Philadelphia can and hopefully will

Seems doubtful they would get a max FA but people can feel free to throw some names out.

I would say that there is a decent chance you could exercise the MIllsap option and attach that 1st to get a overpaid player that a team wants to move. Millsap/1st (maybe another asset) for O Porter/Love/Beal/H Barnes/Wiggy or something like that.

lol sure.

How's Ca$h Con$iderations coming along?

How do people think Schroeder's 3/46 is getting moved? I don't see anyone taking him on without sending back a worse contract. Or does his contract some how void if he's not allowed into the country/deported for being a felon? (assault is not automatic deportation because it's not a crime of "moral turpitude" afaik)

Schroeder for Bledsoe makes sense for both sides.

Guess you could say Bledsoe had a pretty good final 2 months of the season and Bucks should see what they have but because of his lack of size/shooting Bledsoe just isn't as good of a roleplayer as Bucks need around Giannis. I'm not even sure if he should be in their best lineup if everyone is healthy.

I think the past few years have shown that if they win, then they can attract a significant free agent. Get 50+ wins and a top four seed in the west and they probably aren't drawing dead to land one of the top 5-6 free agents who will be available in 2019, whoever that might be.

Can they be a 50-win team? I don't know.

So, you are saying that Bledsoe is a bad fit because of size/shooting. In what way is Schroder an upgrade on either size or shooting?

He's only 24. Younger, better playmaker and better at creating his own offense.

Not really a better shooter than Bledsoe but he has potential to get better and would likely get some pretty good looks playing with Giannis in Bud's offense. I think Bledsoe has mostly maxed out as a player.

Maybe if the Bucks wouldn't overpay guys like Delly, Snell, Illy, Henson then I'd say don't trade an expiring for Schroeder but they're capped anyway.

I think their win total will be around 47ish and I'd be inclined to go over if anything. They profile as a really good regular season team that loses rd 1.

Agree either way getting rid of Plumdog or using Millsap in a package would've been a better way to use that pick rather than get off dead money for this season since it seems highly unlikely they would've been paying the tax next season with Faried, Arthur coming off, Plumlee being easier to move and their flexibility with Millsap's contract.

With Murray/Barton/Jokic/Harris/cap holds in place, they could've had close to 40m in room. Does seem possible you could get 1-2 really good FA's with that type of flexibility. Or get 1 really good FA then re-sign Millsap/IT if they have good years.

I'm not convinced that Schroder is a player who should be starting in the NBA. He might be the sort of player who is never going to be more than average but gets too many chances because of his athleticism.

They just don't really have the flexibility to improve in FA anymore so trading for a guy like him and gambling he puts it together makes sense. Pay Middleton/Brogdon and hope for the best.

I'd rather get him for 3/46 than re-sign Bled next summer too. Bled is going to be 30 in 2019 and doesn't really profile to age well.


Middleton is a max right? If not max then like a 5/150. That's a tough 1, similar to Jrue Holiday. You do it and hope for the best so your big gun stays put.

Not sure what Brogdon will get but if he puts together a good year then I think he does profile as the type of guy that will have 6-8 suitors in FA. Can do a little of everything and has more playmaking ability than most 3+D guys. Maybe 12m per.

He's older, but taller and a better three-point shooter, so if the Cavs want to shed salary, how would you feel about Bledsoe for George Hill?

I think George Hill is trending towards done so I'd probably hold off on that.

If Bledsoe for Smart could happen, I'd do that if I were the Bucks. But obviously it can't.

And I believe Hill has a TO after this year that is getting declined, so it isn't much of a salary shed for Cle.

Hill does not have a team option. He has a very partially guaranteed 2019-2020 season.

Better than Kanter@3, Exum@5, Trey Burke@9, a year of George Hill@12, or Alec Burkes@11. Much better than paying Hayward for three years when you could have had him for 5 if you weren't stupid.

The 3 projections I've seen have them ~50, which is low if they ran it back with last year's teams, but could be high because the bottom of the West is going to be trying. A LOT of things had to go wrong for them to only with 46.

Anyway to grab a max they'd need to move off Mason ldo, but with a 13M expiring and only being 5Mish of dead-money it'd probably take a similar amount to what it took to move Chandler, which is practically nothing.

Jimmy Butler seems to be the most talked about, however I wouldn't be that excited to pay him his next contract tbh. They'd be pretty awesome though.

Why?

Small sample size, but the time he played a stretch of games without Durant and Curry back in 2016 he averaged 30ppg.

Not saying he could do that, but 25ppg is definitely doable.

You can fail some draft picks when you don't have to throw them to give away terrible contracts

I don't know how you can even mention contracts when you are rooting for a luxury team that can't reach the playoffs

Just elaborating on the luxury tax stuff from earlier, you said besides a select few, most owners are avoiding the tax. Obviously that is true, but the Nuggs weren't going to be paying the repeater tax and their owner is worth 8.3 billion dollars as of today. This is a team that has made the 2nd rd of the playoffs once in the last 24 years.

I just think it is hard to look at that move as anything other "An extremely wealthy guy saved another .5% of his networth at the expense of his promising young NBA team's future flexibility." He owns the team, that's his right but I still think it sucks for the 14 hardcore Nuggs fans out there.

Maybe stretch Faried, maybe look to deal Arthur for a 2nd. Maybe just keep them and bite the bullet. Or just don't pay Plumlee the 3/41 extension if you aren't willing to pay the luxury tax.

And the Nuggs should know more than any team in the league that giving up 1st rd picks can have dire consequences.

And also, this goes w/o saying and has probably been said in TZ before but the repeater tax is stupid. The small market teams can't pay it unless they have a YOLO owner and the big market teams like the Knicks/Celtics/Lakers/Warriors will eat it for breakfast (atleast to a point)

It makes competitive balance less likely, not more likely.

Paying Jimmy a 4-year 5% raise max >>>> paying Jimmy a 5-year 8% raise max.

If Thibs thought that Jimmy really loved him he should have waited until Jimmy's contract ran out in Chicago. Of course, Thibs probably would have been fired by then.

Crossing the luxury tax threshold is a massive commitment money-wise; it means you no longer get the luxury tax payouts from the tax paying teams (the non-paying teams split that).

You sir are 100% correct.

They've been banking that for years though.

It's a big financial commitment but just for one year you could handle it. I guess when a guy owns like 6 different pro teams, he probably doesn't care about that stuff. And again, if you don't wanna pay it then just don't pay Plumlee. Seems like management was under the impression that ownership would pay it this summer and then they pivoted last minute.

Do the non-paying teams split it right down the middle? Or is there any type of scale related to that as well? How much do the non-paying teams split on average? (Guess this could vary greatly, but seems like it would only be another 5-10 mill)