contracts. The room will be more needed in years after than in a 3rd string PG now.

My understanding is, once you blow past the cap, you're never getting back under it again until your megasalaries leave. That's why Bird rights are everything to us right now--you can re-sign your own guys without limit. So might as well just blow it all up bigtime.

That $4M will never tip the balance except maybe for the luxury tax, which to Ballmer is tip money and which he'll be paying very soon and then for the foreseeable future. We don't really have to think about getting outbid for Trezz next summer. JaMychal too, after he opts out as expected. If they want to stay, it's done.

The only thing I'm wondering, is if we don't go over the cap this year will it help in a subsequent year to prevent or delay repeater tax? I think it's one for any owner to say their committed to winning in general, a different thing when it becomes more specific- like paying $4 on the dollar to re-sign a key veteran player, where if you keep him you are in effect paying him say $40M a year due to luxury and/or repeater tax.

Winning this year should be the priority, but I think our FO is going to be strategic as well. So far (knock on wood) we've had nothing blow up in our faces, because I think we've been careful about short and long term impact of all our moves.

[madmaxmedia]

He had a bad run with TOR, that I’m willing to chalk up to not having a training camp together. For all intents and purposes he seems like a system PG who great at working his way into a role when given time to work with his teammates.

He had a great stretch with ATL after he shook off some rust from missing season and I’m willing to bet that he’s prolly gonnaxsettle somewhere around a high end back up PG level.

I mean PG spot is thin and there’s nothing left on the market. If PatBev suffers an injury, which isn’t inconceivable, it’s best to have some veteran insurance to let him rest and rehab proper than rush him back at a lesser easier to injure state. Especially when the team has a window to win it all.

I agree you can't discount him too much after his very short stint in Toronto. I don't know exactly what he has left, but he would play better with a full training camp and signed on for a year. He has experience and I think understands what his role would be, and how to maximize his impact.

It's a shame he never developed a consistent jumper, a 35-35% 3FG shot would have done wonders for his career. But anyway here we are, and I'd take a flyer on him for the right price.

[esqtvd]

They should stop looking for ways to spend those 4 million and instead front load Bev, Zubac and McGruder’s contracts. The room will be more needed in years after than in a 3rd string PG now.

My understanding is, once you blow past the cap, you're never getting back under it again until your megasalaries leave. That's why Bird rights are everything to us right now--you can re-sign your own guys without limit. So might as well just blow it all up bigtime.

That $4M will never tip the balance except maybe for the luxury tax, which to Ballmer is tip money and which he'll be paying very soon and then for the foreseeable future. We don't really have to think about getting outbid for Trezz next summer. JaMychal too, after he opts out as expected. If they want to stay, it's done.

The only thing I'm wondering, is if we don't go over the cap this year will it help in a subsequent year to prevent or delay repeater tax? I think it's one for any owner to say their committed to winning in general, a different thing when it becomes more specific- like paying $4 on the dollar to re-sign a key veteran player, where if you keep him you are in effect paying him say $40M a year due to luxury and/or repeater tax.

Winning this year should be the priority, but I think our FO is going to be strategic as well. So far (knock on wood) we've had nothing blow up in our faces, because I think we've been careful about short and long term impact of all our moves.

Well, I think we [Ballmer] are going to be paying the lux tax for the next 4-8 years [starting next year, it looks like], repeater or otherwise. We re-up Trezz and JaMychal next year, and then Lou, Sham and hopefully PG in the years after that.

I added this to my previous post, that since you can re-sign your own players without cap limits

It seems to me the strategy should be to get people's Bird rights under our roof now if we think we might want to keep them long-term.

which would mean looking at younger guys instead of retreads like Dwight Howard.

[madmaxmedia]

My understanding is, once you blow past the cap, you're never getting back under it again until your megasalaries leave. That's why Bird rights are everything to us right now--you can re-sign your own guys without limit. So might as well just blow it all up bigtime.

That $4M will never tip the balance except maybe for the luxury tax, which to Ballmer is tip money and which he'll be paying very soon and then for the foreseeable future. We don't really have to think about getting outbid for Trezz next summer. JaMychal too, after he opts out as expected. If they want to stay, it's done.

The only thing I'm wondering, is if we don't go over the cap this year will it help in a subsequent year to prevent or delay repeater tax? I think it's one for any owner to say their committed to winning in general, a different thing when it becomes more specific- like paying $4 on the dollar to re-sign a key veteran player, where if you keep him you are in effect paying him say $40M a year due to luxury and/or repeater tax.

Winning this year should be the priority, but I think our FO is going to be strategic as well. So far (knock on wood) we've had nothing blow up in our faces, because I think we've been careful about short and long term impact of all our moves.

Well, I think we [Ballmer] are going to be paying the lux tax for the next 4-8 years [starting next year, it looks like], repeater or otherwise. We re-up Trezz and JaMychal next year, and then Lou, Sham and hopefully PG in the years after that.

