Has Noel signed with Philly or somewhere else? Sign him and Harkless with the rest of the dough, if possible. Deadmon is okay, if Noel has signed up somewhere else. @D-rock @ApacheWarrior
So we could theoretically have all of our MLE If we were to dump Eric Gordon for a player worth around 4.3 million?
Or If you were to trade Russ for Julius Randle, would we be able to use the entirety of the MLE? Also tempting.
I don’t think Stone should do that. Russ is more important than Randle. We need good role players around JH and RW.
They aren't done by a longshot .... If the reports that Harden & Westbrook want out are factual , that's $80m+ in salary out the door. I'd like to believe that they are moving Westbrook and Harden is staying .... but I think the damage is done and they'll be a lottery team. Best case would be moving EG for a TPE (not likely now that most cap space is spent) Or for a useful player on a lesser contract value allowing them to use the MLE & BAE for two more players (Wood was signed into Detroit's cap and his salary absorbed into a TPE) ...... But if Harden is out the door , it really doesn't matter .... its a rebuild cause they won't get anything close to fair value.
Moving Russ is $41,358,814 - Randle is $18,900,000. Not enough to satisfy the cap rules , they have to send Out a minimum of 33,087,051 to take on that $41m. They are currently 9m ish under the apron adding the difference above (41,358,814 - 33,087,051) would put them ~17.3 under at which point they could use both the NT MLE and the BAE then fill out the roster with minimums.
They don't have to match the contract because they have enough pure cap space to absorb the difference. I'd do it tbh. Extra points if they get Ntilikina thrown in.
They only have $14,074,286 in actual cap space , they can create up to $42,589,206 but have to renounce their own FA's to do so.
Without doing all the math .... about 5,885,528 which is the 2nd year vet min x 4 which fills out the roster spots after use of the MLE. (assuming they are ~9m under now).
