Apologies for starting a thread in violation of my sig. Couldn't find an existing one that really gets at this question. For those of us who are psyched about the current lineup, love the balance, aren't looking for trades, and would like to keep our young guys together, what's realistic? I'm a cap ignoramus and would like to know what the limits are. How much will it cost us to keep Amen? Jabari? Tari? Cam? Do we run into impossible math in terms of the cap, or are we more likely to run into a math problem in terms of minutes? In my fantasy, we keep the band together. But I need to figure out where my fantasy ends and reality sets in.
Now that Jalen and Alpi have signed for 20% of cap, combined with the salary cap projected to rise 10% each year, we can easily sign everyone without hitting the 2nd Apron, including a Max for Amen. don’t let anyone tell you otherwise…this is an outdated worry
Start here: 240 playing time minutes a game Star starters play 30-35 minutes per game Assuming we have three stars, 3x33= 99 minutes 240-99=141 minutes left Assuming five other core players 141/5=28mpg each That's enough PT to keep players happy. X-Factor: They love playing for Ime. Given his immaturity, I don't think we'll keep Cam unless he can start.
Even if Green opts out to re-sign for max? Maybe we'd have to lose 1 player then. That's amazing we can actually keep all 7. Not that I think they will all necessarily fit with us, but that's great to know. Even 5 is plenty for a championship core.
We'll probably need to impose some sort of tariff to keep all our Rolling Rafael Stone's together... Otherwise we won't be able to keep our satisfaction! Spoiler Go Rockets!!! ....... ....... .......
Here's how it works. You beg ThompsHIM to take the max. You ask him who else he wants here and who he wants gone. Then you get a puppet-ass GM-in-name-only to keep ThompsHIM happy. That's how it works. That's how it better, anyway.
I think this actually does deserve its own thread because we've had a lot of discussion about it in other threads that are only tangentially related. So, the year where we have to start paying everybody (except Reed Sheppard) is 2027-2028. That's when possible extensions for Amen and Cam would kick in. Let's assume Tilman is willing to go close to the second apron but not above it. The second apron will likely be around $250M or so that season. Let's take a look at some things: --- Fred VanVleet: $0 (not under contract) Jalen Green: Player Option for $36M (let's assume he will exercise it for the sake of ease, but it's possible he could instead re-up for more or less depending on how he plays over the next couple seasons) Dillon Brooks: $0 (not under contract) Alperen Sengun: $37M Reed Sheppard: $14M 8 players at minimum salaries to fill out roster slots: $16M (let's say it averages out to $2M each for the sake of simplicity) So right there we're at $103M. That leaves $147M to play with. I think we can assume already Amen will be a max player, which should be around $47M. Amen Thompson: $47M Now we have $100M to extend Jabari Smith Jr, Tari Eason, and Cam Whitmore. This is where things get tough and much is going to depend on what we can get Jabari and Tari to agree on during the offseason. If we just split it three ways that leaves $33M for each, which seems more than fair to them right now--but you have to keep in mind that all of this is assuming the rest of the roster is only minimum-salary players. It leaves no room for anything else that improves the team. If you assume instead we have another $30M starter via free agency or trade (which could be something like extending FVV), plus an MLE bench guy for $15M--it gets a lot harder to extend these three guys because now you have only $55M to play with, which leaves just $18M for each of these three players--likely not enough. You also have to consider the possibility that Jalen Green declines his player option and receives a max deal, which would also significantly cut down on cap space. The TL;DR is, yes, it's technically possible to keep all of the young core together, but there are a lot of other variables in play and realistically it's pretty likely that at least one of them will have to go. If Jabari and Tari accept team-friendly deals that look similar to Dillon Brooks' contract during this offseason, it will get a lot easier to keep everybody together.
Sengun and Jalen aren't max players. Tari and Jabari won't be either. Amen will likely be their first max guy, if things continue. But it will still get expensive and it will be challenging to keep them all because they're all developing right now. Even Cam is contributing. The shock is Reed Sheppard is giving you zero but he's a rookie and things could look different in a year or two. They can do it, but navigating how you handle FVV and Dillon will be a tricky part. Those guys do a lot more heavy lifting than they get credit for.
Agreed. Did he get PT last night?... I'm sure he won't be pleased with it, but I don't recall seeing him out due to injury so, coach's DNP?
