Hornets Summer 2017 Cap Situation

[yosemiteben]

Curious to see what sort of flexibility the moves we made this summer have left us for Summer 2017 FA. Starting this in hopes that BOB will educate us all. Will post a summary in the OP once we put one together.

[BlackOutBuzz]

I'll need at least until the evening...working late.

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[James Gatz]

Having BoB and an updated 2017 salary cap situation is one of the things I love about this board.

[BlackOutBuzz]

This is in progress, by the way. Just finished an expanded outlook through 2022, this evening I'll have a more focused look at 2017. Promise!

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[BlackOutBuzz]

Alright, first the overall look at the next few years.



Obviously other stuff will go into this, most notably our future draft picks, but it just seems too early to even estimate stuff like that. Generally I'll add in a VLookup that returns the rookie's presumed salaries by typing in the pick they were taken. But, for now, this gives you a general look at the team over the next few years if everything stayed the same.

[BlackOutBuzz]

^That came out smaller than I wanted. Maybe I'll try to re-do it later, but for now my wife is a little annoyed I've spent the last few hours tweaking these.

I'll probably play with the formatting on this one too, as it's kinda hard to account for all the various possibilities via spreadsheet. I'm sure I can probably find a clearer method, but with a handful of individual decisions on options and extensions it's hard to account for it all succinctly. Keep in mind this is just how everything will be before next July when players can officially be renounced, as of now. I don't actually think we'll hold onto big cap holds for guys like Hawes or Hibbert, but they're listed for completeness' sake.



I started with two main columns, actual salary and cap holds. The majority of players fall into one or the other, however there are two key exceptions. The first is Hawes, whose player option season next year is actually a decrease from this year's salary (thanks to a trade kicker from when we acquired him). The third column is basically a "likely" cap number. Let's face it, if Hawes opts out of his $6M option, we're probably not gonna bother keeping that $9.5M hold on the books, so the $6M is the most likely of the two but it's probably most likely that we just scrub him from the books altogether.

The key here though is obviously Cody Zeller. While his qualifying offer is a workable $7M, his actual cap hold is nearly double that. Still, if an extension isn't reached, it's hard to imagine us letting him go for nothing. So for that reason I've got his cap hold as the likely amount in the Cap Number Column.

You'll also notice in that column the cap holds for Hibbert, Roberts, and Harrison; as well as the options for Sessions and Wood. While it's highly unlikely that all of these guys are kept, rather than pick and choose I've just listed them all to give sort of a "worst case scenario" as far as how much cap space we'll have.

Conversely, I've also created a "max space" column in order to show how much space we could have within reason. Sure, we could decline Kaminsky's option or just let Zeller walk for pure cap space, but I don't see either as very likely. You can also imagine a Lamb or Belinelli trade if you'd like, but I'm operating under the assumption that no trades are made (which of course won't happen, but leaving them in there is much more likely to be accurate than just assuming they'll be traded for no incoming salary).

Basically the "max space" option comes down to us keeping all our guaranteed contracts plus Cody and Frank. However, then you have to account for 4 open roster spots, which is where the $2.25M roster charge comes in.

I can probably clarify anything and post a link to my spreadsheet for anyone that wants it...just not tonight. I'm sure I'll think of more to add to this by morning.

[HornetJail]

Damn we need to get rid of Hawes, Bellinelli before next summer, and Lamb if he shows no improvement

[JDR720]

Damn we need to get rid of Hawes, Bellinelli before next summer, and Lamb if he shows no improvement

those "small" 6 million dollar deals add up quick.

[chellis]

Thanks BOB. All this excitement about how we will be players in 2017 FA and in the current state it doesn't look like we can be. I anticipate some trades as you said. What do we think Cody signs for? In my mind he's no better than a backup 5, but at the price some back up 5s got this offseason (see Biz), I'd be willing to attach him to player with a 6-7M cap hold for next season to clear space. I hate tredding water to stay as a fringe playoff team with a best case scenario of a first or second round exit.

I'd be willing to hold on to Hawes to see if he opts in/out. My gut says he opts out at seasons end. I'd hate to give up another first to move a player too. Hopefully we will be active so we can make a run at FAs.

[BlackOutBuzz]

The raw numbers look more daunting than the reality. The actual cap typically ends up $3-5M higher than the projection at this time, and there are always teams willing to take on contracts if you simply have to make space. With a bit of a bump, just moving Lamb could actually get us to about $20M in space; and that's including Zeller's hold and the rest of our starters already locked up.

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[JDR720]

20million really doesn't do much.

we have seen these contracts given out this off-season. 20million is somewhere between a good bench player and fringe starter.

[BlackOutBuzz]

20million really doesn't do much.

we have seen these contracts given out this off-season. 20million is somewhere between a good bench player and fringe starter.

