TripleThreat wrote:NardDogNation wrote:Cartman718 wrote:This does not fit in with the philosophy of prioritizing youth that Perry and Mills have laid out. We are not trading two 25 year olds for a bunch of 30 somethings
So the concept of getting a high first round pick (15th of 30), for players we are poised to lose anyway does not fit into the vision for a youth movement?
For the sake of pure discussion, it's interesting, you are trying to think outside the box, which is commendable, but ccinflushing is right, it doesn't add up cleanly for the Wizards.
If they want to dump salary, they are going to try first to dump those expirings on teams with pure open cap space, not many left, but that's going to be their first move.
As for "frontloading", it only works to a certain AAV and with a certain level of a player's tenure , uninterrupted, with the same franchise. Nick Collison has played with the Thunder pretty much forever. The total AAV breakdown average across the contract length was low enough to frontload. It's based on a percentage against the total projected cap. The reason for the limits is to prevent teams from manipulating the salary floor one season then trying to avoid the triggering the luxury tax or project to avoid the future repeater tax.
I.E. the Lakers are clearly going to be major players in Free Agency this season and likely would go in the tax zone very soon. Unchecked frontloading could allow them to delay the formula into the projected down the road repeater tax by a season or two. That's pretty impactful.
The Wizards have a decent amount of salary coming off the books after this year. Not a ton against the whole, but they have enough expirings to actually open up some other dumping options. The larger issue for them is dumping John Wall. If you want to push a John Wall to the Knicks angle, that's actually more practical for them and more likely (I did not say it would be a good deal for the Knicks though)
The dumping of those expiring contracts will still require assets. And the dumping/replacing of Ian Mahinmi's money will require other assets of even greater value. Should they achieve those ends, what tools would they be left with to actually improve their team for this upcoming season?
I think we're overvaluing their assets/position and underestimating our own in this context. As you intimated, there are very few teams with cap space and a surplus of team's looking to dump salary to avoid luxury tax implications. And with teams like the Nuggets reportedly offering the 14th and Kenneth Faried for cap flexibility and other minor assets, I don't think that asking for the 15th pick is unreasonable if we're taking on the oft-injuried Ian Mahinimi for multiple seasons. O'Quinn might not be an option but maybe Enes Kanter's expiring contract can be.
P.S., I have a bad feeling that the Knicks will inevitably get involved in the John Wall sweepstakes. I felt that ever since he signed that ridiculous contract extension. It will be the Gilbert Arenas situation all over again.
