IT = Rumor of 3/24 offer from Pistons
- Thread starter John Galt
- Start date
- Status
According to cowbellkingdom, Luxury tax will be set around 76 million. Stretching out one of the 6 million dollar PFs will leave room for IT at 8 million/season 
.
http://cowbellkingdom.com/nba-announces-2014-15-salary-cap-rises-to-all-time-high/
.http://cowbellkingdom.com/nba-announces-2014-15-salary-cap-rises-to-all-time-high/
I think the idea that we would stretch either JT or Landry to be very unlikely. Terry, on the other hand, is an excellent candidate (saves $3.9M), and Outlaw isn't a terrible candidate (problem being the savings is only $2M). Note that we could in principle cut Acy's unguaranteed money, but since we'd have to replace him to meet the roster minimum, and he's making the minimum, that would be a lateral move.
But you're doing your calculations in terms of us not crossing the Tax line. I don't think that's the issue here. In fact, I doubt that the current ownership in its push to establish its relevance in the NBA marketplace will balk at paying the tax (even if it does cut us out of one of our last two possible years of revenue sharing).
The number we need to worry about is the apron. The apron is $4M above the tax line, and since we have used the MLE we are hardcapped and not allowed to cross the apron. Since the tax level is $76.829M, the hard cap we have is $80.829M. That's the number we simply can't breach.
Right now, with our current roster we're at about $76.3M. That all depends on the actual price of DC's contract, whether we gave Stauskas the full 120%, and exactly how much of a raise Cousins' contract is going to get (the reported value is the max value from last year, but the actual contract will be the max value from this year which will be about $1M higher). That's for 13 players.
We have about $4M to play with right now. If we stretch both Terry and Outlaw, we gain $5.9M to play with...but we lose about $900K of that because we would have to sign a player at min to get up to the roster minimum of 13. So we can "easily" create about $9M worth of space ($5M before we hit the cap). If we stretch Terry only, that's a hint under $8M to bring in IT (or the fruits of a sign-and-trade). Keep in mind that we'd want to leave a little bit of a buffer. Because if we got any injuries, we couldn't go over the apron, even with minimum players, to replace anyone who got hurt. We could be walking a real tight rope here.
But you're doing your calculations in terms of us not crossing the Tax line. I don't think that's the issue here. In fact, I doubt that the current ownership in its push to establish its relevance in the NBA marketplace will balk at paying the tax (even if it does cut us out of one of our last two possible years of revenue sharing).
The number we need to worry about is the apron. The apron is $4M above the tax line, and since we have used the MLE we are hardcapped and not allowed to cross the apron. Since the tax level is $76.829M, the hard cap we have is $80.829M. That's the number we simply can't breach.
Right now, with our current roster we're at about $76.3M. That all depends on the actual price of DC's contract, whether we gave Stauskas the full 120%, and exactly how much of a raise Cousins' contract is going to get (the reported value is the max value from last year, but the actual contract will be the max value from this year which will be about $1M higher). That's for 13 players.
We have about $4M to play with right now. If we stretch both Terry and Outlaw, we gain $5.9M to play with...but we lose about $900K of that because we would have to sign a player at min to get up to the roster minimum of 13. So we can "easily" create about $9M worth of space ($5M before we hit the cap). If we stretch Terry only, that's a hint under $8M to bring in IT (or the fruits of a sign-and-trade). Keep in mind that we'd want to leave a little bit of a buffer. Because if we got any injuries, we couldn't go over the apron, even with minimum players, to replace anyone who got hurt. We could be walking a real tight rope here.
The biggest mark against PDA and our FO was their either inability or unwillingness to recognize the strengths/weaknesses of the guys who were on our roster when they took over and a failure to address those weaknesses.
Signing Landry, from the day it happened, told me they never took the time to consider what this roster needs, or flat out just didn't know. That Landry signing was about as dumb a signing as any Petrie made.
What's not lost on me is how many times PDA has mentioned wanting "flexibility" as a reason for various moves he's made, yet here we're sitting pretty much zero flexibility at all and a big part of that is decisions he made, not Petrie.
Signing Landry, from the day it happened, told me they never took the time to consider what this roster needs, or flat out just didn't know. That Landry signing was about as dumb a signing as any Petrie made.
What's not lost on me is how many times PDA has mentioned wanting "flexibility" as a reason for various moves he's made, yet here we're sitting pretty much zero flexibility at all and a big part of that is decisions he made, not Petrie.
"Trying stuff" is his MO. I think he said that he is willing to trade and trade and trade to see who fits with the team. As predicting chemistry is not an exact science, I like that approach. Certainly the mass exodus of players like the trades last year will slow up as I think a few problems were solved in that flurry of activity.
