worse comes to worse...amnesty salmons to clear salary for evans
We wouldn't have to, at least not to sign him. We'll have Tyreke's Bird rights, so we'll be able to exceed the cap. The only reason would be to avoid the luxury tax. Right now, I don't see us getting into the tax region at that point, but I suppose you never know. Right now we should only have about $30M committed to players in the offseason when Tyreke comes up for a raise (via extension or free agency) - that's Cousins, Thornton, Hayes, Salmons and Jimmer. If we throw in a presumed AK47 for $9M, Whiteside, Honeycutt and Thomas at $1M apiece (hypothetically, of course) that would be 9 players for $42M. Even if we resign Hickson at $8M and JT at $6M, that's $56M, and $14M for Tyreke would get us right to the tax threshold. That's not really absolute-necessity-to-amnesty range, especially with the knowledge that Salmons and AK47 would be off the books when we have to pony up for Cousins.
Of course, we'll have to be careful if we get to the point that we have two max contracts on the books (Tyreke and DeMarcus), but right now it doesn't look to me like AK47 on a three year deal would hurt us that badly.