State of Detroit's Cap Going Forward

[coordinator0]

With the Griffin trade the Pistons future cap outlook hasn't quite changed massively, but things have been shifted quite a bit. There's been some talk about it so here are the actual numbers (assuming physicals are passed):

2018

Blake Griffin $32,088,932
Andre Drummond $25,434,263
Reggie Jackson $17,043,478
Jon Leuer $10,002,681
Langston Galloway $7,000,000
Ish Smith $6,000,000
Josh Smith $5,331,729 (dead money)
Anthony Tolliver $3,948,000 (cap hold)
Stanley Johnson $3,940,402
Luke Kennard $3,275,280
Reggie Bullock $2,500,000 (unguaranteed)
Henry Ellenson $1,857,480
Eric Moreland $1,826,300 (unguaranteed)
Dwight Buycks $1,600,520 (unguaranteed)
Brice Johnson $1,544,951 (cap hold)
Willie Reed $1,471,386 (cap hold)

Total $124,865,402 ($117,901,065 without cap holds)

With no first round pick the Pistons won't have the accompanying cap hold. Not a whole lot of wiggle room here given the unguaranteed contracts are all likely to stick around. There are 12 players under contract with Tolliver, Johnson, and Reed being the only free agents. Anthony will probably be brought back. Not sure about the other two, but it seems unlikely in Brice's case.

2019

Blake Griffin $34,449,964
Andre Drummond $27,093,019
Reggie Jackson $18,086,956
Stanley Johnson $11,821,206 (cap hold)
Ish Smith $11,400,000 (cap hold)
Jon Leuer $9,508,043
Langston Galloway $7,333,333
Josh Smith $5,331,729 (dead money)
Reggie Bullock $4,750,000 (cap hold)
Luke Kennard $3,827,160 (team option)
Henry Ellenson $2,856,804 (team option)
Eric Moreland $1,913,267 (unguaranteed)
Dwight Buycks $1,603,638 (cap hold)
2019 1st Round Pick (cap hold)

Total $139,975,119 ($110,400,275 without cap holds)

This is where things could get dicey. The figure without cap holds is pretty large, and that only accounts for 8 players assuming the options are picked up for Kennard and Ellenson and Moreland also sticks around. Any moves made this summer and next season can/will vastly change the outlook, but as of now things will be tight for 2019.

[DETermination]

Can't believe we are still paying Josh Smith lol

[thesack12]

Bullock is a lock to be back next season. Moreland is likely back. Buycks is questionable.

Its doubtful Brice J returns. Reed might come back as the 3rd center if he comes in close to his current price. If he's more expensive, Detroit will just roll with Moreland.

Jackson/Leuer/Galloway all expire after the 19-20 season. Even if they hold no on court value at the time, they will all be positive assets as expiring contracts. They can easily be traded at any point starting in summer of '19. the $35 mil they represent presents Detroit the option to either double down and buy more with them, or use them to start to tear it down.

Stanley is probably going to be traded before he becomes a free agent.

Even if Ish sticks around, he's not going to be north of $10 mil a season.

[TurboTitan]

Im only mad at Leuer and Reggie(not nearly as much) now that Boban is gone

[Kilo]

8 players for 110M sounds bad, but it's not turrible in the NBA.

This is the eight with depth chart -

Jackson
Kennard/Galloway
Johnson/(2019 FRP)
Griffin/Leuer/Ellenson
Drummond/(Moreland)

Moreland on $2M option and 2019 FRP would be on the roster for $4M more total so that is 114M for 10 players. Carry a roster of 14, bottom 4-5 players are usually vet minimum types - only Stan pays them Boban or Galloway money. That is a thing of the past now with us.

This will definitely be a tax paying year one has to believe - but then we have Galloway, Leuer and Jackson coming off the books as expirings - $35M off the cap, which surely takes us out of the tax the following season.

Gores should really plan to pay the tax next season and the year after. That's the new contender window with the Griffin trade now. We should use the full MLE and Boban exception next season to add two more rotation players.

After this two year "run" Reggie is off the books, Dre has one more year, Griffin has two more years. This would be the time to re-assess the franchise to see where we are. But you go all in the next two seasons.

