The Googs for Walt/Cato trade creates an interesting scenario. Let's assume for a minute that Phoenix would accept such a trade. Using RealGM as my source for the numbers, next year we'll have a team salary of $41.5 million with Walt, Willis, Langhi, Brown, & Torres's contracts expiring. Not knowing what the cap will go up to next year, I'll have to assume some things. The cap this year is $42.5 million, so if we assume for a moment that the cap will increase by 10% next year, that would increase it to $46.75 million. That would leave us with about $5.25 mill under the cap. Since all of the players mentioned above would count as salary against the cap, until they are renounced or resigned for less than their unrenounced value, we will not have any available cap space to pursue FA's. Now, I'm going to assume that the team will renounce their rights to Walt & resign Willis, Langhi, Brown, & Torres. Langhi/Brown/Torres will probably be resigned for the minimum, which should be a total of just under $2 million for the 3 of them, which would bring our total team salary to about $43.5 mill. I'm not sure what we'd resign Willis for, but I doubt that he'd take anything less than the $3 mill that he's making this year, which would eat up any cap space we'd have left. However, we would still have the mid-level exception to use on an available FA. Now, back to the original trade scenario. If we traded Cato/Walt for Goog's (assuming Phoenix would go for it-see why they might go for it below), we'd increase next year's salary by $4.2 mill to about $45.7 mill, with Willis/Langhi/Brown/Torres left to resign. Again, we'd still have the mid-level exception, but would probably have to use it to resign Willis. That would take us out of the FA market completely. The reason that I would consider the trade would be for the future. Rice & Goog's contracts expire at the end of the 03/04 season. By making the trade we'd be dropping Cato's dollars off of the 04/05 cap, which would be about $8 million. Assuming that Francis & KT resigned with us at 250% of their last years contract (according to the CBA), our total team salary would be about $37.1 mill, with T-Mo/Langhi/Brown/Torres/Collier to be added. If we assume that the salary cap will increase an average of just 8% each of the next two years, then the salary cap should be about $54.5 mill by the 04/05 season. That would leave us with approximately $17.4 mill to resign T-Mo/Langhi/Brown/Torres/Collier & to pursue a top tier FA. By not making the trade or some other trade to move Cato, we'd have to add his $8 mill to the team salary, which would only leave us with about $9.4 mill to resign our players & pursue any FA's. Here's a link to the list of FA's for the 04/05 season: http://www.realgm.com/src_freeagents.php?year=2004 Notice Tim Duncan on there? If he, for some strange reason, doesn't opt out of his contract early, we could be major players. Anyway, as far as why Phoenix might consider the trade? I have no idea. Actually, it would allow them to drop $4.2 mill off the books next year & would give them a legitimate (albeit, useless imho) center. Their salary for next year would be about $43.8 million, not counting their unsigned players. They've got 7 players under contract with two player options to exercise. The only real benefit to them would be to free up salary, to resign their current players & still be able to stay under the luxury tax. I'm not sure that would be a good enough reason to accept Cato, but who knows.
