Wait, I'm confused...
With Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis, Jameer Nelson, Mickael Pietrus, and Courtney Lee being the only players locked up through the 2010-2011 season, the Magic could afford the big man.
Combined, Orlando's total committed salary sits at $49,990,263. Compare this to Boston's cap numbers last season ($78,019,509) and you can see that anything is possible. (Sorry KG, I had to.)
To get Bosh, you would have to either sign him outright or do a S&T.
First, could we sign him outright? Absolutely not. To sign another team's FA outright you have to be under the cap and STILL be under (or at) the cap after you pay the new guy (you can't go over the cap like with your own Bird free agents)
As the article says, we're committed to four players -- Howard, Lewis, Nelson, & Pietrus -- for a total of over $48.5 million, pick up the team option on Lee (which you may as well since it's cheap), and you're now at $50 million and you have 5 guys on your team.
The salary cap is projected to be $61 million in 2010, so you have $11 million left to fill 10 roster spots (remember, you need
15 players, not 12). If you want one of those 10 to be Bosh, great, but you still need 9 other guys.
Let's assume we get 9 of the youngest, most inexperienced guys we can find (less years in the league means we can pay them less since minimum salaries are based on service time). You're still looking at at least $800K per guy, or $7.2 million total. So now you can dazzle Chris Bosh with your amazing offer of $3.8 million. Oh yeah, you would also have probably the worst bench in the history of the NBA.
Could we do a S&T? Well, there's a slightly better chance of this since it would allow us to go over the salary cap, but I still feel it's unlikely. The Magic have shown they'll go over the cap, but they have YET to show they'll pay the luxury tax. The luxury tax threshold in 2010 will likely be around $73 million given trends the last few years.
With that in mind, it's theoretically possible to come up with enough dollars to sign Bosh, but you'd still have to employ the "sacrifice any kind of bench, for a great starting 5" approach I mentioned earlier. It sounds great in theory, but I doubt any GM would, in good conscience, employ it.
It also assumes that we would have anything of value to trade to Toronto (possible, depending on how the Hedo situation plays out), and that they would even be willing to deal with us (less likely). For those of you that say they'd do this just to avoid the risk of losing him for nothing, then remember the original Jay Marriotti article:
[Chris] Bosh will flee Toronto and look at Orlando and Western Conference teams.
You don't think Toronto would rather deal with a Western Conference team, as opposed to trading him to a conference rival?
Honestly, I've already overanalyzed this far more than necessary. The simple fact is, Otis would have to decide NOW that he was going to take this impossibly long-shot gamble so he could start employing the necessary "only sign scrubs to the minimum" strategy. We would have to go 2 seasons without making any moves that took on players or salaries via the draft, free agency, or trades, all for a TINY CHANCE that Bosh would agree to come here and that Toronto would be nice and help us make it happen. Any GM that would take that gamble should be fired and then institutionalized.
-Chris
