The Luxury Tax could be the guide to the Cs next offseason

[CFAN38]

Ok so first off everyone bare with me I admittedly do not closely follow NBA cap laws. I have a loose knowledge base and request that anyone who can correct me please do.

The 2018-2019 Luxury Tax line is projected to be 123million

The Cs current 17/18 Cap is 110 million (i am rounding up to make this easier)

The Cs 18/19 Cap the below roster moves would be 107.5

Next season the Cs will need to resign or lose Smart, potentially resign the player they acquire with the DPE at up to a 120% raise (around 10mill), hopefully sign a high lottery pick (around 6mill), sign a late 1st (around 2mill), and a vet min player to replace Larkin

Lets assume the following

Smart gets a raise from his current 4.5 mill to around 13mill +8.5mill
Baynes is replaced with resigned DPE big 4.3 to 10mill  + 5.7mill
Nader is replaced with LAL loto pick 1.3 to 5.6 + 4.3mill
Cs sign a player drafted in the late first + 1.4 mill
sign a vet to replace larkin +1.5

that is a total added salary of 21.4 million

that gives the Cs a cap total of 128.9 million

This puts them 5.9million over the luxury tax

The two key variables in this are the amount of salary required to retain Smart and how lucky the Cs get with the Lakers lottery pick.

If the loto pick is pushed back to the Sac pick in 2019 then I think we have a pretty good road map as to what DA can and will do this off-season.

Assuming the Cs land a big with the DPE (Greg Monroe seems like best fit) and that player agrees to sign with the Cs for 8.4 with year and 10 next this player will fill Baynes role. This will leave the Cs current roster minus Baynes in tact with around 11.4 mill available for Smart.

This would be Smart around the same Salary that Dion Waiters signed.

[Chris22]

The way the Lakers are playing, it is likely we won't get their pick this year.

[gouki88]

The way the Lakers are playing, it is likely we won't get their pick this year.

Just wait until Lonzo returns

[bopna]

The way the Lakers are playing, it is likely we won't get their pick this year.

You never know.
The Fakers just might win a 2nd or 3rd pick via the lotto and we are back in business despite being seeded say 6th or 7th worst?..it has happend before so just saying.

[keevsnick]

Luckily the way Smart has played there's no way in hell he is getting 13 million. Lets put that at a more reasonable 10 million. Then remove the lottery pick and we are below the tax line. Outside of the top 5 positions the chance of getting that pick is small, and the Lakers aren't looking like a bottom five team right now. If however we did get that pick then the solution is simple let Smart walk. No problem doing that if it means a top 3 pick.

[Moranis]

The way the Lakers are playing, it is likely we won't get their pick this year.

10 of their next 13 are on the road.  Their last 6 games of the season should all be losses also. 

[sdceltsfan]

If the Lakers pick does convey, and assuming we use the DPE.

Going in to next season we would have two restricted FA's in the DPE player and Smart, right?

So this would be at least $20 million (assuming we get someone legit with the DPE) that we could use in a sign and trade, packaged with the Lakers pick and other picks (depending on the target)

Is a trade of  re-signed Smart, re-signed DPE Player (Williams, Randle, Evans), Morris, Lakers pick, Clippers pick enough to get another star level player? I would think so.

Say it's Anthony Davis. From their perspective, they are in a weird spot. Maybe now they aren't going to throw a max deal at Boogie. They likely won't be able to attract another star player, so AD will likely be pretty ticked at that point.

Ainge steps in with a package that allows NO to start a full rebuild. Smart on a cost controlled deal, let's say we get Randle with the DPE for Yabu and a couple 2nd rounders, or our 2018 1st.

Two young players with affordable long-term deals to build around, Morris under a good contract, plus a young top 5 talent in the 2018 draft, and another 1st or two? What other offer would New Orleans get that matches?

Same goes for the Spurs with Kawhi, assuming he leverages his way to a trade in the summer.

We would be a luxury tax team, but with a Golden State of the East starting lineup.

[GreenEnvy]

If the Lakers pick does convey, and assuming we use the DPE.

Going in to next season we would have two restricted FA's in the DPE player and Smart, right?

So this would be at least $20 million (assuming we get someone legit with the DPE) that we could use in a sign and trade, packaged with the Lakers pick and other picks (depending on the target)

Is a trade of  re-signed Smart, re-signed DPE Player (Williams, Randle, Evans), Morris, Lakers pick, Clippers pick enough to get another star level player? I would think so.

