Even if OKC could just magically not use any cap space on all of their players not named Durant, Westbrook, and Ibaka, they still couldn't sign Dwight. That's 45 million for three players. Even after they amnesty Perkins, they will sit at 56 million. They have to get to about 38 million to sign Dwight. I guess you could argue that they could gut their entire championship contending roster and trade Ibaka for Dwight. Assuming they keep their rookies and Jackson (insurance for Westbrook coming back from injury), that would give them just over 2 million to fill up 6 spots on the roster. They would also have to justify paying an extra 8 million a year for Dwight when Ibaka was already a great defensive big. So you essentially lose Ibaka, Martin, Thabo, Perkins, Collison from this year and replace all of that with Dwight for next season.
Couldn't they trade, say, Ibaka and Thabo and picks in a S&T, and keep all the others? Of course, they'd just be swapping one defensive center for another defensive center who thinks Durant should be feeding the post.
I just assumed the Lakers wouldn't care for Thabo, but sure they could do that. I am not questioning the possibility (yes it is possible) only the probability that the Thunder will want to do this. You take away a key wing defender for them and in return get a slight upgrade in a big, all the while paying an additional 4 million. That gives them less flexibility to improve and add players. I already assumed that they would keep their rookies, so who are you talking about when you say "keep all the others." Do you mean Thabeet? Everyone else (Martin, Fisher, Brewer...ect) are UFA, so they can't just "keep" them. I am not sure that is what Dwight had in mind when he wanted a quality big man to play with. If you are the Lakers, Ibaka is an amazing consolation prize.
I mean the UFA's, on whom they have Bird rights. Does anyone really want to keep Thabeet? I'm not saying this is a good plan at all. I guess I was reacting to the 'gutting a championship roster.' Ibaka is a significant piece of the team, but they'd still have most of the roster left, it wouldn't be gutted. Thabo might be too much, but I didn't want to take the time to look at a salary list to see what worked.
How is removing 4 rotation players (Thabo, Martin, Ibaka, Perkins) for one player not considered gutting? That's 3 players that played 30 minutes a game and 1 player that played 25 minutes. Put it a different way (not arguing, just kind of counting our blessings) they would in essence be losing Harden, Ibaka, Thabo, and Perkins from that finals run last year. You also have to factor in that they would be sitting at 4 million over the cap before they sign any of their UFA. Just because they can resign guys that were on team and but didn't play any minutes does not mean it won't be gutted. 240 minutes a game played by that team, and they would be losing 115 minutes between guys that they are for sure losing and can't resign as UFA. That would only increase if they miss out on some of their UFA. That's almost half of your team's minutes. Maybe "gutted" was too strong a word, but it still seems substantial.
That's what I'm asking -- why would you have to lose Martin and Perkins? Perkins, you only need to cut if he gets you into luxury tax trouble. And you can re-sign Martin for a more modest contract with Bird rights.
Funny thing is that it doesn't seem like Howard does want to win. He said he was surprised at how hard Kobe works in an interview with Time Warner last year and has been a relative screw off all season on the Lakers. Maybe he does want to win, he just doesn't want to work hard to do it. Based on his behavior at the games and in the locker room, it seems that he actually doesn't care about winning as long as he gets paid. Instead he'd rather pretend he's a celebrity and talk about all of his future movie roles which I can't imagine he would get. Said something about a Disney project he's starting next year though.
Well if they didn't amnesty Perkins, they would be over the luxury tax threshold before they signed any UFA's. If you amnesty Perkins, you have up to 4 million before you hit luxury tax. So theoretically they could re-up Martin, but they would have very limited resources to do so and fill up the remaining 4 roster spots. It's possible that the Thunder, a year after trading away a budding star in Harden to avoid the luxury tax, are now in fact okay with paying the luxury tax. Possible but improbable I believe. Let's say they fill that last 4 spots with minimum contracts, which for the 13-14 season is set at about 800K, and get rid of all of their draft picks. That would leave about 800K to sign Martin, if they are to stay under the luxury tax. I would also like to point out that if they are only getting minimum level players, it is unlikely they resign any of their UFA's (Fishers minimum salary for example would be 1.4 million). It's possible that Martin will take the discounted contract to stay with a contender. Again, I just don't find it that probable. If you want to argue that it is probable than that's fair enough. I can not speak for the Thunder mgmt, and maybe they are willing to pay a little extra if they think Dwight is the missing piece. As a Rockets fan, this would be good because I actually think it makes them worse. They lose perimeter defense and they get a player that will demand touches from Durant an Westbrook. We keep our cap space and can look for a "one and done" (Gasol) and do this FA dance again next year.
