We still have two thorns in the Lebron plan. Right now, assuming we keep Chandler, Gallinari and at least two draft picks from '09 and '10, we're looking at probably at least $26 million. My concern is does that leave us enough to sign LeBron, then resign Lee, Nate, Duhon and possibly Harrington? I think the answer may be no. Feel free to fill in what you feel each player will get and where you feel the cap will be, as perhaps the numbers I've worked out quickly could be off.

My thought process here is if we can get rid of Curry and Jeffries, two players who I don't think are in our long term plans, we should have enough for that entire group, or possibly we could leave out Harrington and potentially add a second star, such as Bosh?

So, I guess my question is, what do you guys think our prospects for getting rid of Curry and Jeffries are? Personally, I'd be willing to give up the '09 first rounder to ensure that we can at least get rid of Curry for a contract that expires before '10. How about you guys?

We don't have an 2010 draft pick.

If we remake Curry and Jeffries in this O (a possibility), we'd free up another 14-15 million or so.

The cap also gets bigger every year, so its a little more space then you think. And then you re-sign Nate, Lee and maybe Duhon to backloaded contracts (more realistic to keep 2 out of the 3). When all is said and done you still have enough room to mathematically bring in a Lebron and Amare.

And then you still have the mid-level exception to offer a cagey vet like Nash, Pierce, Ray Allen etc.

Did Isiah traumatized us so much that we think we have to include a draft pick just to get rid of a contract?

We are rebuilding on the fly so that means no more trading draft picks. Just play Curry when he is healthy and look to RECEIVE a draft pick for him.

Posted by Knicksfan:

Did Isiah traumatized us so much that we think we have to include a draft pick just to get rid of a contract?

We are rebuilding on the fly so that means no more trading draft picks. Just play Curry when he is healthy and look to RECEIVE a draft pick for him.

I'm all for that, if we really think we can get rid of Curry and possibly Jeffries without a pick. If that's realistic, great. If it isn't, I'm not opposed to giving up a pick to open up our cap space even further.

Posted by Solace:

Right right, I forgot that we lost our 2010 pick. I haven't been a hardcore fan in easily a year and a half, so it totally slipped my mind. Thanks Isiah.

Other than that, I definitely like what you are saying. The possibilities are looking much better than they did six months ago.

Actually I was just looking at it again and if we only have Danilo and Chandler under contract, that's only about 5 mil. Lets say we re-sign Nate and Lee to contracts that average 6 and 8 mil a year respectively. We can backload it so they count about 5 and 7 against the cap that year. So that's 12. Plus a first rounder from 2009. Maybe 1.2 mil? If I'm doing this correctly thats around 19 mil for 2010.

This year the cap is roughly 59 million and the cap has roughly gone up by 3 mil a year. Lets be conservative and say the cap is 61 mil in 2010 (ie only going up by a mil each year). If I'm right we are talking about roughly 42 million in space! A max salary right now starts around 21 mil. I think with some creative structuring, 2 maxes are definitely possible.

And then after all that we can add an MLE player- lots of really good vets are FA's that year. Nash, Pierce, Ray Allen to name 3. All will be older, but still able to contribute.

If the salary cap is 64 million (which is the estimate) and we re-sign Lee and Robinson at let's say 8 mil each (which is high), and our 09 pick makes 2 mil, and Jeffries stays, then that's about 30 million. If, BIG IF, we can get rid of Curry, we have 34 mill to spend. Plus the 6 mil exception.

A max then will be 19.5 mill. If we wanted two maxes, we would need to open up 5 mill more. We would have to either move Jeffries or not re-sign Lee.

Can't teams resign players over the salary cap? So we could keep a Duhon and Harrington if we wanted. I think?

Posted by izybx:

I admit I dont really know much about the salary cap, but arent you allowed to go over the cap to resign your own player? Couldnt we resign Duhon once were all capped put?

No, we'd have to renounce his rights first in order to sign the two max FA's.

