I'd pay Sully $15-18 million on a 1+1 Amir-style deal. Whatever a little above market value is. He could be all the salary-matching we need in a mid-season Cousins, Butler, or Hayward deal, so that the rest of the trade could simply be picks.
Uggh, honestly, even if that would be the case, I'm just so ready to cut ties with him and Zeller. I get tired of Zeller's philosophy of shooting the ball every time it touches his hand, and I'm tired of seeing the untapped potential of Sully staring us in the face due to his inability to get in shape.
I mean, my preferred choice is to get a salary dump from the Spurs -- preferably Diaw. But Sullinger is still a useful player at times, in shape or not. Personally I think he'd be the fourth big in the rotation behind Horford, Amir, and KO (except that KO might not be back for the beginning of the season). Not to mention Crowder will still pull minutes at the 4, as could Jerebko or Brown.
But salary is going to need to be sent out to acquire a star. Most stars get paid 2-3 times our rotation players, so it will take a lot of players to match salaries. We can go over the cap for Sullinger, and get him to star-matching level on his own.
Heck, maybe it'd just lead to a Sully-Monroe swap in February, with one of our lesser firsts headed to Milwaukee. I don't love Sully, but he's a bench player on our current team, which might suit his conditioning level more. We need some sort of additional frontcourt depth. I know we have Jordan Mickey, and if Mickey passes Sully in the lineup, that'd be fine with me. But a 1+1 at an above market rate is probably the best way to utilize our available cap resources. And maybe, just maybe, this is the year Sully pulls it together.