[The Penguin]

An underrated point is how much of a mess cap situations are across the league. Soo many bad contracts were given out in the summer of 2016, almost every single team has their own Leuer/Galloway.

The Galloway deal is the one that really makes me angry for Stan's cap management. He's a dime a dozen player and it was a bad contract the moment it was announced. Given the lack of cap room across the league, there's very likely a good player available for our MLE next summer, hopefully Gores is willing to spend the money and master of panic Stan doesn't immediately go to option F on day 1 if he doesn't get his first target.

[Billl]

That's about what a cap structure should look like for a small market team. 2-3 stars, a couple starter level contracts, rookies, and lower priced vets. The problem is that 1 of our "star" contracts hasn't played up to that and 2 of our "lower priced vets' got overpaid. The key going forward is for SVG to actually get production from those rookie deals and someone needs to hide his phone for at least the first 2 weeks of free agency.

[Kilo]

An underrated point is how much of a mess cap situations are across the league. Soo many bad contracts were given out in the summer of 2016, almost every single team has their own Leuer/Galloway.

The Galloway deal is the one that really makes me angry for Stan's cap management. He's a dime a dozen player and it was a bad contract the moment it was announced. Given the lack of cap room across the league, there's very likely a good player available for our MLE next summer, hopefully Gores is willing to spend the money and master of panic Stan doesn't immediately go to option F on day 1 if he doesn't get his first target.

I wonder if Gores told Stan "no tax" next season, but that's just to make sure he doesn't hand out a full MLE over four years to Seth Curry the first day of free agency. But after the cap space teams spend their money and there are good players who will have to accept MLE's that were expecting (much) higher contracts he calls up Stan and tells him he can spend the MLE now.

Bulls, Hawks, Mavs, 76ers and Lakers have 20M+, about 10 teams total could be under the cap depending on how they deal with their own restricted FA's. So there will only be about 15 free agents who get over the MLE this off-season.

[GreekAlex]

I've said it before but this just reinforces the fact that they have to get a serviceable piece for Leuer and Galloway.

The roster is severely over weighted with way too much cap allocated to the front court.

Even finding another team with their own wing version of Leuer and making that deal would help.

If Leuer were healthy, I don't even see a path to him getting minutes the way the roster is currently constructed.

[DETermination]

People talking about how crazy Blake's contract is but it really wont look so bad in the next few years. John Wall will be making 37 mil a year in the 2019-2020 season and then 40 mil the next season and then 43 and finally 46 mil in his final year. Expect stars who sign super max contracts to get even more money in the next few years and Blake's contracts wont bad at all expecially if he plays great for us.Hopefully Leuer's and Galloway's contracts get easier to move soon so we can free up some capspace to really add to this team.

[thesack12]

Yeah, I think some people haven't really checked in on what some of these guys are making nowadays.

Average annual salary:

Harden: 42.3
Wall: 42.3
Westbrook: 40.7
Curry: 40.2
Wiggins: 36.6
Griffin: 34.2
Lowry: 33.3
LeBron: 33.2
Hayward: 31.9
Conley: 30.5
Millsap: 30.5
Embiid: 29.2
Horford: 28.3
Lillard: 27.9
DeRozan: 27.8
McCollum: 26.6
Porter: 26.6
Holiday: 26.3
Durant: 25.6
Gobert: 25.5
Davis: 25.4
Beal 25.4
Drummond: 25.4
Steven Adams: 25
Giannis: 25
Aldridge: 25
Carmelo: 24.8
Whiteside: 24.6
Batum: 24
Barnes: 23.6
Parsons: 23.6
Howard: 23.5
Reddick: 23
M. Gasol: 22.6
Love: 22.6
Jordan: 21.9
Ibaka: 21.6
Gallinari: 21.5
Paul: 21.4
Oladipo: 21.2
B. Lopez: 21.1
Gary Harris: 21
Ryan Anderson: 20

When they signed, guys like Davis and Giannis weren't yet eligible for a super max. Other guys like Kyrie, Kawhi, George, Butler haven't yet hit free agency after the cap exploded, which is why they aren't on this list of 20+ mil/season guys.