Kinda disagree, there has been a lot of big money thrown around but not many exceeding $20M. I get your point though with guys like Harrison Barnes getting the max.

And still...we have 4 starters locked up, if we're going for bigger fish you move one or renounce Zeller for another $13M. We're pretty flexible.

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[Hornet Mania]

20million really doesn't do much.

we have seen these contracts given out this off-season. 20million is somewhere between a good bench player and fringe starter.

Hopefully enough teams will get burned by the insane contracts they handed out in 2016 that they'll be a bit more gun shy about doing it again in 2017.

Adding one more starter-level player might actually help a lot, depending on who it is.

[Flip Murray]

The raw numbers look more daunting than the reality. The actual cap typically ends up $3-5M higher than the projection at this time, and there are always teams willing to take on contracts if you simply have to make space. With a bit of a bump, just moving Lamb could actually get us to about $20M in space; and that's including Zeller's hold and the rest of our starters already locked up.

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So if Spencer opts out and we renounce everybody except obvious non-renounce guys can we open up about 16 million in space? Is my count there correct?

Actually no it be more like 10 with Zeller's cap hold?

Edit: and now I've seen that you already did this for me. Wasted my time

[BlackOutBuzz]

The raw numbers look more daunting than the reality. The actual cap typically ends up $3-5M higher than the projection at this time, and there are always teams willing to take on contracts if you simply have to make space. With a bit of a bump, just moving Lamb could actually get us to about $20M in space; and that's including Zeller's hold and the rest of our starters already locked up.

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So if Spencer opts out and we renounce everybody except obvious non-renounce guys can we open up about 16 million in space? Is my count there correct?

Actually no it be more like 10 with Zeller's cap hold?

Edit: and now I've seen that you already did this for me. Wasted my time

Haha yeah it's about $10M. Makes me wonder if we won't try to move him with Lamb just to get them off the books.

I wouldn't like that, but I could see it.

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[Flip Murray]

The raw numbers look more daunting than the reality. The actual cap typically ends up $3-5M higher than the projection at this time, and there are always teams willing to take on contracts if you simply have to make space. With a bit of a bump, just moving Lamb could actually get us to about $20M in space; and that's including Zeller's hold and the rest of our starters already locked up.

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So if Spencer opts out and we renounce everybody except obvious non-renounce guys can we open up about 16 million in space? Is my count there correct?

Actually no it be more like 10 with Zeller's cap hold?

Edit: and now I've seen that you already did this for me. Wasted my time

Haha yeah it's about $10M. Makes me wonder if we won't try to move him with Lamb just to get them off the books.

I wouldn't like that, but I could see it.

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So basically you're sort of the bearer of bad news because in my mind we were looking better than this for next summer. These numbers are a little more daunting than I expected, especially if Spencer Hawes opts in which would be a ****. Those "little" 6 and 7 million dollar contracts add up real quick.

There's some flexibility there just not as much as I had hoped. I suppose we could try to dump Lamb. If GS can clear space for Kevin Durant we can clear space if we have to.

Also i'll say this. That 102 million cap projection is huuuuuge for the Warriors. They are going to be in a sticky situation next summer. I'll do the MIT-level math on this one - 4x30=120.

[yosemiteben]

20million really doesn't do much.

we have seen these contracts given out this off-season. 20million is somewhere between a good bench player and fringe starter.

Kinda disagree, there has been a lot of big money thrown around but not many exceeding $20M. I get your point though with guys like Harrison Barnes getting the max.

Agreed. What good bench player got $20M+ this summer? Even Bazemore only got $17.5M per.

[fatlever]

Well, Crabbe got 18... but slightly different circumstances

[JDR720]

20million really doesn't do much.

we have seen these contracts given out this off-season. 20million is somewhere between a good bench player and fringe starter.

Kinda disagree, there has been a lot of big money thrown around but not many exceeding $20M. I get your point though with guys like Harrison Barnes getting the max.

Agreed. What good bench player got $20M+ this summer?

thats what the rate will be next summer when the cap goes up 10+ million again.

anyways, players this offseason that signed for close to 20million that i would call good bench players/fringe starters.

Bismack, Bazemore, Mozgov, Noah, Turner, Crabbe, Mahinmi, Green.

honestly i wont be surprised if someone offers zeller 20million next offseason.

[yosemiteben]

I think this year we see how far our roster can take us and where we need upgrades. If Cody shows he can be a legit starter at C and MKG shows he can stay healthy, then maybe we use that cap space for high quality bench depth because we feel good about our starting lineup. If not, we should trade one of them and put that cap space to use via trade to upgrade our roster.

I don't think it's clear at this point what the best move is next summer, but we have the flexibility to do a lot of different things.