re: Official 2015 Pelicans Talk Free Agency Thread

With just the 9 signed players we're at $74. Add 4 minimum guys you're at $78. Upgrade 2 of those guys with the BAE and MLE remainder and you're at $78. This is with letting Cole leave. You're 5 away from the tax and $9 from the apron.

Every time I think I fully understand the cap, you go and post something like that.

I' m not afraid to say I don't understand the Hardcap at all.

I deleted my example because it was a bit off. Going from memory and on my phone isn't the best environment. I'll have to see if I can come up with a better example tomorrow. And I didn't know about the hard capping until it was brought up a few days ago, so most of us feel like that.

I'm waiting on Alexey Shved

How much is Shved going to make? If it's a cheap deal, he could be an interesting pick up.

So, Zach Lowe included a comment in his latest Grantland piece about Davis, which some of the MSB tards are trying to use to mock the Pelicans.

quote:

---

It’s easy to look at a spreadsheet and criticize the Pelicans. The combination of restricted free agency and the ability to offer a super-max “Derrick Rose Rule” contract gave them about as much leverage as any team will have over a star player. Signing the one-year qualifying offer, as Greg Monroe did to shake free of Detroit, would have cost Davis $16 million in 2016-17 and as much as $30 million over the course of five years. He wasn’t going to do it.

But the Pelicans aren’t the Spurs, and Davis isn’t Leonard. He’s a generational superstar, and making him wait a year might have irked him. If things went poorly, Davis could have signed a three-year deal with another team, forced the Pelicans to match, and started the clock ticking toward his inevitable and premature divorce from New Orleans.

The Pelicans couldn’t afford even that small risk — not with a player like this, in a small market familiar with losing stars to glitzier places. Sometimes, spreadsheets don’t matter.

---

My response:

quote:

---

So, the Pelicans create $10M in cap space. So what? Nobody available for $10M this year was putting this team over the top. Furthermore, you sacrifice your MLE by going under the cap. You would end up bringing back nearly the same roster or minimal upgrade by offering that $10M in a long term deal, actually costing yourself an additional $10M of flexibility in next year's free agency period when Davis gets the same amount of money.

I'd rather add that $10M in flexibility to next year's books where we have about $24M expiring. Lowe was pretty short-sighted in that analysis.

---

I didn't see discussion here about it, so I wanted to kind of nip the negativity in the bud. I do agree with Lowe, though, you give him what he deserves a year earlier than you're forced to and he will be ingratiated.

Cap space doesn't mean as much as it used to. Demps clearly thinks he can move one of Ajinca/Asik at some point. And probably thinks he can move Evans or Holiday if necessary next summer. He also may be looking at deals for Gordon or Anderson. He's not wrong based on what we've seen this summer. Of course, he probably also thought he could move Gordon 4 years ago too.

For a team like the Pelicans, you have to offer Davis the richest contract in history as soon as possible. They need to legitimize themselves as a serious organization that will take care of premier talent. The Spurs might be the only team in the league with the clout to pull off what they did with Leonard. As always, the Spurs are an exception to the rule.

People are going to freak about the Boozer interest but you can do a lot worse for a backup big at less than $3m.