It might be one of those years where the defending champs might or a Lebron team isn't the favorite, how's that for saying something while dodging the jinx?
But holy cow. If we can keep Monroe especially, and Irving and Gordy come back 100%, at least by Christmas... all 5 starters and at least 3 bench players could legit average 20 on most teams. That's the top 8, possibly a playoff rotation by itself. I mean, if we really did roll with those 8, we're going to see some 140, 145 point games pretty often.
Don't know if it could happen, but I'd love to "keep the band together". 10-man rotation:
Horford
Irving
Hayward
Brown
Tatum
Rozier
Morris
Smart
Monroe
Theis
We don't have much leverage with Monroe. From what I understand, we can only offer him $5 mil? due to the way that we signed him. I doubt that will be the highest offer.
Resigning Smart will likely put us into luxury tax depending on how much he wants and what the luxury tax is for 2019. If we use the projected numbers, it turns out to leave bout 15.5 mil worth of space for him. Anything more than that and I think that if Danny is smart, he will let Smart walk for free to avoid luxury tax for 1 more year because after 2019-2020, we're going to be in luxury for a long time. I don't see it happening because I think Smart is going to ask for and get closer to 20 mil and Danny will let him walk, otherwise the extension could have been done this season.
Rest are already under contract through 2018-2019.