Ringer Expansion Draft Discussion

[JMAC3]

Just a quick topic since things are a bit slow this time of year. A few weeks backs Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo did a podcast where they were the LV and Seattle expansion teams and every team was able to protect 8 players (rookies were exempt).

Who would you protect?

Exempt: Miller, NSJ, Bailey
Obvious keeps: LaMelo, PJ, Miles, Mark, Martin
Discussion: Rozier, Hayward, Thor, Richards- can only protect 3.
Unprotected: McGowens, Ntilikina, Bouk, Kai

Key notes:
Expansion team can only spend 66% off cap so they are limited to 89 million. (Based on last draft done).
Only 1 player from each team can be selected. (Even though 2 teams were drafting).

The pickings were mostly slim outside of a few teams. At the time of recording PJ wasn't signed so the options for them to take a Charlotte guy were even less. They mentioned Nick being protected and then they said it would be Bouk or Kai as options and moved on, they probably overlooked Thor or didn't realize he is decent.

If the NBA did an expansion draft today with 2 teams, I think they would have to either give them more cap space to spend or they would have to limit the number of players protected to maybe just 7 per team to help open up the talent pool.

[Hornet Mania]

If the NBA did an expansion draft today with 2 teams, I think they would have to either give them more cap space to spend or they would have to limit the number of players protected to maybe just 7 per team to help open up the talent pool.

That's assuming the goal is to give the expansion franchises a fair shot at success. Thing is, the expansion setup is designed specifically to do the exact opposite. The 30 current owners will hamstring the 1-2 new ones as much as possible, guaranteeing they are awful for 4yrs at minimum. They won't be allowed to win the lotto their first season, they won't be able to get many decent guys in an expansion draft and their cap space will be heavily restricted for a couple years to prevent them from forming instant super teams.

I expect the next NBA expansion teams will deal with even harsher stipulations than the Bobcats (who had to pick 4th, had nothing but garbage in the expansion draft, and no ability to sign difference-making free agents until their third season) because the owners will notice what happened with the Vegas Knights of the NHL. The NHL treated that team less harshly than most expansion franchises, they instantly kicked ass, and the legacy teams were incredibly upset about it.

Vegas/Seattle is in for some pain early on.

On topic, I agree with your list although I might also dangle Rozier just to see if they'd bite. That would give us an incredible amount of open cap next summer. We'd basically be working with a clean slate aside from Melo's max.

[JDR720]

I'd keep Thor and Richards.

If someone takes Gordon or Rozier, that's good for us.

[LofJ]

Who I'd protect in order:

LaMelo
Williams
Bridges
Washington
Hayward (large expiring contracts are valuable)
Martin
Richards
Thor

We'd be in trouble if rookies weren't exempt.

[HornetJail]

Melo, Mark, Bridges, PJ, Kai, Thor, Rozier, Hayward

I leave Martin, Richards, Bouk, McGowens unprotected. It wouldn't take me too much to unprotect Hayward, Rozier, Thor if the expansion teams wanted them, but I'd want something. I don't care about any of the dudes we're leaving unprotected. Sub in Richards or Martin for Thor or something, but it's hard to care about anyone on this team except for Melo/Miller/Bridges/PJ/Mark long term.

[JMAC3]

Losing Terry or Hayward for nothing at this point doesn't really have a ton of appeal to me. If this was a year ago and Hayward had 2 years left I would probably have left him unprotected, but now I think his contract has some value just as a potential trade piece as an expiring alone.

Personally, I probably leave Thor unprotected but it might be worth to offer a 2nd if anyone wants to take Bouknight and therefore saves us from losing Thor and saves us some money at the same time.

[JMAC3]

Who I'd protect in order:

LaMelo
Williams
Bridges
Washington
Hayward (large expiring contracts are valuable)
Martin
Richards
Thor

We'd be in trouble if rookies weren't exempt.

