Who do you think the next big player becoming available to pair with Rondo will be?
A potential lineup of Rondo, Bradley, George, Sully and Horford/Gasol gets me very excited.
Two years ago I would have said...
C Gasol
PF Smith
SF Gay
SG Bradley
PG Rondo
And next season, maybe it could still happen..
You will have a big problem navigating the salary cap with those guys.
Gasol is a max player. So pencil him in for $22M/yr. Half the league will line up to give him that money and the Knicks will be at the front of that line.
Bradley already has a contract averaging $8M/yr. Smith makes $14M/yr. Together those guys make up 1/3 of a team's cap. Now you're at 2/3 of the cap with 3 guys. Add Rondo's max deal and you're at the cap before you factor in Green, our team option young guys and Turner/Wallace. None of the money makes sense.
Even if you pay Detroit to swap us Wallace/Turner/Zeller for Smith (with at least one pick from us) we don't have enough for a max deal afterwards, let alone Gasol AND Gay.
We'd have ~$13M in cap space to work with (including Rondo's cap hold). If we can sign Gasol for $13M then we'd have nothing left to sign Gay. There is no way Gasol signs for $13M. If Green declined his player option we'd have enough to sign Gasol to the maximum but then Gay would have to take the minimum to play here. Unlikely. At that point we'd need to sign Rondo which would push our salary to around $78M if we max him out. $80M if Gay takes the minimum.
If you give up on Gay (and you should) and just keep Green on his $9.2M player option then the money is a little easier to manage and you only need 1.5 miracles (Gasol at $13M and DET taking Wallace+picks for Smith) to happen.
Trades:
Wallace/Turner/Zeller/1st for SmithSummer FAs:
Gasol ($13M)
Contracts:
Max Rondo ($22.2M)
Jeff Green accepts $9.2M player optionRoster:
Rondo ($22M)
Bradley ($8M)
Green ($9M)
Smith ($14M)
Gasol ($22M)
Smart ($3.4M), Young ($1.7M), Sullinger ($2.7M), KO ($2.2)Completely fictional but it would be a fun team to watch. Gasol/Smith would be a more athletic version of what Memphis has. Our perimeter defense would be amazing and we'd have adequate 3pt shooting in Green and Bradley. Our bench would be thin but we are two deep at every position (Young playing SF/SG and Smart playing PG/SG).
Now all we need is a hypnotist.