The Official 2025 Offseason Thread #4 Free Agency Opens!

[TeamTragic]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/rmYiQbWrP5

[Stein] In Addition to potential Beal buyout talks intensifying. The Suns have also engaged teams regarding trading Richards, O'Neale, and Allen

[BobbieL]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/rmYiQbWrP5

[Stein] In Addition to potential Beal buyout talks intensifying. The Suns have also engaged teams regarding trading Richards, O'Neale, and Allen

Why would they need to engage teams on trading Richards? They could have released him for nothing. Did they pick up his option without a plan?

[Bogyo]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/rmYiQbWrP5

[Stein] In Addition to potential Beal buyout talks intensifying. The Suns have also engaged teams regarding trading Richards, O'Neale, and Allen

Why would they need to engage teams on trading Richards? They could have released him for nothing. Did they pick up his option without a plan?

I think they thought they can trade him into cap space for a second (or something like that). Remains to be seen...

[Sunsdeuce]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/rmYiQbWrP5

Why would they need to engage teams on trading Richards? They could have released him for nothing. Did they pick up his option without a plan?

I think they thought they can trade him into cap space for a second (or something like that). Remains to be seen...

What he said.

[BobbieL]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/rmYiQbWrP5

Why would they need to engage teams on trading Richards? They could have released him for nothing. Did they pick up his option without a plan?

I think they thought they can trade him into cap space for a second (or something like that). Remains to be seen...

Well hopefully they have a plan but when Gambo and Flex started tweeting out they might keep Richards after all - kind of had the thought they overplayed their hand.

[TeamTragic]

Centers are a commodity in this league. No rush to move Richards.

[BobbieL]

Read on Twitter

[Ghost of Kleine]

Read on Twitter

It's too bad that we didn't have the patience or foresight to actually hold on and not make another shortsighted move that's not going to change our trajectory anyways.

Making this move just to get the MLE, and then carrying 19-22 million in dead cap on our books for the next half decade, essentially taking us out of any big free agent acquisitions.

[BobbieL]

Read on Twitter

It's too bad that we didn't have the patience or foresight to actually hold on and not make another shortsighted move that's not going to change our trajectory anyways.

Making this move just to get the MLE, and then carrying 19-22 million in dead cap on our books for the next half decade, essentially taking us out of any big free agent acquisitions.

I think it gets them out of the position where they have the draft pick go to the end of the R1 in 2032.

So between Ishbia saving a lot of money and the idea they can combine salaries -- which is why this is being done. But yes, to spend 19m just to sign a guy for 5.3m -- thats not good roster building.

[BobbieL]

Do the Pistons need Royce O'Neale? Maybe at the trade deadline perhaps

Read on Twitter

[WeekapaugGroove]

Read on Twitter

It's too bad that we didn't have the patience or foresight to actually hold on and not make another shortsighted move that's not going to change our trajectory anyways.

Making this move just to get the MLE, and then carrying 19-22 million in dead cap on our books for the next half decade, essentially taking us out of any big free agent acquisitions.

I'll be surprised if more than one or two of these dudes actually hit FA.

[TeamTragic]

Read on Twitter

It's too bad that we didn't have the patience or foresight to actually hold on and not make another shortsighted move that's not going to change our trajectory anyways.

Making this move just to get the MLE, and then carrying 19-22 million in dead cap on our books for the next half decade, essentially taking us out of any big free agent acquisitions.

Book can still be traded.

[Frank Lee]

Centers are a commodity in this league. No rush to move Richards.

There is no rush to do anything. The FA market has been depleted.

One good thing is, assuming Beal is stretched, the MLE can be used like a trade exception, opening up a lot more talent.

This Beal thing has to play out

[sunsbum]

Ben Simmons would be cheap and kill 2 birds with one stone. PF/PG

[BobbieL]

Ben Simmons would be cheap and kill 2 birds with one stone. PF/PG

If the choice is he or Westbrook - probably would take a run with Simmons
Good defensive player - granted, he is a concern

[Sunsdeuce]

Ben Simmons would be cheap and kill 2 birds with one stone. PF/PG

If the choice is he or Westbrook - probably would take a run with Simmons
Good defensive player - granted, he is a concern

Simmons is going to Miami

[garrick]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/rmYiQbWrP5

[Stein] In Addition to potential Beal buyout talks intensifying. The Suns have also engaged teams regarding trading Richards, O'Neale, and Allen

Why would they need to engage teams on trading Richards? They could have released him for nothing. Did they pick up his option without a plan?

