ghostinthepost1 wrote:Renounce everyone (maybe keep Ivey on QO).
Use cap space to take on bad contracts for 1st round draft capital.
Draft well in 2026.
Let the rookies + Essengue + Matas + Dillingam get all the minutes they can handle next season.
Lose 60+ games in 2026/27.
Draft well in 2027.
After all of that you can start trying to win.
I think it's unlikely you will find 1st round draft capital available for bad contracts now.
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/tax/_/year/2026There aren't a lot of teams in the tax and only a few that are deep in it. Will be interesting to see what OKC, Cleveland, and Orlando do. OKC has a massive tax bill and while they're absolutely a legit contender, they may not have the revenue to support it.
OKC is an interesting situation, but they won't pay to send anyone away, more or less everyone on their roster has positive contract value, and they can duck 28M of their projected 40M over by simply not picking up Hartenstein's option.
Cleveland is further away from a legit title window and will have to decide can they really make anything happen or is it time to start over. Depending on their playoffs and how close they get probably determines their actions, but they might be in blow it up territory if they have an early exit again, because keeping it together will just have them coming back weaker. Moving James Harden is probably the ultimate move to get them back under, but if they blow it up, then they'll probably look to trade Mitchell and everyone else and won't be looking to pay assets to get out from under the tax.
Orlando is in the toughest spot because they're really not all that good and now they're approaching big tax dollars. Their plan failed. Who knows what they do to get out of it, but it'd have to be Suggs/Bane. It'd be interesting to see if they would need to attach assets to those guys to move them. Especially after just giving up 4 1st rounders for Bane. I think they probably would. That would be an interesting spot for the Bulls if one of those guys became available _with_ assets, at the same time, my guess is they don't have many assets because they just gave up so much for Bane without looking.
Denver could consider moving Christian Braun or Cam Johnson, both have been hurt this year, but that would solve their tax problem. I'd imagine someone would pay positive assets for Cam Johnson, Braun probably requires a sweetener, but not a major one, like maybe a couple 2nds, maybe they can even find a spot for him without a sweetener.
I'm not sure if there is a team out there that's giving you a 1st rounder to improve their salary situation.
