I don't see anybody paying over $10 million for Isaiah. There's never been a sub-6' player who's ever earned that much except for Allen Iverson. That being said, a team like Orlando scares me. They could throw a huge chunk of cash at Isaiah if they see Oladipo as a SG moving forward. IT/Oladipo is a good looking backcourt moving forward. Then again, they might not want to shortcircuit their rebuild so quickly, so it remains to be seen.
I'd hazard a guess at IT getting a $7-$8 million type of deal, which works for me. When you consider the production he's giving you, that's a bargain. There's more than enough offense between the IT/Gay/Cousins trio to the point where you can spend the savings on higher-priced defenders, like a rim protector, without worrying too much about offense.
The Kings are stuck in luxury tax territory next year regardless because of Gay's max salary and Cousins getting his pay raise. But with Gay either opting out this year or expiring next year, we will have breathing room eventually since there's no way he's getting that kind of max deal again. Thornton and Outlaw expire in 2015, but Derrick will need his extension that year. Landry and Thompson are locked in long-term (for better or for worse). McLemore has four years before a non-rookie salary will kick in.
So, if we resign IT at say $8 million per year this offseason, we’re probably looking at this in 2014-2015:
Cousins – 13.7m
Thomas – 8m (estimated)
Thompson – 6m
Landry- 6.5m
McLemore – 3m
McCallam - .8m
Gay – 19.3m (needing an extension)
DWill – 4m (needing an extension)
Thornton – 8.6m (expiring)
Outlaw – 3m (expiring)
Acy -0.9m (expiring)
Needs:
1. Rim protector
2. Starting SG? (if McLemore doesn’t pan out)
3. Backup PG (Maybe we can retain Jimmer on a reasonable deal, but he needs to be someone Malone trusts)
4. Backup C (Less important than Backup PG since we can go small for periods of time, perhaps Aaron Gray will be up to the task)
There’s a lot of flexibility and buffer for luxury tax purposes. The luxury tax is really harsh on repeat offenders, so a one year dip into the tax won’t kill us, especially with our shiny new ownership group. Meanwhile, we have 12 million in expirings to play with and some nice young prospects if anyone wants to give up a defensive anchor type player. Lots of different ways PDA can go with this. We don't know who will be on the roster when our main needs are addressed.
What jumps out to me is Thompson and Landry’s salaries, both of whom are really third bigs. Need to shed one or the other. Thompson’s been important to our mini-surge, but he’s likely going to be the one to go. JT’s been building trade value quite nicely so its possible we could swap him for an expiring to a team needing a big (I’m looking at the Clippers in particular). Eventually we are going to need a rim protector next to Cousins so it’s a short-term loss for a long-term gain salary-wise.
