Now if Bradley only gets 3.5 million this year and the 8 million doesnt start til next year, I guess we would have around 4 mil to spend?
This is not allowable. Bradley will be signing a new contract, starting this year. You can only get a raise of 7.5% of the first-year of the contract per year. So if Bradley were to make $3.5 million this year, he'd make about $3.8 million next year, $4 million the year after that, and $4.3 million the final year.
I meant did he still have one year left at 3.5 and then the contract starts or does the new contract start now?
No he did not have one year left. He'd played the 4 years of his rookie deal, then the Celtics made him a qualifying offer of ~$3.5M, which made AB a Restricted FA, meaning he could do 1 of 3 things:
1. Negotiate a deal with the C's
2. Negotiate a deal with another team -- which we could choose to match or not by virtue of having extended the Q.O.
3. Accept the qualifying offer (which is 1 year) and become an unrestricted FA next summer.