I’ve said this before but McNair doesn’t need to make a big move this off-season (contrary to what many fans seem to believe).
Again, the focus is on Keegan Murray. Will he become that go-to option we need to become a championship contender or will he top out as a high level 3&D player? The answer to that question should untimely decide how McNair spends his assets, and if I were McNair, I’d want to see how Murray progresses in his 3rd season before making that decision. If he takes another leap, we can spend a lot our assets on the complementary pieces (3&D PF w/ size & length, 3&D SG, etc.). If he looks like he is plateauing, we can use those assets (and/or Murray) to bring in that level of player to hopefully elevate our ceiling to a championship contender level.
With that long term goal in mind, I was thinking about what a 2024 off-season may look like. Below are the following players that would are under contract for the 2024-25 season:
- Sabonis
- Fox
- Barnes
- Huerter
- Murray
- Lyles
- Vezenkov
- Mitchell
- Duarte
- Ellis
- Jones
Their salaries total to $151.5 mil (the projected salary cap is $141.0 mil and luxury tax is $171.3 mil). As you can see, we won’t have any cap space and will have to operate over the cap.
Monk is our big FA but we only have his Early Bird rights which means we can only offer him 175% of last years salary (he made $9.9 mil) which means we can offer him a max starting salary of $17.4 mil.
If Monk accepts that contract, that would then bring our payroll to $168.9 mil (only $2.4 mil under the luxury tax) with 3 roster spots left to fill. Depending on years of experience, minimum level contracts could be between $1.2-$3.3 mil. I think it would be safe to say that we’d become a tax paying team (which wouldn’t be ideal).
Instead of dipping into the tax, I’d probably look at trading both Mitchell and/or Duarte for future 2nds/cap space to give us some wiggle room. If we did, that would bring our payroll back down to $156.6 mil ($14.7 mil under the luxury tax with 10 players under contract).
I’d then look at filling out the roster with minimum level contracts for guys like Edwards, Len, & McGee, but I’d like us to target
Robert Covington with part of our exception (allowing us to outbid other teams that may just be offering him the minimum.
Covington could end up being a starter on this team considering what he brings to the table (think Okpala but actually impactful):
- He’s got terrific size, strength, & length (7’1.75” wingspan & 8’10” standing reach)
- He’s still a good defender with advanced stats of +2.6 D-EPM (14th in the league) and +2.2 D-DPM (16th in the league)
- He’d help protect the rim next to Sabonis (averages 1.6 blocks per 36 min the last 3 seasons)
- He’d help improve our rebounding (averages 7.3 rebounds per 36 min the last 3 seasons)
- He’d still provide spacing for Fox & Sabonis to operate (.379 3P% on 6.0 3PA per 36 minutes)
- He can play small ball C but you could also go with a PF/C combo of Covington/Lyles to help mitigate going small at C.
He’ll be 33 at the start of the season next year so he’s obviously not a long term answer but he seems like an excellent low key move that would allow us to stay under the luxury tax another year (decreasing the # of years we’d be repeat offenders in the future) and potentially give this team an upgrade (based on fit not so much talent) while holding onto our assets to see what happens with Murray’s development.
Our minute rotation could be something like…
PG - Fox (34) / Monk (14)
SG - Huerter (26) / Monk (12) / Murray (10)
SF - Murray (22) / Barnes (26)
PF - Covington (20) / Lyles (14) / Vezenkov (14)
C - Sabonis (34) / Len (8) / Lyles (6)
Fox = 34 min
Sabonis = 34 min
Murray = 32 min
Monk = 26 min
Huerter = 26 min
Barnes = 26 min
Covington = 20 min
Lyles = 20 min
Vezenkov = 14 min
Len = 8 min
…and our overall depth chart could be something like…
PG - Fox / Monk / Ellis
SG - Huerter / Jones
SF - Murray / Barnes / Edwards
PF - Covington / Lyles / Vezenkov
C - Sabonis / Len / McGee
TW - Slawson / Ford / 2024 SAC 2nd
