RealGM

Cap Question here...

Let's say we have Kobe at 24m, Nash at 9m Sacre and Young at 2m.
That puts us at 35m...if we sign a max player to 20m
That gets us to 55m... Leaving us with about 3-5m under the cap.

I know we have bird rights to Pau but do we renounce them by signing a max player?

And can we still offer our other young talent more than the NBA minimum at that point?

If we still keep Pau's Bird Rights then why didn't we sign Kobe until after we signed 2 max players.

Reason I ask is because I'm really liking some of the young talent we have and would like to keep some of them .. Namely Farmar, Johnson, Hill and Henry

I go through the cap possibilities with Melo here: http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1286580&start=225

To answer your questions, you need to consider cap holds in such calculations, so it isn't just a straight salary calculation. Almost everyone on the roster not already with a guaranteed contract would need to be renounced in order to have enough $ under the cap to sign Melo + Hill. With the emergence of Sacre, who is already under contract next season, Hill may not be in the FO plans. If not, he would likely be renounced to remove his cap hold. Pau has a huge cap hold, and there is no $ available if a max salary slot is saved. Thus, Pau will be renounced if he hasn't been traded or signed elsewhere as a FA.

I'm not sure what the answer is to your question regarding Kobe's bird rights (after potentially signing 2 MAx players) but I'm pretty sure that would have been possible before the recent CBA.

I thought this was going to be a question about Kareem.

One thing that people seem to miss all the time is that when a team holds bird rights to a player, that player automatically counts as 150% of his previous salary (or max salary, whichever is lower) against the cap as a cap hold. the only way to get them off the cap is to renounce them, which means you can only sign them back with cap space, or to sign them to an actual contract in which case his actual salary replaces his bird rights cap hold. that latter part applies to kobe. kobe would have counted as 30mil+ on the cap if he became a free agent, now he'll only count as 23 mil or whatever his salary will be next yr, i don't remember exactly.

going into the offseason, if pau is still on the roster, he will count as 20mil against the cap. before the lakers even think about going after a max free agent, they will have to come to an agreement with pau to a much smaller contract so that his actual salary replaces the 20mil cap hold, or they'll have to decide to renounce his bird rights.

Good point on the Kobe contract Doc, thanks.

It's really tough to try to come up with a number on Pau... I have no idea what he'll be earning. And I'm not sure if he just needs his contract situation figured out, or if he needs a change of scenery...

I still think we'll trade him. But who knows.

Kilroy wrote:Good point on the Kobe contract Doc, thanks.

It's really tough to try to come up with a number on Pau... I have no idea what he'll be earning. And I'm not sure if he just needs his contract situation figured out, or if he needs a change of scenery...

I still think we'll trade him. But who knows.

That's the thing about Pau though.

It's tough to know what's been going on with him for 3 seasons. Ever since the playoffs with Dallas he's been oscillating between washed up, injured, or disengaged. It's almost to the point where the "bad" times with Pau have been as plentiful as the good, at least in terms of seasons...the way he's playing now, he's playing his way off this team, but out of a trade.

It's too bad, because I love the guy, he's only 33, but man it's hard to keep making excuses for him. He literally cannot post up right now, which is shocking because the guy has been dubbed "the most talented big man" since he came to LA.

I guess he'd be a great tank commander for an eastern bottom feeder.