Spending the Cap Space

[shrink]

A month ago, I projected $12.8 mil in cap space, though this number has some wiggle room based on where the picks come in, where the salary cap is set, any potential trades, etc :

$13,000,000 Al Jefferson
$3,964,320 Ramon Sessions
$3,638,280 Kevin Love
$3,192,000 Jonny Flynn
$3,703,472 Corey Brewer
$2,333,333 Ryan Hollins
$1,078,800 Wayne Ellington
$1,000,000 (Ryan Gomes)
$2,812,200 Rights to Ricky Rubio
$3,336,800 MIN 2010 1st (currently #2)
$1,328,400 CHA 2010 1st (currently #15) ($0 if #12 or higher)
$933,500 UTA 2010 1st (currently #25) ($0 if #15 or higher)
$473,604 Minimum Roster Holds
$40,794,710 ... Total

$12,805,290 ... Expected 2010 Cap Space

So if we have $12.8 in cap space, how do you spend it? Rudy Gay, no Darko or Pek? Can we offer enough to Darko and have the money to trade for Childress? Pek plus .. ?

[swenjj]

depending on any trades we do i would love to get rudy here. i am thinking more and more though that we take darko for a part of our space, and use the remaining room to pull a trade.

[Worm Guts]

It's tough to say. We have to get to the lottery first, I think alot of decisions will be based on our pick.

[moss_is_1]

Yeah as Worm said I think it mainly hinges on where we fall in the lottery. If we get a top 2 pick then I don't think we'll go after Rudy Gay. If we fall back to 3-4-5 then maybe we'll go after more wings, or Aldrich and not resign Darko or bring over Pek?

I think that if we get Turner then we should bring back Darko, and try shopping around Pek, Al, and Love. If we ship out Al or Pek then we should keep at least one of them so we have a low post scorer.

[Narf]

I see a trade being the most likely culprit. The big question is for who?

[KG_Wolves]

The draft is where we'll make our mark, I am not taking FA all that seriously.

[jscott]

Something we should be able to do is sign a FA like Gay (though I am not suggesting him) and then re-sign Darko for as much as 20% (maybe 10%?) more than he is making this year. I recall him signing that 3 year 21 million dollar deal a few years back, is he still on that contract or was he re-signed by the team who had him because then we'd have Bird rights and obviously the sky would then be the limit.

I like the talk of Pekovic coming over. I wonder how much it will cost to bring him stateside? I bet that will take a large chunk of cap space as well.

I doubt we make all 3 picks so that might give us some back too.

All in all I'd like to see us be a team involved in trades and using the capspace that way. I'd like to take a look at Bosh or Joe Johnson but that really depends on the draft..

I'd like to see us get talent from other teams for our space. Maybe that is Granger for Love or we just take a player like Gerald Wallace who some believe is acquirable.

[TrentTuckerForever]

Assuming the pick positions hold (hold on, need a minute for all y'all Wolves' fans to suspend your disbelief... and... good), the Wolves can draft Turner and a center prospect or two (Aldrich if he falls a bit, Whiteside or Alabi.) I like Darko fine, but I'm not planning my offseason around him.

With all the point guards on the roster/horizon, I'd swing for the fences and offer Gay the whole $12.8 July 1st. I wouldn't worry about Darko or Pekovic until Gay was either matched or signed - I'd move on to exceptions and trade scenarios at that point (to possibly include Jefferson.) You only need 2 out of Love/Jefferson/Pekovic group by training camp. The Wolves NEED an athletic 5, and Darko could be it, but so could a bunch of other guys.

[C.lupus]

1. Jefferson to DET, Prince to MEM, Gay S&T to MIN

2. Flynn + $10 m to WAS for #3 pick

3. Sign Darko for $3m

4. Draft Turner @ #2

Sessions/(Rubio)
Turner/Brewer
Gay
Favors/Love
Darko/Hollins

[younggunsmn]

Something we should be able to do is sign a FA like Gay (though I am not suggesting him) and then re-sign Darko for as much as 20% (maybe 10%?) more than he is making this year.

I like the talk of Pekovic coming over. I wonder how much it will cost to bring him stateside? I bet that will take a large chunk of cap space as well.

I'd like to see us get talent from other teams for our space. Maybe that is Granger for Love or we just take a player like Gerald Wallace who some believe is acquirable.

We can't sign someone with cap space and then use the bird rule on darko. To use raw cap space (sign a FA or Trade) you must first renounce all of your exceptions other than the minimum salary exception. You then lose all those exceptions for the NBA calendar year (until the next offseason).
We won't have enough room for a max or near-max FA like Gay and Darko too.

Pekovic will probably take 5 million or more, I'm guessing at least 3 years because he will probably be offered at least that in europe.

I like the granger and gerald wallace ideas. don't think wallace is going anywhere now that MJ owns the bobs. I've been trying to find a k-love for granger scenario where we can match salary.

Granger is a Base Year Compensation player until july 10. That means he is nearly impossible to trade for until then. So is Andruw Bynum. So don't look for a draft-day trade involving either of them.

In a 125% salary-matching deal we would have to send out 8,778,561 for granger alone.
draft picks have no salary matching value, and can't be traded for 2 months after signing, so eliminate them for salary-matching purposes.
Love+Hollins+ (brewer, sessions, or gomes) works.
Love+gomes+ellington also works.

