LyricalRico wrote:stevemcqueen1 wrote:That's the good news. The bad news is that Beal is going to be so much more expensive if we have to sign him next summer instead of this summer. Beal is really the 4th RFA in that class after Davis, Lillard, and Drummond, and I bet all of them negotiate max deals early. There is going to be way too much cap space floating around that summer. Someone is going to force us to match a max or near max contract offer for him.
We need to use his injury history as leverage to sign him for a sub max deal this summer. I'd sign him without hesitation if I could get him at 11 or 12 million, but I'd go as high as 14 million to make sure the deal got done. Beal at 14 million a year hurts to think about now, but it's a lot better than Beal at 20 - 22 million a year plus annual raises if we wait until 2016. Under a 91 million dollar cap, we'll have about 5 million in extra space in 2016 if we waive Webster and Blair. We should use that money to pay for Beal's early extension.
IIRC the problem with signing Beal to even a sub-max extension in 2015 is that number will still be higher than his scheduled 2016 cap hold - which then eats into our available space to sign Durant. My understanding is that "KD to DC" only works if we don't re-sign Beal until after we sign Durant.
Can't really say that KD to DC wouldn't work if we extended Beal ahead of time, because there's always a way to make the numbers work, and for a guy like KD, we will absolutely do that if needed. However, I get what you're saying.
Extending Beal ahead of time makes no sense. Like you said, his cap hold is roughly $11.5M. It would likely be worth locking him into a bargain deal ($11-12M/yr) even if that decreases our 2016 cap space by a couple million, since that deal is likely a great value (if you have faith in Beal still developing into a legit max contract star). Essentially that's Steph Curry's current deal. That would prove to be invaluable going forward if he develops. And especially considering that even if he doesn't develop into a star, we're certainly going to match any offers he gets as a RFA, which will be the max, so we'd still be saving us a few million a year even if he doesn't pan out.
But his agent would never sign that extension. He knows that same deal will be available in the summer, from the Wizards or almost any other team. Furthermore, he realistically knows there will be AT LEAST one max offer available that summer, regardless of if the Wizards match. Young two-way SGs who can shoot lights out are going to get paid, even if it's still just on potential. Beal would have to suffer serious injuries (more serious than any of his minor stress injuries so far) for him to not be able to get a max deal.
Beal also won't have the added benefit of a 5th year by extending, since Wall is already our team's ONE AND ONLY ALLOWED designated player. All Beal gets by extending is serious injury insurance, in which case he'd probably still get decently sized offers following the injury in the cap spike year. AND he gets 7.5% raises instead of 4.5% raises, which is significant, but not a HUGE difference.
That's why it makes sense for us to wait until he's a RFA that summer. His cap hold is likely lower than his eventual max salary. And even if he signs an offer sheet with another team before we can sign KD, at least then he's only getting 4.5% raises instead of 7.5%. Again, not a huge difference, but still a significant one.