They probably want to pick up some 2nd round picks for him at least instead of losing him for nothing.

[lilfishi22]

Right so if I as an owner of a team said to my GM, I'm happy to pay an extra $40m in luxury tax per season. Now that's an average, which means that over the next 5 years of your employment as GM you can run up a luxury tax bill of $200m total.

Knowing this, would you prefer to run up the $200m in the next 2 seasons with Beal on your team in this current format of the Suns? Or would you prefer to waive and stretch Beal to pay no tax in year 1 while you restructure the team and instead aim to use up the $200m lux tax during seasons when you are more likely to contend?

This season, if we do nothing, we'll have a tax bill of around $102m because of the repeater tax. That multiplier is a tough pill to swallow for any owner, let alone one that will run a roster that isn't expected to be a for sure playoff team. I recognise that.

That multiplier also works the other way as well. Let's say we were able to find takers for both Grayson and Royce and saw a $3m net reduction in salary. Let's also not do the Mark Williams trade so we're not picking up Micic's team option of $8.1m. That's already an $11.1m reduction in our salary. That reduction puts us under the harsher tax brackets of 5x, 6x, 7x etc. And if the calcs are correct, the tax bill is now around $35.2m. Still a high tax bill but it's 60% reduction from the ridiculous original tax bill of $100m. What if we now took the savings from a Beal buy out (around $6.7m) for this year? That's now looking like a $17.8m reduction in salary from a $22.4m starting point. Now we have a $13.7m tax bill. It's more than manageable. Could we squeeze any more savings elsewhere? The Richards contract is there. Maybe we trade down from #10 to #12 to grab Sorber instead, that's around $500k in savings. Maybe extra savings is there, maybe there isn't.

If we made the right moves (even at the cost of some draft capital), perhaps we were able to get an expiring contract for one of Grayson or Royce and we could be at or near the luxury tax threshold next year.

But you know, all of this is just easier if we just stretched Beal.

If you did nothing you'd be $32m above the tax. Your tax bill would be $200m.
Where are you getting your numbers from? Are you including Maluach, Fleming salaries?

You didn't pay the Micic salary, you only pay Mark Williams salary, which is $6m.


It came down to sending a pick and Jalen Green to the Nets capspace or stretching Beal to save the $33-34m and get out of the tax to reset the repeater.

Numbers were from Spotrac. Just checked again this morning and it's been updated now to include all the rookie signings. The tax bill is now at $156m based on an over the tax threshold figure of $29.7m. Big time number.

There are avenues to bring that tax bill down.

- Trade Grayson/O'Neal = -$3m
- Not do the Mark Williams trade = -$8.1m (that was the team option on Micic)
- Trade down to get Sorber at #12 = -500k
- Beal buy out = -$6.76m
- Replace Richards with a vet min C = -$2m

That would us to an over the tax number of about $9.3m which would get us down to a $28.9m tax bill. I don't know Ishbia and maybe the mandate is zero tax bill but under $30m from $150m+ is a pretty big drop.

The only other big salaries I haven't really mentioned is Green and Brooks. I think you could find a taker for Brooks with a couple million in salary reduction but the bigger fish is Green and finding a team to take him and a good chunk of his salary on. That would be difficult and the incentives would need to be high but I'd certainly consider moving a few 2nds to get off him completely. Is Brooklyn or Utah open to absorbing a material chunk of Green's salary for draft capital?

At $8m over, that's a tax bill of $25m
At $5m over, that's a tax bill of $15m
at $4m over, that's a tax bill of $12m
At $2m over, that's a tax bill of $6m

And if we could've just held out for 2 more seasons, we're in the clear.

As I said, I get it from a financial standpoint, waive and stretching Beal is the easiest path to take to greatly reduce the tax bill and duck the aprons. Based on the KD trade and moves following, it's clear to me now the Beal W&S was not just on the table but was option A, B and C. There were a bunch of moves we made to take on long term salary or keep us from reducing short term salary that suggests the stretch provision was always the path forward. I wasn't expecting to come out of Ishbia's first run at building a contender unscathed but I wasn't expecting stretching a $100m contract as a reality.

[lilfishi22]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/rmYiQbWrP5

[Stein] In Addition to potential Beal buyout talks intensifying. The Suns have also engaged teams regarding trading Richards, O'Neale, and Allen

Why would they need to engage teams on trading Richards? They could have released him for nothing. Did they pick up his option without a plan?