I added this to my previous post, that since you can re-sign your own players without cap limits

It seems to me the strategy should be to get people's Bird rights under our roof now if we think we might want to keep them long-term.

which would mean looking at younger guys instead of retreads like Dwight Howard.

Right. I guess this year we won't exceed the cap no matter what, because at this point all we can spend is the rest of our cap room and have already re-upped the guys we are retaining.

It seems basically inevitable that if you build a true championship contender, you are gonna run up against the cap within a couple/few years no matter what. Because you had to have received positive ROI on the sum total of your contracts, and once contracts start coming up for renewal you are going to lose some players or pay more for them.

[Vae Victus]

I agree you can't discount him too much after his very short stint in Toronto. I don't know exactly what he has left, but he would play better with a full training camp and signed on for a year. He has experience and I think understands what his role would be, and how to maximize his impact.

It's a shame he never developed a consistent jumper, a 35-35% 3FG shot would have done wonders for his career. But anyway here we are, and I'd take a flyer on him for the right price.

Yea, if Lin had an avg 3pt shot, he'd definitely be the best backup PG on the market and has a chance to walk into some team's starting role. His disappearence of his 3pt shot was truly a mystery, he was always ok from range, so it just cratering out of nowhere like that came literally at the worst time.

Clips wont hit the tax no matter what this year.

Next year is likely to hit the tax when Harrell gets resigned to a sizable deal. Next year is a FA bear market, so whoever is a FA is likely able to cleanup. Harrell will prolly get 12-15mil a year if he has a similar season to last. JaGreen is likely to leave for a larger role and/or more money, or he gets kept for the non tax payer MLE. Clippers will have the full non-tax payer MLE which will prolly be like 10.5mil a year to star. After Harrell and MLE gets signed, they should be in lux tax territory.

However, i do wonder what the lux tax threshold is, and how far the Clips are. Dodging a year of lux tax payments is quite alot of money in the long term. However the Clips MUST re-sign Harrell and get a full MLE role player next year, to keep the window open.

Personally, just spend whatever cap is left for the best PG left on the market. Dont leave things to chance, this team is so deep, it can easily sustain a 30-40 game injury loss to Kawhi or PG13 and not fall behind in the standing. Adding someone like Lin, adds much needed insurance on PatBev and in case Shamet cant stick at PG.

[TrueLAfan]

We’ve got 6 players under 26 on our roster—these are their ages at the beginning of the 2019/20 season:

Harrell (25), Zubac (22), Shamet (22), Robinson (22), Kabengele (22), Mann (23)

Three of those are starters or major rotation players, the other three were just drafted or got drafted last year. We’ve got five other players under 30 on our roster:

Green (29), George (29), Leonard (28), Harkless (26). McGruder (28)

…all starters or top rotation players. And we’ve got a total of two senior citizens on our roster

Pat Beverley (31), Lou Williams (33)

To put it charitably—that’s about 11-13 rotation players on our roster. And we are so deep it kind of amazes me. We may not think of it this way, but we are still young. Our five starters (Beverley, Sham, Leonard, PG, Zubac) average 26.4 years of age. Our five primary bench players—Harkless, Harrell, Lou, and Green—average 28.2 years. That’s our 10 man rotation that will play the vast majority of our minutes. We are not an old team. Not by a long, long shot.

And that means we can maximize our draft money for the remaining spots. According to the CBA, veteran minimum salaries go up through year 10—but the amount counted against the cap stops at year two. In other words, we want two or three vets that will get paid around $5.2=$7.7 million in salary … but only count around $3.2-$4.8 million against the cap.

So I’m going with either Luol Deng or Joakim Noah—or both--along with Devin Harris or Jeremy Lin.

Starters

Zubac
PG
Kawhi
Shamet
Beverley

High rotation

Lou
Trezz
Green
Harkless
McGruder/Robinson

Low Rotation/Bench

McGruder/Robinson
Harris
Kabengele
Deng
Mann

That is a championship level team.

And esqtvd is 100% right about the Bird rights thing. That's why JaMychal is back\. He's the perfect fit for us as a 1500-2000 minute player; he fills the one gap we had. Signing him isn't his best potential deal ... but now we know why he didn't sign somewhere else. He's a one year finals rental. If we make (or win[!]) the finals next year and JaMychal does just what he did last year and has done for the last 4 years--around 9 and 7 in 22-24 mpg with great board work and excellent range to spread the floor and a floorburn attitude--yeah, the Bird rights contract we get him for in 2020 will be 3 years/$30 million. And Ballmer will be totally willing to pay that.

[Vae Victus]

Clippers dont have JaGreen's birds rights. His caphold/bird rights needed to be renounced in order to open up space for the Harkless trade and Kawhi signing. Whereas other players like PatBev, MacGruder, and Zubac, had their capholds held onto and thus allowed to go over the cap to re-sign.

