@Crimson - you aren't far off on numbers as Crowder and Bradley make a combined $15.6M next year. Butler will make $18.7M and George will make $19.3M.
Unfortunately, the only way to make the numbers work in order to trade for either player and sign a max guy is to trade away our '17 BKN pick rather than the '18 BKN pick since that will account another several million, but that seems like a steep price to pay. I guess if you are 'guaranteed' both Hayward and Butler/George, then the price doesn't seem so steep. Still, though, there would be a lot of disappointed people in Boston
True, but that makes not a lot of difference really compared to where we are if we don't do the trade.
Doing the trade or not doing it is a difference of what - $3M or $4M in cap space? Surely that isn't the difference between being able to sign a max FA versus not being able to sign a max FA.
Even if that was the difference, we could easily clear the extra by moving or waiving a couple of young guys like Mickey or Green, right?
Or even better - throw Mickey and Green (or similar) into the trade as filler so that the Bulls are taking back $18M instead of $15.5M, and now we aren't taking back any more then we are sending out...and our cap situation is not affected at all.
That's not how it works. The cap room we're projected to have already assumes that we drop the holds for free agents like Amir, Kelly, Jonas, Green, and Young. Then, we decline to pick up non-guaranteed seasons for Zeller, Mickey, and Jackson. We could clear up a couple million more with a Rozier trade, but other than that you're talking getting rid of major assets (IT, Horford, AB, Crowder, Brown, or Smart) in order to clear more room.
I really wish the answer were as simple as your suggestions, but it's not. Lots of people have pored lots of time looking into the cap numbers for this year, and unfortunately we're not all missing something that easy. The only (reasonable) way to improve our cap situation this summer while getting Butler or George now is by trading away 3 of Crowder, Bradley, Brown, and the 2017 pick.