payitforward wrote:What will the Wizards look like next year?
Given Smith & Meeks picking up their options, which I'd say is 99.99% certain, we have 10 guaranteed contracts for next year at a total of $124.8m. Not including Scott, Frazier or McCullough from our current 13.
That's well into the luxury tax for 2/3 of a roster.
Lets assume that we make our #1 pick. That takes us to $126.6m, further into tax territory, & we still need 3 more guys for a minimum roster or 4 more for a full one.
We've talked about signing Scott for @ $3m. We might be signing Lawson with an option for next year at veteran minimum. I'm sure that's what we're trying to do, at least (as we should). If we don't get Lawson, we might re-sign Frazier instead at the $2m he made this year. Those are Ernie moves. They'd leave us at $131.5m or a little more -- for 13 guys.
I don't see why we'd sign both Lawson & Frazier, so we'd still need 1 or 2 more players. We might make our R2 pick. We might sign Devin Robinson. We might bring back Sheldon Mac. We might even bring back Chris McCullough.
Unless I'm missing something, we can no longer get out of the luxury tax this year -- is that right?
& it also looks like it'll be inevitable next year as well -- unless we make a big move by trading one of Wall/Beal/Porter, or we find someone to eat Mahinmi's contract. Even trading Mahinmi might not do it.
That would make us repeat tax offenders, which adds a penalty. & since it's impossible to imagine avoiding the tax the following year & thereafter for as long as Wall/Beal/Porter are Wizards, I think that big move trade is likely this Summer.
The Wizards will pull out all the stops to avoid the luxtax next year, because they'll be way over the year after and don't want to pay a repeater tax.
I think it's possible that Meeks opts out. He hates his lack of a role here, and he'd only be walking away from $3.5M (at least $1.3M of which he could get back if he signs elsewhere). Smith will stay though, unless he really doesn't care about the money.
I don't think the Wizards will pay more than vet-minimum money for anybody. They certainly won't pay Frazier or Lawson more than the minimum - not when Sato has proven to be an effective backup PG. Scott is the only guy I could see them paying more than the vet minimum, but I doubt they will unless they move somebody. So if we take your $126.6 figure and add 3 vet minimum guys, that $130M. If Meeks is gone (and replaced by a vet minimum guy, that's $128M. The luxtax threshold will be, what, $122M maybe? So, optimistically, they'll need to shed $6M.
They could stretch Smith and turn his $5.4M cap hit into a $1.8M cap hit, but then they'd have to replace his roster spot with another $815,000 vet minimum guy so it's only a $2.8M savings.
It looks like we won't be keeping our 2019 pick. Either that, or they make the Big Move this summer as you suggested. I'm pulling for a John Wall trade, but I expect it to be an Otto Porter trade. I really think a 3-way deal involving LA and Charlotte is just begging to happen (with Wall going to LA, Ball going to Charlotte, and Kemba here, with filler and picks to even things up).
