Wes Matthews wants 15 mil per year

[317]

Paying Matthews post-Achilles would absolutely be contingent on LMA coming here too.

CBA question: if we did an S&T for Matthews using the approximate $13 mil of Rondos TPE,  do we have enough space to get both LMA and Monroe?

Monroe just turned 25 two weeks ago. Matthews is almost 4 years older and coming off a serious injury and LMA 5 years older.

Edit: TP Denis, I type slowly. Great minds think a like

The numbers work if we trade Wallace. We would have to sign both LMA and Monroe in order to use the TPE for Wes though.

you have to renounce trade exceptions before you can sign free agents via cap space.

http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q26

so if i understand it correctly the only way to use the trade exceptions and the cap space is more or less to make a trade on draft day that pushes you over the salary cap for the upcoming new league year.

[mmmmm]

until (if) Danny _renounces_ the Rondo (12.9M) and Prince (7.7M) TPEs AND his Bird Rights on Bass (10.3M) and Jerebko (8.6M), we are over the cap for next season.

There are potentially ways to use those tools (as well as Gerald Wallace' 10M expiring/stretchable contract) and our portfolio of draft picks and young players to facilitative acquiring LMA/Monroe/Matthews/whomever via sign & trade transactions.   Thus, never actually dropping below the salary cap.

An example of the type of move you can make:

Let's say Portland wants some player who is under contract already or can be signed by some other team for 10-12M (but that other team isn't interested in keeping).   Well, Danny can have the team that has the ability (Bird Rights, RFA, whatever) to sign that player do so, but trade them to Danny for a modest draft pick, absorbing the player's salary with the Rondo TPE.  Now, Danny can turn around and trade that player to Portland in exchange for LMA in a sign & trade.  The player's 12M contract can match up to 17M of incoming salary.  So Danny just has to add some token filler (Ex.,Chris Babb), plus appropriate modest picks for compensation, in order to bring in LMA's 18.8M max contract.  All without ever dropping below the cap.

The key point is that it's possible, by involving a third party, to convert the TPE into a player salary, which, unlike the TPE can both match a larger incoming salary as well as be combined with other outgoing contracts.

That's just a hypothetical, and there are lots of variations.  Wallace's expiring deal is actually fairly easy to move as salary filler now (because it can be stretched, reducing cap hit) and it can be used to match up to 15M in incoming salary.  Bass & Jerebko are both potential sign & trade candidates.

Few GMs are as competent at CBA wizardry as Danny Ainge is.   'No guarantee something will happen.  But don't be surprised by whatever he pulls off.

[crimson_stallion]

Hard to say..

Matthews is one of those guys who (if healthy) could have far greater value to a team than his raw stats would imply.

This season Matthews ranked 31st (out of 475 active NBA players) in real plus minus at +3.66, and that number rests him nicely in between Damian Lillard (30th) and Marc Gasol (32nd) and puts him in the 96th percentile among all NBA players.

He's a legitimate two-way player with a positive RPM on both the offensive end (+1.39) and defensive end (+2.27) - and two way players are becoming a rare commodity in this league.

If you look at his shooting percentages, he's been an outstanding shooter from every position on the floor:

0" to 3": 60%
3" to 10": 57%
10" to 16": 46%
16" to 3PT: 44%
3PT: 39%

it's very valuable having a guy who's a threat from anywhere on the court like that, and to have somebody who can offer that while also being an excellent defensive player is really quite rate.

Now despite all of that, if you asked me last year whether he'd be a max contract guy I would say no...but things are different this year thanks to the fact that the cap will be rising from $67m this coming year, to $89m the following year.  As a result of this, any cap space a team has unused one year from now becomes significantly less valuable...while any players signed prior to that cap rise become significantly more valuable. 

Now. a max contract for Wes Matthews (as he's been in the league 6 years) I believe should be about  $16.75m.  But after one year the new max would be $22.2m - this means that having matthews signed to a $16m contract in 2016-17 would be the equivalent of paying him  $12m now.

So that might bring a new perspective on the situation because if you could sign Wes Matthews to a 3 year, $12m deal right now...would you do it?

I know I would. 

I think that honestly, a lot of this comes down to terminology.  People hear 'max contract' and they gasp, but when you think about the actual numbers relative to the upcoming seasons...it's not as much as it seems.

[get_banners]

Pre-injury, this wouldn't seem that nuts. Post-injury, no way in hell anybody pays this much for Matthews. Unfortunate for him, obviously, as he is a very underappreciated player.

[Csfan1984]

2 years total 15 million is best I'd offer he is coming off injury. Anything over 10 per is crazy.

[Who]

Fair enough with the way the cap is rising. I think most middle of the pack starters should be getting this type of money under new cap.

I wouldn't give it to him though due to the serious injury he is recovering from. Plus, Boston needs to be investing in star talent rather than useful starters. And preferably in younger guys rather than a 30 year SG. So Wes Matthews doesn't fit the bill in many ways.

But I think he is right to be looking for that type of money. That is the type of money I expect guys of similar ability to be getting this summer. And I said with Robin Lopez I think he'll get $15-19 million a year.