Whether you want to believe it or not Danny Ferry is specifically planing to have enough cap space to sign another max contract player after next year. Debate in here all you want, but that is a fact. Any move he makes will not jeopardize the plan for 2010.
he wouldn't have traded for Mo Williams if that was his intent.
Mo Williams is only making 10 million, you can still sign two max players with his contract on the books.
No they can't. Lebron and whomever will have 17-18 million as the first year salary (30% of the cap). That is 35 million or so from just those two players. You add Williams (9.3 mill), Hickson (1.5 mill), and right now West, Jackson, and Boobie (9.5 mill combined) and they are right around the cap, of course that doesn't account for the fact that they don't have enough players so they have to add salary to account for the missing players from the roster. In addition, that is assuming they renounce the rights of Big Z, Pavlovic (likely), Wallace (likely), and whomever they would sign this year assuming it is just a 1 year deal (Varejao for example). Rescinding those rights essentially means all those guys are gone.
When the Cavs traded for Mo Williams they gave up on the idea of signing Lebron and another max player as free agents. That isn't to say they couldn't still get another very good player, he just won't be a max guy. Perhaps Joe Johnson, Michael Redd, etc. would go there at a small discount to play with Lebron (Redd being older and an Ohio guy is very likely, assuming of course he opts out, which he may not given the size of his option).
It will be close, but I think they'll be able to do it.
Let's say Lebron signs for $18.5 million (his starting salary should be somewhere in that range; that may be a little on the high side.)
Let's also presume the salary cap stays relatively level the next two seasons, around $57 million.
Right now, counting Lebron, the Cavs would have exactly three guaranteed contracts on the roster: Lebron ($18.5 million), Williams ($9.3 million), and Boobie ($4.02 million). That's a total of $31.82 million. Let's assume they invite Hickson back for $1.53 million. That brings their payroll up to $33.35.
Delonte's deal is non-guaranteed, as is Darnell Jackson's. It's unlikely Jackson will be back; who knows about Delonte. Let's look at both scenarios.
If Delonte comes back, their payroll goes up to $37.85. Additionally, they'd have a cap hold to fill out the other eight roster spots. That cap hold is $473,604 for each player, or $3.79 million. That brings total team salary up to $41.64 million. Under a $58 million cap scenario, that would leave the team with roughly $16.36 million and since I've been rounding up, they may have a little more space than that). That's just below a max contract amount for players with 7+ years in the NBA.. The team should, however, be able to offer a max deal to somebody with 6 or fewer seasons.
If Delonte *doesn't* come back, we have no idea how much of his contract is guaranteed. Let's assume that roughly 1/3 of it is (as with Pavlovic this season). That means they'd subtract $3 million from their payroll, but would have to add an additional cap hold. Their salary would be $39.11; under a $58 million cap, they'd have enough to offer a max deal ($18.89 million in space.)
Of course, the margin of error is small. The above scenario means no free agents signings, no draft picks, etc., extending into 2010-11, and it also means renouncing any of their own free agents.
