As we hit free agency, just an update on the cap situation, as I think we need to temper expectations as to whether the Magic can or will use the full MLE this year to make any kind of splash here. (I am operating under the exception that ownership will not want to go into the luxury tax).
Even with Mozgov off the cap, they will likely be bumping up against the tax line to fill the last 3 roster spots (depending on whether they are minimum level guys (looking at you, Jon Teske), or whether we bring back MCW, or even Ennis.
I'm a bit rusty on this kind of thing guys so let me know if I made errors. Figures taken from Basketball-Reference.
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Vucevic $26,000,000
Gordon $18,136,364
Fournier $17,000,000
Ross $13,500,000
Fultz $12,288,697
Aminu $9,720,900
Isaac $7,362,566
Bamba $5,969,040
Birch $3,000,000
Anthony $3,285,120 (estimate)
Okeke $3,121,080 (estimate
Clark $2,025,705 (estimate)
Total (12 players) $121,409,472.00
The 2020-21 luxury Tax line is $132,627,000, which gives us around $11.2million to fill out 3 players.
MCW made the minimum last season of just over $2million, and I think most of us agree he played his value up above that. I am not sure what he would agree to, I value him fairly highly but lets say we somehow got him on a team friendly deal starting at say $3.2million.
This would leave only $8million under the taxline and if we used the full MLE ($9.25million) we would be in the tax (and if we used it on one free agent we would still only have 14 players on the roster).
This is why we had to waive goodbye to Wes Iwundu. He would have made at least $2million coming back, and we can probably get similar production for less elsewhere.
Given that one of the 14 players is already out for the season, and with possibilities of players testing positive for COVID during games and needing to use players from the deep bench, I don't think many teams will want to only carry 13/14 players. Hell we were needing to use Vic Law and BJ Johnson in the bubble before the playoffs started.
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TL;DR = Don't expect the Magic to use the full MLE, unless some deals are made to reduce payroll beforehand.