Being a legit franchise player and at the age he was when he signed it, Blake's contract is right where it should be.

[thesack12]

Can't believe we are still paying Josh Smith lol

He's set to come off the books in 2020. That coupled with Jackson/Leuer/Galloway all expiring that same summer, Detroit will have $40 mill coming off the books. Heading into 20-21 Detroit will only have Blake (30)/Dre (26)/Kennard (23) on the books.

Of course a lot can change between then and now.

[ImHeisenberg]

An underrated point is how much of a mess cap situations are across the league. Soo many bad contracts were given out in the summer of 2016, almost every single team has their own Leuer/Galloway.

The Galloway deal is the one that really makes me angry for Stan's cap management. He's a dime a dozen player and it was a bad contract the moment it was announced. Given the lack of cap room across the league, there's very likely a good player available for our MLE next summer, hopefully Gores is willing to spend the money and master of panic Stan doesn't immediately go to option F on day 1 if he doesn't get his first target.

Good point. Many teams are butting up against the tax line after that 2016 ridiculous summer. It doesn't make our situation any better, but we're not unique in our failure to responsibly manage the cap space. Especially as it was spent on a bunch of players who don't move the needle. Ish Smith really being SVG's only good FA signing to date. Even then, he probably could have signed him for around $2 million annually less per season. This was a guy who had played for minimum contracts his whole NBA career.

Regardless, they'll have to get thrifty over the next several years at least. Galloway was a horrid contract and really continues to postulate that SVG can't properly value what a player should demand contractually. I hope Marc Stein was right, and Arn Tellum takes over basketball operations this summer.

[GreekAlex]

Can't believe we are still paying Josh Smith lol

He's set to come off the books in 2020. That coupled with Jackson/Leuer/Galloway all expiring that same summer, Detroit will have $40 mill coming off the books. Heading into 20-21 Detroit will only have Blake (30)/Dre (26)/Kennard (23) on the books.

Of course a lot can change between then and now.

I know but the thought of waiting 2 more years for to escape those contracts is depressing

[thesack12]

Can't believe we are still paying Josh Smith lol

He's set to come off the books in 2020. That coupled with Jackson/Leuer/Galloway all expiring that same summer, Detroit will have $40 mill coming off the books. Heading into 20-21 Detroit will only have Blake (30)/Dre (26)/Kennard (23) on the books.

Of course a lot can change between then and now.

I know but the thought of waiting 2 more years for to escape those contracts is depressing

Yeah, the Leuer and Galloway signings are big snags hurting Detroit from adding upgrades around Blake.

The good news is, starting next summer those guys will automatically receive a bump in positive value because they'll be considered expirings. So starting on draft day '19, they be tradeable without being looked at negatively.

[ChuckVanBrown]

Stretching Smith is still probably one of the smartest things SVG did. If we didn’t do that, we would have had to trade him for likely equally bad contracts, or package him with one of our other younger assets/draft picks at the time. Dumping him made it easier to do the other subsequent moves, and helped us move on from the Dumars era.

Last season would have been his final contract year, assuming we never traded him. Don’t think I would have survived being a fan that long if he was still suiting up for us through that period.

For me, that Smith cap hold isn’t on SVG; it’s on Dumars for signing such an awful contract to begin with.

[ImHeisenberg]

Can't believe we are still paying Josh Smith lol

He's set to come off the books in 2020. That coupled with Jackson/Leuer/Galloway all expiring that same summer, Detroit will have $40 mill coming off the books. Heading into 20-21 Detroit will only have Blake (30)/Dre (26)/Kennard (23) on the books.

Of course a lot can change between then and now.

I know but the thought of waiting 2 more years for to escape those contracts is depressing

Getting out from Leuer and Galloway's contracts isn't going to be easy until they're expiring deals in 2019/20. The only way I could see that happening is if we attached a pick with them, or in a bigger deal with a better player.

I think we're stuck with them, for better or worse. Galloway played well last night, knocking down some huge shots down the stretch. If Jon boy can get healthy next season, he can be a useful player again. Stretching the floor for Dre and Blake.

At least we got out of the last year of Boban's deal, FWIW.