Say it's Anthony Davis. From their perspective, they are in a weird spot. Maybe now they aren't going to throw a max deal at Boogie. They likely won't be able to attract another star player, so AD will likely be pretty ticked at that point.

Ainge steps in with a package that allows NO to start a full rebuild. Smart on a cost controlled deal, let's say we get Randle with the DPE for Yabu and a couple 2nd rounders, or our 2018 1st.

Two young players with affordable long-term deals to build around, Morris under a good contract, plus a young top 5 talent in the 2018 draft, and another 1st or two? What other offer would New Orleans get that matches?

Same goes for the Spurs with Kawhi, assuming he leverages his way to a trade in the summer.

We would be a luxury tax team, but with a Golden State of the East starting lineup.

Pelicans are in a very weird spot. I believe they have over $90 million committed next season, leaving little chance for a max FA in the summer, unless they have a fire sale before the deadline.

So they almost have to supermax a guy coming off one of the worst injuries to a professional athlete.

If they don’t resign Boogie, and can’t clear enough space for a max (AND actually get an all-star to commit to New Orleans), they almost have to trade Davis and rebuild.

Devastating injury for the Pelicans, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[sdceltsfan]

If the Lakers pick does convey, and assuming we use the DPE.

Going in to next season we would have two restricted FA's in the DPE player and Smart, right?

So this would be at least $20 million (assuming we get someone legit with the DPE) that we could use in a sign and trade, packaged with the Lakers pick and other picks (depending on the target)

Is a trade of  re-signed Smart, re-signed DPE Player (Williams, Randle, Evans), Morris, Lakers pick, Clippers pick enough to get another star level player? I would think so.

Say it's Anthony Davis. From their perspective, they are in a weird spot. Maybe now they aren't going to throw a max deal at Boogie. They likely won't be able to attract another star player, so AD will likely be pretty ticked at that point.

Ainge steps in with a package that allows NO to start a full rebuild. Smart on a cost controlled deal, let's say we get Randle with the DPE for Yabu and a couple 2nd rounders, or our 2018 1st.

Two young players with affordable long-term deals to build around, Morris under a good contract, plus a young top 5 talent in the 2018 draft, and another 1st or two? What other offer would New Orleans get that matches?

Same goes for the Spurs with Kawhi, assuming he leverages his way to a trade in the summer.

We would be a luxury tax team, but with a Golden State of the East starting lineup.

Pelicans are in a very weird spot. I believe they have over $90 million committed next season, leaving little chance for a max FA in the summer, unless they have a fire sale before the deadline.

So they almost have to supermax a guy coming off one of the worst injuries to a professional athlete.

If they don’t resign Boogie, and can’t clear enough space for a max (AND actually get an all-star to commit to New Orleans), they almost have to trade Davis and rebuild.

Devastating injury for the Pelicans, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Not to mention that this will likely be a full year of recovery for Boogie, so he realistically won't return until a couple months or more in to NEXT season.

I don't see Davis willing to essentially wizz away another season waiting for Boogie to come back. They will be lucky to make the playoffs this year, and if they are 10 games or so under .500 by the time Boogie gets back, what is their realistic expectation. They aren't a big market team, and they have traded away their draft assets.

They don't have a feasible way to move their $55 million in contracts tied up in to average/bad players (Holiday, Asik, Moore, Hill) over the next 2-4 additional seasons to this one. So they have three options:

1. Re-sign Boogie and essentially commit to this season and next season as a lost cause.
2. Let Boogie walk (no pun intended), and ATTEMPT to lure one mid-level max player to join AD and Team Mediocrity.
3. Move AD now to get as much value as possible while he has years on his contract, and tank for a couple years until some of those contracts expire, and Holiday finally becomes "tradeable" from an expiring deal perspective.

Pretty sure their front office is painfully aware of whatever window they thought they had opening, getting abruptly slammed shut.

Hopefully Danny just stays the course, uses the DPE on a solid talent, we try to compete as best we can this season, the Lakers start to suck again, and that pick conveys, which would then make us the most desirable trade partner with almost any selling team come draft night.

[droopdog7]

I fail to see why NO would need to trade a 24 year old super star under contract to rebuild. Makes zero sense.  Now, if he was 30 and/or on the last year of a contract, okay.  Otherwise, what they hey?!?

[sdceltsfan]

I fail to see why NO would need to trade a 24 year old super star under contract to rebuild. Makes zero sense.  Now, if he was 30 and/or on the last year of a contract, okay.  Otherwise, what they hey?!?

