Making sense out of dollars
Teams look beyond 2017 to make salary cap decisions
For weeks, the NBA had been about weights and measurements and potential and upside— but not about the money. Such is the benefit of having a rookie salary scale for first-round draft picks. But thatwas then. Now, and, even more so, aweek from now, cash again becomes the league’s ultimate currency, as teams attempt towork within the $99 million 2017-18 salary cap and future caps, aswell.
Aswe head into the July 1 start of free agency, plenty of the math already has changed and likely will continue to evolve.
Just as it did in 2010. And in 2016.
Because when a player such as LeBron James (2010) or Kevin Durant (2016) comes on the market truly open to all possibilities, you make sure to squirrel away as much as is needed for a rainy day.
So with legitimate signs of James considering a western front a year from now, the math well may change for the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers.
The Lakers’ approach, which now likely will be one of protecting any and all available 2018 offseason dollars, could resonate all theway to South Florida.
Before James’ Cleveland Cavaliers fell to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals, little consideration was given to this being anything but a summer of spending for the Lakers. At that stage, both Dion Waiters and James Johnson were considered possibilities for extended deals in Los Angeles, particularly with Waiters’ agent, Rob Pelinka, taking over as Lakers general manager.
Nowit is possible the Lakers offer nothing more than one-year contracts this summer, protecting the 2018 space that will come free with the expiration of Brook Lopez’s recently acquired contract. Few would take issue with bypassing Johnson or Waiters to keep hope alive for James or Paul George.
Then there is the question of the maximum contracts that might be required for potential Heat free-agency targets such as Gordon Hayward, Blake Griffin or Paul Millsap, the type of $30 million starting points that could squeeze Johnson and Waiters out of their Heat revival plans.
Even as hewas completing the draft process, Heat president Pat Riley, during his-wee-hours media session, again expressed concern about the type of numbers he never reached even with the likes of Alonzo Mourning, Shaquille O’Neal, James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Goran Dragic or Hassan Whiteside.
“I think there might be a little bit more discipline in how teams go about that whole process,” he said.
While the Heat clearly will have cap space for a maximum-scale free agent, they also would not have much more to spend thereafter. So the question could again become: Just because a player can get an absolute maximum figure in the $30 million range as a starting point on a multiyear deal, does a player have to insist on that very number, as if “maximum salary” were some type of badge of honor? During a recent question-and-answer public interview alongside Lakers president Magic Johnson, Riley spoke of howin trades, “I’ll pay a nickel more. My dad always told me, ‘Pay a nickel more,’ even though we didn’t have a nickel, ‘pay a nickel more’ for what it is you need. And I have an owner that will pay more than a nickel more. He has107 cruise ships out there.”
But in free agency, especially for the Heat this summer, every nickel will count. And that could mean players willing to take a nickel less.
Because for all the money to be spent on next season’s payrolls, compromise has entered the equation, from teams, such as Johnson’s Lakers, biding their time, to teams, such as the Heat, hoping to find amiddle ground.
While the Heat clearly will have cap space for a maximum-scale free agent, they also would not have much more to spend thereafter.