I've posted all of our cap holds before, so I won't repeat it. Assume we clear all of our cap space, except for the cap holds for David Lee, Bill Walker and Earl Barron, which are less than their presumed trade value. From there, we make our largest free agent signing: Lebron James at $16,830,000.00. (This could be any Max Free Agent, but why not start with the best).

Player	2010 Salary/Cap Holds
Eddy Curry	  11,276,861.50
David Lee	  10,500,000.00
Danilo Gallinari  3,304,560.00
Wilson Chandler	  2,130,481.00
Toney Douglas	  1,071,000.00
Earl Barron	   854,389.00
Bill Walker	   854,389.00
Andy Lautins	   473,604.00
Landry Fields	   473,604.00
Jerome Jordan	   473,604.00
Lebron James	 16,830,000.00
	
Total	         48,242,492.50
Salary Cap	 56,100,000.00
Cap Space Available	7,857,507.50

We are left with $7,857,507.50 in cap space and the rights to Bill Walker and cap holds for David Lee and Earl Barron. Assume we exercise our rights to Bill Walker and we give Earl Barron $1.5M this year. We then choose to use the balance of our unused cap space to sign Mike Miller (or any combination of players worth approximately $7.2M). Keep in mind that we still have the Bird Rights to David Lee.

Player 2010 Salary/Cap Holds
Eddy Curry 11,276,861.50
David Lee 10,500,000.00
Danilo Gallinari 3,304,560.00
Wilson Chandler 2,130,481.00
Toney Douglas 1,071,000.00
Earl Barron 1,500,000.00
Bill Walker 854,389.00
Andy Lautins 473,604.00
Landry Fields 473,604.00
Jerome Jordan 473,604.00
Lebron James 16,830,000.00
Mike Miller 7,211,896.50

Total 56,100,000.00
Salary Cap 56,100,000.00
Cap Space Available 0.00

Now, we start to get creative. Assume that many teams would be interested in a sign and trade for David Lee at a salary starting at $14,000,000. Let’s trade for Chris Bosh because it is the easiest. We can sign and trade David Lee at $14M to the Toronto Raptors for Chris Bosh on a Max Contract (which fits within the traded player exception (salaries must be within 125% + $100K).

Player 2010 Salary/Cap Holds
Eddy Curry 11,276,861.50
Chris Bosh 16,830,000.00
Danilo Gallinari 3,304,560.00
Wilson Chandler 2,130,481.00
Toney Douglas 1,071,000.00
Earl Barron 1,500,000.00
Bill Walker 854,389.00
Andy Lautins 473,604.00
Landry Fields 473,604.00
Jerome Jordan 473,604.00
Lebron James 16,830,000.00
Mike Miller 7,211,896.50

Total 62,430,000.00
Salary Cap 56,100,000.00
Cap Space Available -6,330,000.00

This could go down a bunch of different ways and nothing could really be finalized until it is all finalized. The key to all of this is knowing whether you can use the cap space difference between a max contract and David Lee’s cap hold prior to making any further moves—i.e. you need to have the sign and trade in place. All I am pointing out is a way to leverage the difference between David Lee’s cap hold and his value on the open market. At that point, you still have all of your young player assets and the contract of Eddy Curry (which now does not create cap space in 2011). So, I would make another move to leverage the value of his contract. Moving Eddy Curry can wait until February, but it is a good move.

EwingsGlass wrote:

Moonangie wrote:The only problem with it: Lee won't be interested in moving to Toronto.

We should ask him that first, but it works as a sign and trade to any locale he wants to go that has a player we are interested in-- Phoenix for Amare, Dallas for Dirk (his Max is $20M so we might have to throw something in)? Its not easier than waiving Lee and signing another free agent outright, but the point is that his $10.5M cap hold can get us a max contract player through sign and trade after using the rest of our cap space on players.

DLee can just waltz across the george washington bridge and sign with new jersey. i think he probably will.