Virtually every superstar in the league is aware of their leverage thanks to Lebron's FA antics. You think Chicago actually wanted to trade Jimmy Butler....Indiana with Paul George? As much as those deals worked out, the guys replacing the stars are likely not selling tickets nearly as easily as taking your kid to watch a recognizable name.

As much of a "trooper" as Davis has been so far, there is no way he rides out the remainder of his extension with Jrue Holiday as his #2/#3 guy AND watching him make more money than him while it goes down. Like I said, they have two more seasons of hoping to lure a lower-tier max player, who will nowhere near contribute on the same level as Boogie was. They are doomed for a half decade of mediocrity. 8th seeds at best. Davis will eventually demand a trade, and thus lower his value. Might as well send him off and get major draft assets in return, to pair with tanking assets. Essentially going the route of Philly. Davis is too good for them to truly bottom out, IMO. We all know that the only thing worse than being at the bottom of the standings for a few years in a row, is being the team with the perennial 14-17th pick, getting mediocre after mediocre player.

Davis was already on record questioning the loyalty of franchises, so that seed is clearly planted in his head. The misfortune of Boogie's injury will eventually cause that to grow when he realizes that he has zero other all-stars to help him on the quest for playoff contention.

[nickagneta]

If the Lakers pick does convey, and assuming we use the DPE.

Going in to next season we would have two restricted FA's in the DPE player and Smart, right?

So this would be at least $20 million (assuming we get someone legit with the DPE) that we could use in a sign and trade, packaged with the Lakers pick and other picks (depending on the target)

Is a trade of  re-signed Smart, re-signed DPE Player (Williams, Randle, Evans), Morris, Lakers pick, Clippers pick enough to get another star level player? I would think so.

Say it's Anthony Davis. From their perspective, they are in a weird spot. Maybe now they aren't going to throw a max deal at Boogie. They likely won't be able to attract another star player, so AD will likely be pretty ticked at that point.

Ainge steps in with a package that allows NO to start a full rebuild. Smart on a cost controlled deal, let's say we get Randle with the DPE for Yabu and a couple 2nd rounders, or our 2018 1st.

Two young players with affordable long-term deals to build around, Morris under a good contract, plus a young top 5 talent in the 2018 draft, and another 1st or two? What other offer would New Orleans get that matches?

Same goes for the Spurs with Kawhi, assuming he leverages his way to a trade in the summer.

We would be a luxury tax team, but with a Golden State of the East starting lineup.

zThere is likely zero chance you get two veteran players to both agree to sign and trades to go to the same team, a team that will suck like the Pelicans would without Davis. Also, any trade for Davis is most likely including 2 of 3 of the Lakers pick, Brown and Tatum.

[GreenEnvy]

If the Lakers pick does convey, and assuming we use the DPE.

Going in to next season we would have two restricted FA's in the DPE player and Smart, right?

So this would be at least $20 million (assuming we get someone legit with the DPE) that we could use in a sign and trade, packaged with the Lakers pick and other picks (depending on the target)

Is a trade of  re-signed Smart, re-signed DPE Player (Williams, Randle, Evans), Morris, Lakers pick, Clippers pick enough to get another star level player? I would think so.

Say it's Anthony Davis. From their perspective, they are in a weird spot. Maybe now they aren't going to throw a max deal at Boogie. They likely won't be able to attract another star player, so AD will likely be pretty ticked at that point.

Ainge steps in with a package that allows NO to start a full rebuild. Smart on a cost controlled deal, let's say we get Randle with the DPE for Yabu and a couple 2nd rounders, or our 2018 1st.

Two young players with affordable long-term deals to build around, Morris under a good contract, plus a young top 5 talent in the 2018 draft, and another 1st or two? What other offer would New Orleans get that matches?

Same goes for the Spurs with Kawhi, assuming he leverages his way to a trade in the summer.

We would be a luxury tax team, but with a Golden State of the East starting lineup.

Pelicans are in a very weird spot. I believe they have over $90 million committed next season, leaving little chance for a max FA in the summer, unless they have a fire sale before the deadline.

So they almost have to supermax a guy coming off one of the worst injuries to a professional athlete.

If they don’t resign Boogie, and can’t clear enough space for a max (AND actually get an all-star to commit to New Orleans), they almost have to trade Davis and rebuild.

Devastating injury for the Pelicans, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Not to mention that this will likely be a full year of recovery for Boogie, so he realistically won't return until a couple months or more in to NEXT season.

