Rafael122 wrote:Mojo Amok wrote:Wall’s supermax is now only going to be 34% of the cap in 2022 if the projections are correct and the salary cap hits $125 million that year (as per the wiretap article).
Even with that contract on the books, the Wizards might have some decent cap room available to go shopping during the 2021 summer free-agent market.
I'm convinced they could have carried Wall/Porter/Beal's deals on the books. The cap was always going to go up again, it was moreso Mahinmi's contract that handcuffed this team on doing anything.
Porter costs $27.25M
Wall, Beal, Brown, Hachimura and Mahinmi alone would cost $89M. Those costs were fixed. Add Porter and we're already up to $116.25M for 4 guys who can actually play (plus Wall who can't play and Mahinmi who may or may not be playable).
To stay under the luxtax, the other 8 guys on the roster could cost no more than $16M. Bryant by himself is $8M. That leaves $8M for 7 guys. Basically, they would all be minimum salary vets. We could afford IT as his experienced-vet-minimum cost, and perhaps McRae as well, but the rest of the minimum salary vets would have to be first year guys like Justin Robinson and Phil Booth. We could not have made the Lakers trade. We could not have bought the 2nd round pick for Schofield. We'd have no Bedrans, Ish Smith or CJ Miles. Basically, the team would be:
PG Thomas
SG Beal/McRae
SF Porter/Brown
PF Hachimura
C Bryant/Mahinmi
Plus 6 rookie walk ons.
Maybe that could work if Isaiah Thomas returned to form and everyone stayed perfectly healthy, but there is no margin for error. One injury and we'd be playing the likes of Phil Booth 20 minutes a game. And I shudder to think of what our big man depth would look like given that we'd be dealing only with rookie walk ons. We couldn't even afford guys like Noah or Faried. It would have to be guys from the G League.
Furthermore, we'd continue to be totally hamstrung going forward. We'd get Wall back and the increase in cap would allow us to afford our draft pick, but we'd struggle to find someone to replace Mahinmi and we wouldn't be adding any other vets.
Personally, I can live with the decision to unload Porter. Sato is the guy I regret losing. If we had played our cards right, we'd have Sato and Bedrans who, combined, are probably worth more than Porter alone, while costing $10M less.