His contract lists next year as a team option for just under $4mm. Is that already picked up or can we package him to a team that wants to dump salary then they just dont pick up that option and he's a FA? I would think that piece of flexibility would make him an attractive piece.

I think we will likely pick up his option and I read that he can be cut at anytime for the 1.8m of cap hold
It comes down to what we do with CA and if we can get the full 5 MLE vs 3.2m MLE and if we are the cap we only get about the 2m LLE without the MLE to use which is biannual, with the CBA likely rising to 5m
So we cannot be too LOW and too HIGH, in order to be able to use the MLE