I don't see Davis willing to essentially wizz away another season waiting for Boogie to come back. They will be lucky to make the playoffs this year, and if they are 10 games or so under .500 by the time Boogie gets back, what is their realistic expectation. They aren't a big market team, and they have traded away their draft assets.

They don't have a feasible way to move their $55 million in contracts tied up in to average/bad players (Holiday, Asik, Moore, Hill) over the next 2-4 additional seasons to this one. So they have three options:

1. Re-sign Boogie and essentially commit to this season and next season as a lost cause.
2. Let Boogie walk (no pun intended), and ATTEMPT to lure one mid-level max player to join AD and Team Mediocrity.
3. Move AD now to get as much value as possible while he has years on his contract, and tank for a couple years until some of those contracts expire, and Holiday finally becomes "tradeable" from an expiring deal perspective.

Pretty sure their front office is painfully aware of whatever window they thought they had opening, getting abruptly slammed shut.

Hopefully Danny just stays the course, uses the DPE on a solid talent, we try to compete as best we can this season, the Lakers start to suck again, and that pick conveys, which would then make us the most desirable trade partner with almost any selling team come draft night.

I agree. I think if Pelicans don’t shop him at the deadline, the best course of action would be to make the minor moves to fix our bench. Then, see what happens with the Lakers pick AND the Pelicans offseason moves. If we land the Lakers pick, that may be enough to get AD (with other assets, of course). And if it doesn’t convey, but the Pelicans offseason moves aren’t to AD’s liking, we could see the Kings pick be the center of an August deal for AD (just like Kyrie).

It’s gonna be interesting to see how New Orleans handles this deadline/offseason.

[GreenEnvy]

I fail to see why NO would need to trade a 24 year old super star under contract to rebuild. Makes zero sense.  Now, if he was 30 and/or on the last year of a contract, okay.  Otherwise, what they hey?!?

Well, they are in a bad jam with the contracts they currently have. It will take a massive roster overhaul to build the correct team around AD to contend. Think along the lines of KG in Minnesota (only Garnett did more with his supporting cast). Is AD willing to wait and trust the organization to rebuild the roster in 2-3-4 years? And if they don’t, what do they have then? An unhappy 28+ year old who they won’t get nearly as much value for now, and THEN start the real rebuild.

Sometimes you gotta see the writing on the wall. Do you get ahead of him requesting a trade a la Irving and it reduces his value? Cleveland had no incentive as a contender to trade their second best player. They were forced to. Not saying it will, but the same thing can happen in New Orleans.

If Boogie doesn’t get hurt, I think they can ride with those two for a couple years and slowly right the ship, adding good value players and subtracting the bad. Progressively go from a bottom seed to a middle seed to a contender.

But the injury happened and you are now asking AD to waste this year and next AND hope Boogie returns to his normal self. All this while paying Boogie an astronomical amount and probably eliminate the real chance of adding a third superstar because of how much will be tied up between the two bigs.

[droopdog7]

I fail to see why NO would need to trade a 24 year old super star under contract to rebuild. Makes zero sense.  Now, if he was 30 and/or on the last year of a contract, okay.  Otherwise, what they hey?!?

Well, they are in a bad jam with the contracts they currently have. It will take a massive roster overhaul to build the correct team around AD to contend. Think along the lines of KG in Minnesota (only Garnett did more with his supporting cast). Is AD willing to wait and trust the organization to rebuild the roster in 2-3-4 years? And if they don’t, what do they have then? An unhappy 28+ year old who they won’t get nearly as much value for now, and THEN start the real rebuild.

Sometimes you gotta see the writing on the wall. Do you get ahead of him requesting a trade a la Irving and it reduces his value? Cleveland had no incentive as a contender to trade their second best player. They were forced to. Not saying it will, but the same thing can happen in New Orleans.

If Boogie doesn’t get hurt, I think they can ride with those two for a couple years and slowly right the ship, adding good value players and subtracting the bad. Progressively go from a bottom seed to a middle seed to a contender.

But the injury happened and you are now asking AD to waste this year and next AND hope Boogie returns to his normal self. All this while paying Boogie an astronomical amount and probably eliminate the real chance of adding a third superstar because of how much will be tied up between the two bigs.

KG is a perfect example of when you do it.  Wait until the guy turns 30 at least and then bail.  KG was 31 when he was traded.

Regarding the earlier comment about Davis forcing his way out, I guess it could happen.  But it would be easier to unload the guys around AD and still rebuild than to find another AD.