However, I have some very good news for Suns fans. The more you understand about cap holds, the more you will see the genius behind waiting to re-sign Eric Bledsoe until after next summer's feeding frenzy.
Bledsoe's "cap hold" while he is a restricted free agent is only $6.57 million. No matter how big the offer he gets, the Suns only have to keep $6.57 million in cap room available to match any offer from another team.
"From the Suns' perspective," Suns President Lon Babby said to Paul Coro of azcentral.com last week regarding not extending Bledsoe just yet, "It needs to be considered from the context that Eric will be a restricted free agent in the summer, which gives us matching rights. In the end, it seemed prudent to wait until July. In the meantime, we will be rooting for Eric to have a great season."
Babby later confirmed to me that "We can match an offer sheet with Bird rights. Salary in offer sheet is included in team salary once team gives right of first refusal exercise notice."
So not only do the Suns have the right to match any offer, they don't even have to have all the cap space to do it (just the cap hold), while the signing team needs every penny of the offered salary. The Suns can use their Bird Rights on Bledsoe to exceed the cap to re-sign him (for anything bigger than his cap hold).
Now you can see more reason why the Suns waited and why Bledsoe waited as well. Bledsoe will still get every penny, and then some, without strapping the Suns cap future yet. In the two weeks or so it takes to match a Bledsoe offer next July, the Suns will have $4-7 million more dollars to spend in free agency (the difference between his cap hold and the likely offer amount).
Clever.
And by just doing a little more creative finagling to reduce cap number even further, the Suns could offer a mini-max contract to a free agent small forward or power forward (whichever hole remains after the draft) to pair with a re-signed Eric Bledsoe and the returning young core.
Imagine this current Suns team with a top-5 pick AND a top free agent next summer to fill the forward spots around Len/Plumlee and Dragic/Bledsoe/Goodwin. The best free agents will be restricted (like Bledsoe, 2010 draftees) who were not extended this fall, two of whom are named Gordon Hayward and Greg Monroe.
Even if the Suns don't want to spend all that money next summer, depending on trades between now and then, why tie up the money when you don't have to do it? Better to stay flexible as long as possible.
In the end, the Suns are in better shape than you might have thought next summer.
http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2013/ ... adds-up-to
