I expect them to go hard after Gordon Hayward this offseason , then go back to Bradley if it doesn't work out.
The C's will have the TE and what around 6+ million of room under the salary cap? Plus whatever salary their draft pick is slotted to get.
The C's will have to make additional salary moves to make a run at high level FAs.
Yeah, the TE would probably be irrelevant in a chase for Hayward, who will be looking for something over $10 million per year, if Utah won't match.
But I do think Danny is going to work hard to dump salary this year if he can. Wallace, Lee and Bass will all be available for expiring contracts, and Green may be too (although he would require more of a premium).
I don't really think there is a connection between Bradley and Hayward though. Bradley wasn't signed, because he is still too unproven to warrant what his agent would ask for.
Remember, we have to be over the cap to have the trade exception. So if we do open cap space this offseason, we lose the TE.
This means 3 possibilities:
1. Open capspace, use that, but lose the TE.
2. Use the TE this year/this offseason for someone useful longterm, while patiently opening capspace in the next couple years after using the TE to acquire a useful player.
3. Use the TE this year to absorb expiring salary (plus an incentive asset, i.e. a pick) from a team that needs to get below the tax. Then let that contract expire and trade our long term deals for other expirings to just open capspace this offseason while essentially using the TE to "buy" a pick by taking an expiring deal to relieve another team's tax.