We could also get creative and re-sign and trade a player with bird rights (damian wilkins) to a one year deal to match salary and turn it into a sign-and-trade, thus maintaining our mid-level and bird exceptions to use on pekovic and darko.

for example, we could trade:
love, wilkins re-signed at 5.1 million for 3 years (with only 1 guaranteed), rights to whomever we drafted with charlotte pick,
for granger.
we could even guarantee only 1 million of wilkins' deal, giving him 1 mil for essentially nothing.

Love for Granger and 5.1 million of caproom is a good deal for us, but it leaves us only 7.65 million to sign darko and pekovic, and that is not going to be enough.

[younggunsmn]

I may be in the minority, but I think Darko should be a top priority. We aren't going to find anyone with his size and defensive ability anywhere in the draft or free agency. And trading for someone like that will cost an arm and a leg. If we want to be a contender we need to be able to defend elite post players, which darko can.

Just watching the sacto game tonight, he makes such a huge difference on the defensive end. He had 4 blocks, but he must have altered the shot or made the player pull the ball back down and pass at least 15 times.
And Jefferson looks so much better on the defensive end playing next to him. He can play his man straight up instead of worrying about rotating all the time.
The whole team looks better on defense with him playing center.

His passing is great on the offensive end. He has a great feel for the game. A couple times tonight he held the ball just a hair longer when the double team came, the difference between the player shooting a wide open 3 or one with a hand in his face. That baby hook is unstoppable, if he works on it enough he won't be a liability at all on the offensive end (other than FT shooting).

Re-signing him will mean no big FA signing, but even Rudy Gay is a pipe dream in my opinion. Too many teams have cap room, and Memphis isn't going to take back salary in a sign and trade, which means any S&T for him will mean sending out draft picks. A max deal + draft picks is too much for Gay. Someone will sign him to an offer sheet, and memphis may or may not match. But the knicks, clips, heat, wizards, bulls, nets, thunder, and kings are all going to have as much cap room to throw at him as we will.

I think a 1 year deal is likely the best option for both parties. If the 1 year goes well we can discuss a multi year-deal next offseason, when he'll only be 25. Probably for at least 5 million. I would go up to 6.5-7 if that's what it took, which is not bad for a starting C playing 30 mins a night.

I think Rambis is the perfect coach for him, because rambis doesn't get in guys' grills too often, and he lets them play through their mistakes rather than yanking them in/out all the time.
If Phil is the Zen Master, does that make Rambis the Zen Apprentice?

[Narf]

If we're under the cap we don't need to worry about BYC players. So he's not nearly untradable.

[younggunsmn]

we aren't under the cap until july 10. read again.
Indy can only take back 1/2 his salary in a salary match because of BYC.

[younggunsmn]

hopefully we land top 2, but if we don't that doesn't necessarily mean we lose out on turner.
We have a ton of assets to use to move up. Pekovic, bobs pick, jazz pick, Gomes' instant expiring.
The team at 2 still might not want to deal, but it's a possibility.

I hope Kahn tried everything he could last year to turn Flynn into Evans.

We could land wall and then try to turn rubio into bynum or granger.
It's really hard to plan a scenario for the cap space until the draft lottery is over.

[Narf]

we aren't under the cap until july 10. read again.
Indy can only take back 1/2 his salary in a salary match because of BYC.

It's just nitpicky. Whenever the salary cap is set, we can trade for him. But we will be able to trade for Granger the day the cap is set, and not until then. When his BYC ends doesn't really matter. There isn't a date set for the cap to be set I'm pretty sure, they just set it when they finish running the books.

[younggunsmn]

we aren't under the cap until july 10. read again.
Indy can only take back 1/2 his salary in a salary match because of BYC.

It's just nitpicky. Whenever the salary cap is set, we can trade for him. So whether that's July 5th or July 12th it doesn't matter. But we will be able to trade for Granger the day the cap is set, and not until then. When his BYC ends doesn't really matter. There isn't a date set for the cap to be set I'm pretty sure, they set it when they've run the books.

Which is what I said in my post. I'll correct myself, it is not july 10th, the moratorium ends exactly july 8th.
http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q92

[Narf]

Which is exactly what I said in my post. I'll correct myself, it is not july 10th, the moratorium ends exactly july 8th.
http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q92

But it has to do with setting the cap and the July moratorium, not with his BYC status. No trades are made before the cap is set in that window. I'm just being a nitpicky arse about something that doesn't matter, don't worry about it.

[Krapinsky]

I have moderate expectations. I'd like to get Childress (6M) and Darko (4M) in free agency. I'd love to see Pekovic in a Wolves jersey too, but can't see it unless Jefferson or Love is traded. If not, I like the idea of a Pekovic + Utah pick for Henry trade.

[horaceworthy]

It's sad, but I really don't care what we do in FA as long as we can come to a reasonable deal with Darko. If we can get Turner then I don't see too much of a need for a big money wing in FA. Just draft an athletic combo forward type, a 6'8"+ shooter, or Hobson with one of the other picks then use the cap space to take advantage of teams in vulnerable situations.

It'll be interesting to see what happens this summer. Given the redundancy of some of our assets you'd think at least one fairly major deal will be going down.

[Tekkenlaw]

Defer the cap space until 2011 since there isn't anything decent in 2010 and sign Marc Gasol to pair with Rubio. Trade Jefferson for the 5th overall pick.

PG. Ricky Rubio/Jonny Flynn
SG. Evan Turner/Wayne Ellington
SF. Corey Brewer/Wesley Johnson
PF. Kevin Love/Nikola Pekovic
C. Marc Gasol/Darko Milicic

Some additional cap space and draft picks left to work with.