For assets I suppose

[zimpy27]

This season, if we do nothing, we'll have a tax bill of around $102m because of the repeater tax. That multiplier is a tough pill to swallow for any owner, let alone one that will run a roster that isn't expected to be a for sure playoff team. I recognise that.

That multiplier also works the other way as well. Let's say we were able to find takers for both Grayson and Royce and saw a $3m net reduction in salary. Let's also not do the Mark Williams trade so we're not picking up Micic's team option of $8.1m. That's already an $11.1m reduction in our salary. That reduction puts us under the harsher tax brackets of 5x, 6x, 7x etc. And if the calcs are correct, the tax bill is now around $35.2m. Still a high tax bill but it's 60% reduction from the ridiculous original tax bill of $100m. What if we now took the savings from a Beal buy out (around $6.7m) for this year? That's now looking like a $17.8m reduction in salary from a $22.4m starting point. Now we have a $13.7m tax bill. It's more than manageable. Could we squeeze any more savings elsewhere? The Richards contract is there. Maybe we trade down from #10 to #12 to grab Sorber instead, that's around $500k in savings. Maybe extra savings is there, maybe there isn't.

If we made the right moves (even at the cost of some draft capital), perhaps we were able to get an expiring contract for one of Grayson or Royce and we could be at or near the luxury tax threshold next year.

But you know, all of this is just easier if we just stretched Beal.

If you did nothing you'd be $32m above the tax. Your tax bill would be $200m.
Where are you getting your numbers from? Are you including Maluach, Fleming salaries?

You didn't pay the Micic salary, you only pay Mark Williams salary, which is $6m.


It came down to sending a pick and Jalen Green to the Nets capspace or stretching Beal to save the $33-34m and get out of the tax to reset the repeater.

Numbers were from Spotrac. Just checked again this morning and it's been updated now to include all the rookie signings. The tax bill is now at $156m based on an over the tax threshold figure of $29.7m. Big time number.

There are avenues to bring that tax bill down.

- Trade Grayson/O'Neal = -$3m
- Not do the Mark Williams trade = -$8.1m (that was the team option on Micic)
- Trade down to get Sorber at #12 = -500k
- Beal buy out = -$6.76m
- Replace Richards with a vet min C = -$2m

That would us to an over the tax number of about $9.3m which would get us down to a $28.9m tax bill. I don't know Ishbia and maybe the mandate is zero tax bill but under $30m from $150m+ is a pretty big drop.

The only other big salaries I haven't really mentioned is Green and Brooks. I think you could find a taker for Brooks with a couple million in salary reduction but the bigger fish is Green and finding a team to take him and a good chunk of his salary on. That would be difficult and the incentives would need to be high but I'd certainly consider moving a few 2nds to get off him completely. Is Brooklyn or Utah open to absorbing a material chunk of Green's salary for draft capital?

At $8m over, that's a tax bill of $25m
At $5m over, that's a tax bill of $15m
at $4m over, that's a tax bill of $12m
At $2m over, that's a tax bill of $6m

And if we could've just held out for 2 more seasons, we're in the clear.

As I said, I get it from a financial standpoint, waive and stretching Beal is the easiest path to take to greatly reduce the tax bill and duck the aprons. Based on the KD trade and moves following, it's clear to me now the Beal W&S was not just on the table but was option A, B and C. There were a bunch of moves we made to take on long term salary or keep us from reducing short term salary that suggests the stretch provision was always the path forward. I wasn't expecting to come out of Ishbia's first run at building a contender unscathed but I wasn't expecting stretching a $100m contract as a reality.

You don't reset repeater unless you drop under the tax line. That's the target. Suns have not been in the repeater these past 3 seasons, they now are in the repeater and it doubles their tax bill for every $1 spent over the tax line. Suns need to get under tax to reset it so they can be over tax for next 3 seasons after this one without the repeater being added.

And yeah Spotrac updated but still $3-4m short of the money. Hayes-Davis not added and you need a 15th man eventually. You dont have Micic at $8.1m, Hornets have Micic on their books. Your books just have Williams at $6.2m.

Anyway, Suns are doing a mini rebuild here. Average age of team dropped substantially. You get an FRP in the draft the next 2 seasons. You reset repeater. You have $15m and $5.5m to spend in free agency 2026.