NBA Draft is on Thursday and with @B. Golan's Suns prematurely ejaculating yesterday afternoon the offseason chaos is well underway.
The new CBA going into affect on July 1 is going to be a big talking point and a focus of what a lot of the teams in the NBA are preparing for. Without going into all the details essentially just think of the second tax apron, which is roughly $179mil of salary, as something you want to desperately avoid unless your squad is all the way in on right now. Bobby Marks tweeted out several graphics yesterday that start to help with it all.
Mavs could operate as any of a cap space team, over the cap team, tax team, 2nd apron team. Pretty much entirely dependent on Kyrie's deal and what is done on Thursday. Tax team by far the most likely though. Essentially lose Kyrie for nothing its cap space, resign Kyrie or sign and trade Kyrie and keep/trade Bertans its tax team, keep or SnT Kyrie and stretch waive Bertans its over the cap. They have #10 in the draft but virtually every NBA connected person expects the pick to be traded with most expecting a trade down and staying somewhere within the first round.
Spurs will be a cap space team. Everyone knows whats happening at #1 (drafting Kevin McCullar, obviously). As of right now thats their only first round pick (they have their second rounder at 33) but I have read some rumors they are interested in getting a second lotto pick to line up another rookie contract with Wemby.
Rockets will be a cap space team, most in the league. Picks at 4 and 20 in the first round. Some rumors the entire top 10 could be open for trade after #1 so who knows what Houston does. The Harden, FVV, Kyrie, whatever chase on 6/30 will probably be the most exciting part of their offseason.
Golan's Suns will be over the 2nd tax apron most likely. They have almost $170mil in 4 dudes. The expected Ayton trade would have to be a straight salary dump into somebodys cap space to avoid the second apron, but you dont make this move if you are concerned about that. The worst of the penalties start next offseason but the immediate ramifications will be they lost the taxpayer MLE for this offseason. They cannot acquire somebody via a sign and trade. They cannot acquire the usual 125% of outgoing salary in a trade, has to be 100% or less. Cannot acquire anybody who was bought out of a contract over $12mil. Starting day 1 of the regular season they cant aggregate salary in trades, so they cant trade Ayton and receive back 2 guys at $20mil and $10mil, it would have to match 1 for 1 (why hes probably getting traded in the next two weeks if he does get moved). They cannot trade for somebody who was originally signed in a sign and trade. Theres a bunch of frozen draft picks and moving your own draft picks to the back of the first round regardless of record rules but the Suns dont have any picks left anyways. They have 4 guys under contract and nothing but vet minimums to add to it. Somebody was going to test this and see if it was worth it at some point. It just gets to be @B. Golan. Its an absurd top 4 right now though.
The next domino across the league is probably down to the Hornets/Blazers/Pelicans. Pels want Scoot and have been willing to give away Zion according to Stein. Hornets are iffy on that deal. Blazers reportedly have more interest but Pels aint interested if Scoot goes to the Hornets.
The new CBA going into affect on July 1 is going to be a big talking point and a focus of what a lot of the teams in the NBA are preparing for. Without going into all the details essentially just think of the second tax apron, which is roughly $179mil of salary, as something you want to desperately avoid unless your squad is all the way in on right now. Bobby Marks tweeted out several graphics yesterday that start to help with it all.
Mavs could operate as any of a cap space team, over the cap team, tax team, 2nd apron team. Pretty much entirely dependent on Kyrie's deal and what is done on Thursday. Tax team by far the most likely though. Essentially lose Kyrie for nothing its cap space, resign Kyrie or sign and trade Kyrie and keep/trade Bertans its tax team, keep or SnT Kyrie and stretch waive Bertans its over the cap. They have #10 in the draft but virtually every NBA connected person expects the pick to be traded with most expecting a trade down and staying somewhere within the first round.
Spurs will be a cap space team. Everyone knows whats happening at #1 (drafting Kevin McCullar, obviously). As of right now thats their only first round pick (they have their second rounder at 33) but I have read some rumors they are interested in getting a second lotto pick to line up another rookie contract with Wemby.
Rockets will be a cap space team, most in the league. Picks at 4 and 20 in the first round. Some rumors the entire top 10 could be open for trade after #1 so who knows what Houston does. The Harden, FVV, Kyrie, whatever chase on 6/30 will probably be the most exciting part of their offseason.
Golan's Suns will be over the 2nd tax apron most likely. They have almost $170mil in 4 dudes. The expected Ayton trade would have to be a straight salary dump into somebodys cap space to avoid the second apron, but you dont make this move if you are concerned about that. The worst of the penalties start next offseason but the immediate ramifications will be they lost the taxpayer MLE for this offseason. They cannot acquire somebody via a sign and trade. They cannot acquire the usual 125% of outgoing salary in a trade, has to be 100% or less. Cannot acquire anybody who was bought out of a contract over $12mil. Starting day 1 of the regular season they cant aggregate salary in trades, so they cant trade Ayton and receive back 2 guys at $20mil and $10mil, it would have to match 1 for 1 (why hes probably getting traded in the next two weeks if he does get moved). They cannot trade for somebody who was originally signed in a sign and trade. Theres a bunch of frozen draft picks and moving your own draft picks to the back of the first round regardless of record rules but the Suns dont have any picks left anyways. They have 4 guys under contract and nothing but vet minimums to add to it. Somebody was going to test this and see if it was worth it at some point. It just gets to be @B. Golan. Its an absurd top 4 right now though.
The next domino across the league is probably down to the Hornets/Blazers/Pelicans. Pels want Scoot and have been willing to give away Zion according to Stein. Hornets are iffy on that deal. Blazers reportedly have more interest but Pels aint interested if Scoot goes to the Hornets.
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