We have absolutely nothing from the front office so far as I know that indicates we're willing to pay the new enhanced tax. And indeed, I'm pretty confident that basically nobody does anymore unless they are in immediate contention and trying to stay there. Or are the New York Knicks. Certainly it would be eye opening for a team to do it to retain the core of a 28 win team + Darren Collison, while blowing their best trade assets in the process and thus making it doubtful they could improve much more.
Last edited:
The tax itself would not be a huge deal for us. We're not talking Brooklyn Nets $90M tax bill stuff. Because of the apron and the fact we used our MLE we'd be constrained to fall no more than $4M above the tax line, which all falls under the 1.5x tier. Our luxury tax bill could be no higher than $6M. Throw on top of that the fact that we wouldn't get luxury tax revenue sharing. This year that's coming out at about $3-4M per team. So it looks like busting the tax line would likely cost us somewhere between $3-10M. Even at $10M, that would be on $80M worth of salary, which comes out to about a 12.5% premium. It's not brutal. All things being equal you avoid that hit, but if it makes the difference between making the playoffs or not, I doubt our FO would flinch.
????? You totally lost me on that one. Are you thinking that Vivek won't spend money if it puts him into the luxury tax? Considering how much he and his partners have already committed to spending, the luxury tax would be chump change. I do not think there's any indication from Vivek or anyone else that they're even worrying about that right now.
I don't think it was tax sharing but rather revenue sharing. Seattle was trying to paint Sacramento like a "taker" and Seattle as a payer into the pool. Vivek countered by saying Sacramento wouldn't take the payments. I'm not sure if the league ever clarified if they would allow Sacramento to refuse or not since it was part of the CBA.
No, he's saying the opposite. That Vivek said he wouldn't take money owed to the Kings due to revenue sharing. He said this in response to the Seattle crew who said Seattle would be contributing to the pot while Sacramento would be taking from it (hence Vivek saying he wouldn't accept it - to prove this wouldn't be the case). No idea if it's likely, I doubt the NBA would even allow us to reject it if it were due.
Now that would be nice (and it would free us to go above the apron because we would not be using our MLE) but I can't for the life of me figure why the Clippers would want to pay Terry almost $6M to be Ancient Jason Terry. That doesn't make much sense. And they wouldn't trade for him just to stretch him, because that makes zero sense. But if they were to want a S&T for Landry or JT, that would be really nice for us.
I continue to see this posted but have yet to see anyone address:
1) why appearing to not care about winning would not have adversely affected the arena situation politically and in the community at large
2) how tearing things down would not have required trading Cousins, or how we know Cousins would have agreed to sign an extension if it appears the team was prepared for a long re-rebuild.
3) not sure how you "gut" a roster with very few assets to begin with.
4) the one move that arguably managed to improve the asset base of the team--trading for Rudy Gay--eliminated any chance of cap space in 2014.
1) why appearing to not care about winning would not have adversely affected the arena situation politically and in the community at large
2) how tearing things down would not have required trading Cousins, or how we know Cousins would have agreed to sign an extension if it appears the team was prepared for a long re-rebuild.
3) not sure how you "gut" a roster with very few assets to begin with.
4) the one move that arguably managed to improve the asset base of the team--trading for Rudy Gay--eliminated any chance of cap space in 2014.
Big gamble to take, especially if you’re about to blow whatever cap space or asset we have just to retain IT. If you sign IT now with the intention of trading him later during the season, it will turn out to be a much worse situation and a big distraction to what the FO is trying to accomplish.
IT's value will drop precipitously and you might end up with no other team interested on IT. He won’t be the only option for the Kings at PG and won’t be able to showcase himself the way he did last season. His worth will diminished with a very good PG in Collison and an improving sophomore McCallum playing with him. The false perception of IT as a very good PG may be gone. Then we end up getting stuck overpaying the same selfish, poor facilitator, non-defending, severely undersized PG.
Besides, it is prudent to change the culture of the team NOW and start winning instead of midway of the season when we already piled up insurmountable losses.
I think the best way to proceed is to sign and trade IT for a more or less decent shot blocking BIG now or just let him go and move on to look for other opportunities to get our shot blocking BIG.
IT's value will drop precipitously and you might end up with no other team interested on IT. He won’t be the only option for the Kings at PG and won’t be able to showcase himself the way he did last season. His worth will diminished with a very good PG in Collison and an improving sophomore McCallum playing with him. The false perception of IT as a very good PG may be gone. Then we end up getting stuck overpaying the same selfish, poor facilitator, non-defending, severely undersized PG.
Besides, it is prudent to change the culture of the team NOW and start winning instead of midway of the season when we already piled up insurmountable losses.
I think the best way to proceed is to sign and trade IT for a more or less decent shot blocking BIG now or just let him go and move on to look for other opportunities to get our shot blocking BIG.
- Status