Let me first say that I'm on board with the playoff push. I'm not sure if we'll get there. Prior to the losses to OKC and the Spurs, I took a wild guess that we'd go 6-11 over the final 17 games, but I'm rooting for us to finish a lot better than that. I have faith in Ainge regardless of what happens. Granted, I don't buy into the idea that merely making the playoffs is some kind of transcendent developmental experience. I don't really think it matters much, honestly. A classic example is 2012 Philly. They were an extremely young team that barely made the playoffs with 35 wins. They managed to knock off #1 seed Chicago (sans D-Rose) in Round 1 and push the Big-3 Celtics to 7 games in Round 2. You'd think young Philly would have carried that grand performance into the next season, right? Of course not. They ended up winning 34 games and missing the playoffs. Talent is everything in this league and they didn't have it. Talent is how you can go from a bottom-feeder to contender overnight with a single acquisition (saw it with Boston in 2008 and have seen it thrice with Lord James in Cle/Mia/Cle). The whole "playoff reps" thing is only relevant when you've already acquired that superstar talent. Still, the playoffs could theoretically have some benefit. The argument can be made that making the playoffs would help in our pursuit of free agents this offseason. I can buy that premise. Let's explore it.
Despite the two losses, we're currently tied for the #8 seed right now. If the playoffs started today, it looks like we'd be facing off against Atlanta in Round 1. That automatically makes our best pick this year #16. That puts a bit of a damper on our trade market hopes. Teams aren't too anxious to trade star talent for mid-to-late 1sts. You'd have to sell them on the Brooklyn picks, because a mid 1st isn't inherently valuable. We saw last offseason how challenging it was to even put together a competitive trade package around the #6 pick. At the end of the day, having a Top 5 pick is going to trump any trade package involving multiple mid 1sts.
I imagine making the playoffs this season would have a large part to do with the contributions of the guys currently on the squad, right? If you're the type of person who subscribes to the idea that playoff experience carries over into the next season, I imagine you'd want to do everything possible to retain the current team and add to it, right? Right now our playoff push is partially fueled by a few guys who are free agents this offseason. I'm curious what it will take to retain those guys.
Open question: What are you paying Brandon Bass, Jonas Jerebko, Gigi Datome and Jae Crowder this Summer?
It looks like we have roughly 26 mil in cap space at the moment. We're going to need to pay #16 and #25 so figure that's another 3 mil gone. Even if you got Bass, Crowder and Jonas each for 5 mil (and let Gigi walk), you're suddenly down to merely 8 mil in cap space. It doesn't seem possible to retain all those guys and still have money for a max contract.
I'm starting to wonder if we'll be better off forgetting about the cap space and trying to utilize our trade exceptions instead. Moving a trade exception along with mid picks might net something, but probably not the much-needed superstar talent.
It's possible that we'll have an offseason without any lotto picks or max room cap space.
Of course, moving Gerald Wallace's contract could allow us the opportunity to retain everyone AND have room for a max deal. We may need to sacrifice a draft pick in order to dump that contract off on a team with cap space to eat it. Or maybe you just use the stretch provision on the Wallace contract. Especially with the cap about to jump, it probably isn't going to matter much if we have a few million in dead dollars eating into our cap over the next 3-5 years. With the trade market being our best option for landing a star, I'd probably try to hang onto the Wallace contract until at least the trade deadline, because any major package involving draft picks and prospects (Sully/Oly/Smart) is going to need a filler contract. The 10 mil expiring Wallace deal is a perfect "filler contract".
So I guess in summary, making the playoffs could help in our pursuit of free agents... but unless Ainge makes some additional moves, we aren't going to be able to retain the playoff team and have significant cap space to pursue free agents with. The trade market is likely our most viable option for acquiring talent... in which case, the only tangible benefit of making the playoffs this season would be a mildly uptick in the trade value of our assets.
Topic: No Lotto picks + No Cap space? (Read 6828 times)