The other possibility is if we can't trade Curry and Jeffries beforehand, they could still be packaged together in a sign and trade deal for one of the superstars (and allow us to go over the cap to re-sign some of our own guys). Sign and trades are tricky though.

Posted by Solace:

Posted by Knicksfan:

Did Isiah traumatized us so much that we think we have to include a draft pick just to get rid of a contract?

We are rebuilding on the fly so that means no more trading draft picks. Just play Curry when he is healthy and look to RECEIVE a draft pick for him.

I'm all for that, if we really think we can get rid of Curry and possibly Jeffries without a pick. If that's realistic, great. If it isn't, I'm not opposed to giving up a pick to open up our cap space even further.

There is a point in a rebuilding process when draft picks are as valuable as cap space, therefore its imperative to not only keep yours but also get some. After the deals we made we don't have to be that desperate to trade them that we give up a first round pick. Even if it doesn't get done this year, we MUST keep our pick. No way I include it in a Curry deal unless we get a young prospect or another 1st pic.

no way would i give up our draft pick this year to move Curry or Fishlips... we now have a legitimate shot at signing Lebron, that was the main goal... we can look to dump Curry for any old garbage expiring if worse comes to worse at this point... i would also be looking to trade D Lee for another pick in this year's draft as well, cuz there's some guys i'd like to get that will be a better fit for this team's needs going forward.

i think signing Al Harrington to a MLE contract at that point would be a realistic option, unless they wanna use the MLE to re-sign Duhon... i'd be fine w/either option depending on who they pick up in this year's draft... my guess is Duhon or possibly even Nash might be the wiser option, assuming that Gallinari will by then be healthy & contributing in his role... he can probably fill some of Harrington's minutes.

looking at the 2010 roster as it currently stands, we will have the following guys:

Curry $11.2 mil
Fishlips $6.8 mil
Gallo $3.3 mil
Chandler $2.1 mil
'09 pick ~$2 mil

That adds up to $25.4 mil for 5 roster spots... assuming u can dump Curry for an expiring before then & re-sign Nate at say ~$7 mil per, that brings the total down to ~$21 mil, which leaves u with at least $40 mil to fill the rest of the roster spots assuming the cap will be at around $60-65 mil or so at that point... the MLE we will have regardless if we're capped out or not, so we can allocate say about $35 mil in cap to 2 bignames like a Lebron & Amare for example, & still have $5 mil or so left over as well as our MLE to fill the other 7 roster spots.

the trades Donnie made have had such a freakin' HUGE effect on our future flexibility & options to make moves, i can't even understate it... this is why trading Zach was so important, not because he was a crappy player or that we hated him... i'm seriously poppin' major wood over the cap flexibility we just got.

EDIT: disregard what i said about having both the MLE & the cap space... we can use either or, but not both.

[Edited by - TMS on 11-24-2008 1:04 PM]

The only complication right now are Lee and Robinson. How much are they worth and how much can we afford to pay them? I think Nate is probably worth the full MLE, which would put his salary at about $6 mill per. Lee is probably worth about $7.5-$9 mill per. If we could resign both for these numbers, we would be alright. The problem is Lee is probably going to want $10 mil and Nate is going to want $8 mill. We can probably resign Nate, I am not sure we can afford to keep Lee unless he is willing to take $8 or 9 mill. I think we will eventually be able to trade Curry for an expiring contract. Harrington, JJ1, Q, Tim T, and Mobley will all be off the books. So the only other deal is JJ2, who is probably untradeable right now due to his tradekicker which would make him even more overpaid. So, unless JJ2 thrives under MDA system and plays up to his contract, he will still be with the team. We don't have to sign Chandler or DG to extensions until after 2010. So even if we resign Lee and Nate, we should be under the cap by $30 mill, which should be enough for a max player and a slightly below max player. We could trade Lee for draft picks and a prospect and guarantee two max slots.