Yeah, their thought process was that this would take place before the draft because the new teams would have picks. Therefore unfair to have to protect rookies.

This will be a very real thing we are dealing with in 2 years IMO. Would not shock me if the expansion teams are in on the Cooper Flag draft.

[HornetJail]

Who I'd protect in order:

LaMelo
Williams
Bridges
Washington
Hayward (large expiring contracts are valuable)
Martin
Richards
Thor

We'd be in trouble if rookies weren't exempt.

Yeah, their thought process was that this would take place before the draft because the new teams would have picks. Therefore unfair to have to protect rookies.

This will be a very real thing we are dealing with in 2 years IMO. Would not shock me if the expansion teams are in on the Cooper Flag draft.

if the expansion draft was two years from now, and we re-sign Bridges, with no other notable moves, LaMelo, Bridges, Mark, Miller, PJ, and our 2024 1st (if we miss playoffs), are really the only things we have of note. Rozier will be 31 and on a $26M expiring contract, so who cares. We're talking about picking 2 between any 2024 free agent signings, any of our other rookies from this year, and any of Kai/Bouk/Richards/Martin/Thor/Bryce that are still here or worth mentioning.

It's only an issue for us if our next GM goes free agent shopping next summer or some of our young guys develop A LOT.

[JMAC3]

Who I'd protect in order:

LaMelo
Williams
Bridges
Washington
Hayward (large expiring contracts are valuable)
Martin
Richards
Thor

We'd be in trouble if rookies weren't exempt.

Yeah, their thought process was that this would take place before the draft because the new teams would have picks. Therefore unfair to have to protect rookies.

This will be a very real thing we are dealing with in 2 years IMO. Would not shock me if the expansion teams are in on the Cooper Flag draft.

if the expansion draft was two years from now, and we re-sign Bridges, with no other notable moves, LaMelo, Bridges, Mark, Miller, PJ, and our 2024 1st (if we miss playoffs), are really the only things we have of note. Rozier will be 31 and on a $26M expiring contract, so who cares. We're talking about picking 2 between any 2024 free agent signings, any of our other rookies from this year, and any of Kai/Bouk/Richards/Martin/Thor/Bryce that are still here or worth mentioning.

It's only an issue for us if our next GM goes free agent shopping next summer or some of our young guys develop A LOT.

Yeah idk about you but if we only add 1 pick over the next 2 years then we probably aren't going to be in a good position.

[fatlever]

A few points of note, if this were to have been done with legit x-draft rules (based on 2004)... assuming the expansion draft were to create a new teams or two new teams to play in 23-24 season

- the x-draft would have been held after the finals, before the rookie draft and before free agency. therefore, rookie selected in the 23 draft would be unavailable (JMAC shows this in his post)
- UFAs for any team are not needed to be protected, and cannot be selected (guys like Frank N would not need to have been protected)
- RFAs such as Miles and PJ are eligible and must be protected if they want to be kept. RFAs that are unprotected and selected by an expansion team immediately becomes a UFA, with the x-team gaining bird rights (the Bobcats used this loophole to select a lot of unprotected RFAs to keep their cap space available
- Teams can protect up to 8 players (or maybe only 7 if two teams are in x-draft
- Teams must leave at least 1 player unprotected. So, if a team only has 4 players under contract, then they can only protect 3. (in Bobcats x-draft, teams with fear of losing a key player because of this rule, were signing guys in spring 2004 to unguaranteed 2 yr deals so they would have players to leave unprotected)
- the bobcats were only given 2/3 salary cap in free agency
(edit, i forgot nick and thor lol)

with that in mind option 1, protect best players
1. melo
2. miles
3. pj
4. mark
5. terry
6. gordon
7. cody
---
8. nick
---
9. thor
10. bryce
11. kai
12. bouk

depending on the cut-off line one of bryce, kai, bouk would have most likely been picked. rookie deal w/ upside

option 2 tempt big salaries to clear salary (or switch Cody if his knee is trashed)
1. melo
2. miles
3. pj
4. mark
5. Cody
6. nick
7. thor
---
8. Bryce
---
9. Gordon
10 Terry
11. kai
12. bouk

i could see an x-team bringing in a gordon or terry to put some scoring on a young team.