JaGreen, assuming he opts out next year, max salary is like 120% of his previous salary if not using pure cap space (which the team sure as hell aont have), due to not having his bird rights.

It was the same situation as with Boogie with the Dubs. Even if both parties wanted to stay, Boogie couldnt get paid much more than what he signed for.

[esqtvd]

Clippers dont have JaGreen's birds rights. His caphold/bird rights needed to be renounced in order to open up space for the Harkless trade and Kawhi signing. Whereas other players like PatBev, MacGruder, and Zubac, had their capholds held onto and thus allowed to go over the cap to re-sign.

JaGreen, assuming he opts out next year, max salary is like 120% of his previous salary if not using pure cap space (which the team sure as hell aont have), due to not having his bird rights.

It was the same situation as with Boogie with the Dubs. Even if both parties wanted to stay, Boogie couldnt get paid much more than what he signed for.

are you sure?
Lucas Hann is my go-to guy for cap stuff

I think giving him the room exception locks in the Bird rights
our FO is goooooooooood

Read on Twitter

https://www.clipsnation.com/2019/7/8/20686314/jamychal-green-returns-to-clippers-on-the-room-exception

[FlipFlopShot]

Jamal Crawford anyone?

[Vae Victus]

Clippers dont have JaGreen's birds rights. His caphold/bird rights needed to be renounced in order to open up space for the Harkless trade and Kawhi signing. Whereas other players like PatBev, MacGruder, and Zubac, had their capholds held onto and thus allowed to go over the cap to re-sign.

JaGreen, assuming he opts out next year, max salary is like 120% of his previous salary if not using pure cap space (which the team sure as hell aont have), due to not having his bird rights.

It was the same situation as with Boogie with the Dubs. Even if both parties wanted to stay, Boogie couldnt get paid much more than what he signed for.

are you sure?
Lucas Hann is my go-to guy for cap stuff

I think giving him the room exception locks in the Bird rights
our FO is goooooooooood

Read on Twitter

https://www.clipsnation.com/2019/7/8/20686314/jamychal-green-returns-to-clippers-on-the-room-exception

Wuuuut. The whole point of capholds and bird rights is that it really sucks when u renounce them, but thats the price u have to pay to get the cap space. Well ****, i HOPE this is the case, next year reward JaGreen with a 3/36mil deal, so the contract is like a 4/40mil deal all together.

If true, the Clippers FO is DAMN gooood.

Means next year, can re-sign JaGreen AND go after a full MLE role player.

[TrueLAfan]

^^^what esqvtd said. By signing him to a “new” contract, we reinstate control over his Bird rights. Kinda thinking the conversation went like this.

JMG—I can sign a 2 year / $18 million deal on the FA market right now.
Ballmer—You sure can. Or you could sign this 2 year/$10 million deal with us. And we could put in a player option for you for season #2 ... and since we won’t be going after a FA in 2020, we’ll be able to resign you that bigger deal then. At least.
JMG—That might put you in the Luxury Tax.
Ballmer—Do I really seem like I’ll give a crap about that if we’re a championship contender? Who’s the wealthiest owner in the league?
JMG—You are. Got a pen?

[esqtvd]

^^^what esqvtd said. By signing him to a “new” contract, we reinstate control over his Bird rights. Kinda thinking the conversation went like this.

JMG—I can sign a 2 year / $18 million deal on the FA market right now.
Ballmer—You sure can. Or you could sign this 2 year/$10 million deal with us. And we could put in a player option for you for season #2 ... and since we won’t be going after a FA in 2020, we’ll be able to resign you that bigger deal then. At least.
JMG—That might put you in the Luxury Tax.
Ballmer—Do I really seem like I’ll give a crap about that if we’re a championship contender? Who’s the wealthiest owner in the league?
JMG—You are. Got a pen?

This is the Michael Winger zone, I make it. Sal cap genius. Why he and the rest stayed put after getting interest from other clubs--this is what they've worked together for for the past few years and this is the fun part.



BTW, Lucas Hann has some wild--but possible--last-minute ways to get Steven Adams or Marc Gasol. Once Kawhi is officially signed, all flexibility is gone and we're locked in well over the cap [and dang close to the lux tax].

https://www.clipsnation.com/2019/7/8/20686580/nba-off-season-2019-do-the-clippers-big-move-left-steven-adams-marc-gasol-kawhi-leonard-paul-george

[Vae Victus]

I think it's important for the team to be over the cap but not in lux tax at the start of next year's FA. There's a sizable difference between a tax payer and non tax payer MLE (by like 5 mil), which is the entire difference of a high end role player. Thus the team needs to juggle that, so that they can stack on more talent next year.

JaGreen and Harrell are no brainer re-signings next year, but the key is to sign the full non tax payer MLE before the team shoots into the lux tax.