bajaden
Hall of Famer
Not sure what the percentages are, but if you took a poll, my guess is that just as many people think Dalembert will be traded before the trade deadline as those who think the Kings will try and resign him. Truth is, if the Kings wait till the end of the year, he becomes a freeagent and is on the open market. Yes, they would still hold his Bird rights, as they would with Landry. But with those Bird rights comes a cap hold. Unless you relinquish your rights to the player. The cap hold on Dalembert is a healthy $19,045,250.00. Add in the cap hold from Landry which is $6,000,000.00 and you have a total of $25 mil counting against the cap. Add that to the remaining 29 mil in salaries and your right back to 53 mil. Not a lot of wiggle room there is there?
Obviously the cap hold of 19 mil is far more than the Kings or any other team would be willing to pay Dalembert. Whereas the 6 mil for Landry is more reasonable. My point is that its probably in the Kings best interest to just relinquish the rights of both players and let the chips fall where they may. Once done, the Kings will have more money under the cap than any other team in the NBA. And just maybe, they'll be more interested in someone else.
Here's a list of some of the unrestricted freeagents:
Kendrick Perkins
Zach Randolph
Glen Davis
Josh Powell
Yao Ming
Tony Parker
Shane Battier
Tayshaun Prince
Nenad Krstic
Andrei Kirilenko
Josh Howard
Jason Richardson
Joel Przybilla
Jason Kapono
Troy Murphy
Mike Dunleavy
Grant Hill
J.R. Smith
Kenyon Martin
Peja Stojakovic
Now I grant you that all these guys may not remain freeagents. But just on the surface, who would you rather have, Dalembert or Perkins at center? I have no preference just yet, but Perkins is the younger of the two. Yeah I know, Boston won't let Perkins slip away. But Boston is going to have commited salaries of 71.8 mil without counting Perkins. Just how deep into the luxury tax are they willing to go? Especially when we don't even know what the new rules are.
If they do install a hard cap, and my logical side says that simply won't happen, but if they do, then teams like Boston will have more to worry about than resigning Perkins. But lets say they come up with something more reasonable for both sides like, no hard cap, but they do away with the mid-level exemption while retaining some form of Bird rule. This would still enable teams to go over the cap to retain one of their own players, but wouldn't allow them to use a mid-level to do the same thing. Only teams that had managed their salaries would be in position to sign freeagents. Ahemm! Like the Kings.
Other than the Kings only a few other teams have much capspace. These are the teams without the cap holds being added. For those that don't know what a cap hold is. Its an amount of money that counts against the teams cap for players that they retain the rights to in some form. Such as having the Bird rights, or the mini Bird rights. Or because the player is a restricted freeagent and requires a qualifing offer. Its intent is to keep a team from stashing a player by holding on to his rights, while going out and using the cap space provided by that player to sign another player. Thus the cap hold. Anyway here are the total salaries of these teams at the end of next year.
Kings: $28.1 mil
Nets: $39.8 mil
Pacers: $36.3 mil
Grizzleys: $36.3 mil
Thunder: $37.9 mil
These five teams will have the most money to spend. However in the Thunder's case Krstic is an unrestricted freeagent and Green is a restricted freeagent. The Griz are in a similar situation with Acie Law, Hamed Haddadi, Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, and Zach Randolph all becoming either restricted or unrestricted free agents. Here's a short list of the restricted freeagents.
Al Horford
Al Thornton
Yi Jianlian
Julian Wright
Greg Oden
Patrick Mills
Jeff Green
Wilson Chandler
Mario Chambers
Marc Gasol
Mike Conley
Aaron Brooks
Aaron Afflalo
So this is just food for thought. Resigning either Landry or Dalembert may not be a slam dunk. With the depth on the front line, the Kings may be in the unique position of letting two talented players walk away, without a huge drop in talent overall, and be position to make one or even two more reasonable additions that may be more beneficial to the team. Either way, the Kings won't have any cap space to work with until they make a decision on the two of them. Either resign one or both for reasonable money, or relinquish their rights and move in another direction
Obviously the cap hold of 19 mil is far more than the Kings or any other team would be willing to pay Dalembert. Whereas the 6 mil for Landry is more reasonable. My point is that its probably in the Kings best interest to just relinquish the rights of both players and let the chips fall where they may. Once done, the Kings will have more money under the cap than any other team in the NBA. And just maybe, they'll be more interested in someone else.
Here's a list of some of the unrestricted freeagents:
Kendrick Perkins
Zach Randolph
Glen Davis
Josh Powell
Yao Ming
Tony Parker
Shane Battier
Tayshaun Prince
Nenad Krstic
Andrei Kirilenko
Josh Howard
Jason Richardson
Joel Przybilla
Jason Kapono
Troy Murphy
Mike Dunleavy
Grant Hill
J.R. Smith
Kenyon Martin
Peja Stojakovic
Now I grant you that all these guys may not remain freeagents. But just on the surface, who would you rather have, Dalembert or Perkins at center? I have no preference just yet, but Perkins is the younger of the two. Yeah I know, Boston won't let Perkins slip away. But Boston is going to have commited salaries of 71.8 mil without counting Perkins. Just how deep into the luxury tax are they willing to go? Especially when we don't even know what the new rules are.
If they do install a hard cap, and my logical side says that simply won't happen, but if they do, then teams like Boston will have more to worry about than resigning Perkins. But lets say they come up with something more reasonable for both sides like, no hard cap, but they do away with the mid-level exemption while retaining some form of Bird rule. This would still enable teams to go over the cap to retain one of their own players, but wouldn't allow them to use a mid-level to do the same thing. Only teams that had managed their salaries would be in position to sign freeagents. Ahemm! Like the Kings.
Other than the Kings only a few other teams have much capspace. These are the teams without the cap holds being added. For those that don't know what a cap hold is. Its an amount of money that counts against the teams cap for players that they retain the rights to in some form. Such as having the Bird rights, or the mini Bird rights. Or because the player is a restricted freeagent and requires a qualifing offer. Its intent is to keep a team from stashing a player by holding on to his rights, while going out and using the cap space provided by that player to sign another player. Thus the cap hold. Anyway here are the total salaries of these teams at the end of next year.
Kings: $28.1 mil
Nets: $39.8 mil
Pacers: $36.3 mil
Grizzleys: $36.3 mil
Thunder: $37.9 mil
These five teams will have the most money to spend. However in the Thunder's case Krstic is an unrestricted freeagent and Green is a restricted freeagent. The Griz are in a similar situation with Acie Law, Hamed Haddadi, Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, and Zach Randolph all becoming either restricted or unrestricted free agents. Here's a short list of the restricted freeagents.
Al Horford
Al Thornton
Yi Jianlian
Julian Wright
Greg Oden
Patrick Mills
Jeff Green
Wilson Chandler
Mario Chambers
Marc Gasol
Mike Conley
Aaron Brooks
Aaron Afflalo
So this is just food for thought. Resigning either Landry or Dalembert may not be a slam dunk. With the depth on the front line, the Kings may be in the unique position of letting two talented players walk away, without a huge drop in talent overall, and be position to make one or even two more reasonable additions that may be more beneficial to the team. Either way, the Kings won't have any cap space to work with until they make a decision on the two of them. Either resign one or both for reasonable money, or relinquish their rights and move in another direction