Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the salary cap for this past season 63 mill and expected to be 89 mill in 2016-2017. So 11 mill last year would be equivalent to 15.5 mill a year from now?
Are you taking that into account?
Close.
2014/15 = $63m
2015/16 = $67m
2016/17 = $89m
So if a guy is making the max this year, he would be on $16.75 m (25% of $67m).
That number is not quite correct. The 'cap' used for the maximum salary 'percent of cap' calculation is not the regular salary cap number. It is actually about 94% of it.
From http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q16
"They use a different cap calculation to determine the maximum salaries, which is based on 42.14% of projected BRI rather than 44.74%."
Thus, for a 0-6 year player, using this year's salary cap number of 67M, the max salary would be 15.8M.
Next year, using a 89M salary cap number, the same category of player would cost 20.95M.
Yeah, I'm sure my figures aren't 100% correct (I don't even know if the cap figures for future years are 100% confirmed yet) just using ballpark figures to express the concept that a 4 year max contract (even after the cap goes up) is not something insignificant - it's still a lot of money to have on your payroll, and a couple of those (one of them, even) is still potentially enough to impact your future flexibility if it doesn't pan out as you hoped.
That's why I would be a little hesitant to go throwing max contracts and near-max contracts at every guy that's available and that we feel is an upgrade over our current team.
If we're overpaying a little (say $12M for a guy who you'd normally pay $10M for) then that's not such a big deal because the rising cap will essentially render that difference irrelevant. But if we're overpaying substantially (say, $15M for a guy you'd normally pay $10M for) based purely on the fact that the cap is rising, then you're taking a big gamble on a deal that may hurt you more then you realise 2-3 years down the track.
Really, even if you sign 4 or 5 guys and overpay each one by $2M/year- that's $8M - $10M a year being thrown away.
It's hard to say whether a player is 'overpaid' or not at the start of a contract. That becomes a pretty subjective projection. So I'll ignore that.
To me, it's about categories of players. Ultimately, in order to be a contender, we are going to want at least 2 and preferably 3 players on roster who are 'max quality'. And, unless one emerges from our developmental prospects, we are going to have to take on 'max contracts' to pay for those guys, whether we sign them as FAs or trade for them under contract. Even developmentally, our own guys will eventually cost that much, if they are that good.
So, looking at where we are now and where we will be by the end of next summer, if the goal is to try to have 3 such players on the roster under contract by the Fall of 2016-17, then it actually would be MUCH better (10M dollars of room next summer better) to try to sign two of those guys this summer.
Because if we don't sign two ~15M guys this summer, then two guys just like them will cost 20M each next summer. That will eat into the money you have to try to get the third guy. That third guy, you probably want to be a more significant piece - perhaps he is a 7-9 (30%) guy. Under the 89M cap number, that guy will cost 25.1M. If we have to waste 10M of our cap space NEXT year buying what we could have locked up THIS year for less, then we may not have that room.
Using back-of-the-envelop estimates, I'm projecting that if we lock two guys up for 0-6 Max contracts this summer (which is doable) then next summer, given current obligations, we should have somewhere around 34-39M in cap space. That would be plenty to get that third guy and still have money to fill out holes in the roster.
If we DON'T sign such guys this summer (and we shouldn't, if we can't find good guys to spend it on who will come here) then it will cost us over 10M more next summer to make up for that and we will only have about 24-29M available for that third guy and address other holes in the roster. Not enough.
That isn't to say that we should spend money for the sake of spending it. It is saying that, if we CAN find two guys worth it to spend it on that will come here, we most definitely should.
If we can't, there are still other avenues, such as trades, to explore that can make up for not finding a match for our needs in the free agent market.
Topic: The Official 'Time For Someone To Apologize' Thread (Read 7182 times)