kosmovitelli wrote:Anyway, as I've said a few times already, it's difficult to ask Melo to take a paycut at this point. Phil mentioned Tim Duncan and Lebron but Tim Duncan did it when the Spurs were already a championship caliber team and they already had Parker and Ginobili. Despite taking a paycut, Duncan was still the highest paid player on the Spurs roster. Lebron did it in order to play with Wade and Bosh. Melo knows Amare and Tyson will likely remain on the roster next year and they'll be gone in 2015. What kind of sacrifice can you ask at this point ? If the Knicks were under the cap and could sign both Rondo and Marc Gasol then you could ask Melo to take less money in order to make room for those players, you'd know exactly how much money you need Melo to leave on the table in order to assemble a winning team. At this point, both Phil Jackson and Melo are in the dark. If Melo takes less money and Knicks strike out in 2015 then Melo will be screwed.
How early in a new contract could there be an opt-out clause? In the unlikely event that signing Melo to a cheaper deal doesn't result in some good signings next summer, couldn't he opt out, or at least use the threat of an eventual opt out to demand a trade?
For what it's wortj, even if Melo accepts a contract starting at $18 million then it will be almost $19.5 million in 2015 (with 7.5% raise). It's also hard to take a paycut when Amare makes $20+ million ! Also it's difficult to ask Melo to take a paycut if his future teammates in 2015 will make more money than him.
If he took around $20m, which is still a big pay-cut, he'd be making more than Amare and probably more than anybody available in 2015, except for maybe Lebron. I don't see Gasol, Parker, Rondo, etc. getting more than that. Maybe Love or Aldridge but we probably wouldn't be targeting them due to redundancy with Melo.