Quote:
Originally Posted by THAKID
im missing something... couldn't they sign the max guy, or two max guys whatever and be at the cap... then sign nate and lee after the fact since they are exception signings
Ok...I'll try to explain realllllllllllllly slow.
At the end of this season they are going to have a bunch of money to spend on Free Agents (LeBron, Wade, Bosh, etc).
The most likely scenario is that they sign Lee and Nate to one-year deals this summer. That makes them Unrestricted Free Agents with Bird Rights in the Summer of 2010.
I'm going to use round numbers for simplicity
If the cap is $58million, and the 1.5 Max Free Agents brings them to that number (which it will), they can still sign Lee and Nate using their exceptions. This will put their salary at something like $75million.
Here is the problem...
After the 2010-2011 season, $18 million dollars comes off the books by way of Eddy Curry and Jared Jeffries. The summer of 2011 also has a bunch of juicy free agents like Parker, Gasol, Yao and Prince. If we give Lee and Nate long-term contracts in the summer of 2010, we won't be able to sign ANYONE (besides for the MLE) in the summer of 2011.
There is absolutely no reason to lock into Nate Robinson when there will be much more valuable players available the following summer. Lee is close, but we'll have to wait and see how the market goes.