good teams might leave a big vet name unprotected and then offer comp to x-teams to pass on the vet player

[luciano-davidwesley]

Exempt: Miller, NSJ, Bailey
Protect: LaMelo, PJ, Miles, Mark, Martin, Thor, Richards, McGowens
Unprotected: Ntilikina, Bouk, Kai, Rozier, Hayward

I think it's pretty obvious. The unprotected are either garbage players or big contracts, the keepers are all on modest and easily tradeable contracts for their production bar LaMelo, and LaMelo speaks for himself.

If there's no minimum amount of protections and we only have to protect 7 players I'd consider leaving McGowens unprotected too. However, I think Kupchak is a big fan.

[luciano-davidwesley]

Melo, Mark, Bridges, PJ, Kai, Thor, Rozier, Hayward

I leave Martin, Richards, Bouk, McGowens unprotected. It wouldn't take me too much to unprotect Hayward, Rozier, Thor if the expansion teams wanted them, but I'd want something. I don't care about any of the dudes we're leaving unprotected. Sub in Richards or Martin for Thor or something, but it's hard to care about anyone on this team except for Melo/Miller/Bridges/PJ/Mark long term.

I think you are too low on Martin (assuming his knee is OK) and Richards and too high on Kai.

They aren't world beaters but they are solid rotation players, something Kai clearly will never be.

[JMAC3]

Exempt: Miller, NSJ, Bailey
Protect: LaMelo, PJ, Miles, Mark, Martin, Thor, Richards, McGowens
Unprotected: Ntilikina, Bouk, Kai, Rozier, Hayward

I think it's pretty obvious. The unprotected are either garbage players or big contracts, the keepers are all on modest and easily tradeable contracts for their production bar LaMelo, and LaMelo speaks for himself.

If there's no minimum amount of protections and we only have to protect 7 players I'd consider leaving McGowens unprotected too. However, I think Kupchak is a big fan.

Seem low on Hayward and Rozier to me. You are basically saying if a team offered us Bryce McGowens level talent straight up for either guy you would rather have that?

Hayward contract at this point isn't even bad as an expiring, it didn't prevent us from doing anything we wanted to do this year and now we can either trade him for a long term piece or let him expire and open up more room under the lux tax.

[Trey24]

Just a quick topic since things are a bit slow this time of year. A few weeks backs Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo did a podcast where they were the LV and Seattle expansion teams and every team was able to protect 8 players (rookies were exempt).

Who would you protect?

Exempt: Miller, NSJ, Bailey
Obvious keeps: LaMelo, PJ, Miles, Mark, Martin
Discussion: Rozier, Hayward, Thor, Richards- can only protect 3.
Unprotected: McGowens, Ntilikina, Bouk, Kai

Key notes:
Expansion team can only spend 66% off cap so they are limited to 89 million. (Based on last draft done).
Only 1 player from each team can be selected. (Even though 2 teams were drafting).

The pickings were mostly slim outside of a few teams. At the time of recording PJ wasn't signed so the options for them to take a Charlotte guy were even less. They mentioned Nick being protected and then they said it would be Bouk or Kai as options and moved on, they probably overlooked Thor or didn't realize he is decent.

If the NBA did an expansion draft today with 2 teams, I think they would have to either give them more cap space to spend or they would have to limit the number of players protected to maybe just 7 per team to help open up the talent pool.

When there is an expansion it BETTER be the same rules that we were under in 2004. Anything different would be asinine. Been an uphill battle for us ever since. There's a reason there hasn't been an expansion since, its because it is VERY hard to start an expansion in the NBA and the Bobcats are all the proof that you need.