Sign Tyus Jones and Kyle Anderson. Show a modi of effort in improving for Wemby. But a star will likely have to come in the draft, otherwise another DDR type hostage scenario where he is gritting his teeth waiting to get out. If a worthwhile star wants to come here, sure, but I'm not ready to trade draft assets unless it is for someone good and young and wants to be here.
Honestly I think Cade Cunningham is vastly overrated as a defender, shooter, athlete, and his availability is very suspect. Plus he's making a max as soon as next year. Good player, but I see a fringe all star (might make the team 2/3 times but not every year) and not the perennial All NBA guy he was thought of entering the league. I'm probably in the minority though.
Just to be clear, when I'm talking about how the Spurs could free up the space, I do mean at the expense of multiple first-rounders.
Here is a rough table for how the salaries would have to break down to add PG or any tier-3 max player to the roster:
Player 2024-25 Keldon Johnson $19,000,000 Victor Wembanyama $12,768,960 Tre Jones $9,104,167 Devin Vassell $29,347,826 Jeremy Sochan $5,570,040 Malaki Branham $3,217,920 Blake Wesley $2,624,280 Sidy Cissoko $1,891,857 Tenth Pick $4,570,900 Roster Charge $1,160,544 Roster Charge $1,160,544 Roster Charge $1,160,544 Team Totals $91,577,582 Cap $141,000,000 Cap Space $49,422,418
As you can see, it involves the team trading Collins and Graham's partial guarantee into cap space and moving down to the tenth-overall pick to save just that last bit of space. How all that actually could work would be for a more involved scenario, but the Spurs would be able to add someone to their current top five guys and could still have a lotto pick to shore up holes. The bad part is that if you were hoping to upgrade any of those positions, there isn't much in terms of flexibility to address that. At 10, there could be a decent prospect available. Holland, Collier and maybe even Clingan might be there. They'd also have their seconds and the room exception to fill out the roster. Below is an example of a filled-out roster. New additions are bolded.
Jones, Wesley, Markus Howard (RE)
Vassell, Branham, Alexander (48)
George, Johnson, Ajinca (35)
Sochan, Bates-Diop (min) Cissoko
Wembanyama, Filipowski (10), Tillman (min)
It's hard to see that as a great team given George's injury history. The defense should be better, but they'd have to hope of the eventual best players in the draft is there at 10 for them to truly make some noise. The second unit looks like it'd be anemic on offense unless one of the third-unit guys breaks through or Branham/Wesley takes a big step forward. It just comes down to there being so many holes that it's hard to meaningfully address the bulk of them if the priority is to create almost $50 Million of cap space that will all get spent on one guy.
Thanks Chinook. Definitely far less appealing if the only mechanism for obtaining the cap space is to have to give up significant draft capital. Would rather just wait and see what happens with Lauri in that case. If he doesn't extend with Utah this offseason, maybe you can get him for relatively cheap at the deadline to be in the driver's seat to resign him.
yeah it certainly would be a stretch to make it work. you could also create the space by moving Keldon, who you still have hanging around, and moving him shouldnt require us to pay to get that done. especially if we are doing all this to acquire a SF who we expect to play legit starters minutes, unlike what shampenny was doing. it would certainly be cheaper to trade for the cap space than to trade for an under-contract George/Butler, etc
It'd be easier to trade for the players rather than the space for multiple reasons. If the Spurs are moving Keldon, then he represents salvage value for LAC or MIA. They're more just as likely to value him as, say DET would, and they're far less likely to expect compensation for taking him. Then because of matching rules, it's just about creating the remaining trade ballast to meet the new requirements. That's $36 Million for Butler and $40 Million for George. Keldon makes $19 Million next year, so the Spurs would have to create $17 Million and $21 Million respectively. Collins and Graham could help there, as could getting someone to S&T for Osman. If the Spurs are trading for such a huge contract, it's likely in the team's best interest to operate as an over-the-cap team and keep the MLE for rebuilding.
All that said, I'm not a fan of trading away Johnson just to acquire one player with all that space. As I've mentioned before, the roster is absurdly thin after making all that cap space. With Johnson, 10 and the RE, you can build an eight-man rotation. Taking Johnson away, even subbing back in a second first and exchanging the RE for the MLE, and you instantly have to use a lot of value to replace him. Keldon for all his faults would be a strong sixth man to pair with a Vassel/George/Sochan interior lineup. Insofar as he fits at all, he fits well with any one or two of those players. With the Spurs unlikely to be able to bring in a top sixth-man guard like Monk with the resources they have available, they might end up relying on Branham becoming that player. I don't think it makes sense to take that risk.
I'm afraid you can't get talent for even "relatively" cheap in the NBA, deadline or not. UTA won't have any problems finding suitors for Lauri, and some teams that will offer more than you would like.
I'd be happy to give up quite a bit for Lauri - I'm not trying to get him for cheap. But if he is heading towards FA at the deadline, he will come relatively cheaper than trying to acquire him this summer, or especially than if he extends this summer. That was my point.
It's why cap space isn't the best medium to acquire talent right now. The Spurs should trade directly for their talent upgrades and only use cap space for more modest upgrades or to facilitate trades. It's possible to sign George, Harden or James outright. It's in the team's best interest, though, to do straight trades. It's why Graham's guarantee might actually get picked up. He could easily be more useful as a full tradeable contract than as cap space. Even if they boot him, the should look to trade for another contract that they could turn around to flip in a future trade. Only in some special trades with over-salaried clubs should the Spurs' pitch be to take a massive cap deficit in addition to major asset concessions.
Depends on who you draft these next couple years, but Johnson isn't in any way a vital or even that important part of that roster in the grand scheme of things, imo.
Keldon has been in the league for 5 years and honestly not shown he could even be a solid 6th man in a compe ive team (we can forget a Manu type). His repertoire is pretty limited, can't really create for himself or others, not a real slasher nor an elite driver, defense below average, decent but not that great either shooting. He'll give you the few hustle plays (and flexing) but I don"t see a big margin of progression for him.
If you (somehow) can draft Risacher at 8 to 10M/year, that's 9 to 11M you can save. More if you pick a SF lower. There's risks that Risacher or any other SF won't reach Keldon's level but yet again, Keldon is a cool kid but isn't that valuable that it would be that big of a risk specially with the flexibility it would give you and assets you could get back.
But I agree cap space isn't the best medium to acquire talent right now.
I'm not even sure, tbh. If you tell me there's a couple of interested teams and UTA has to move him, yeah you have some leverage. But Lauri will draw interest all around the league and from that point on, it's an offer and demand thing. You'll always have one or several desperate contenders or teams beliveing they're one Lauri away to make the same kind of offer you would find in other contractual situations.
And Ainge is a shark.
Not sure it's worth arguing over, but I will contend that Lauri is worth more this summer than he'll be at the deadline (if not previously extended). I didn't say he'd still be cheap, just relatively cheaper than he will be this summer. Of course, we'll never know - because we don't know what teams would theoretically offer this summer (before or after an extension) or at the deadline. But, the risk of Lauri potentially being a back-half of the season rental would logically support the idea that his price tag will be lower (by some unknown quan y).
I agree Ainge is a shark though, and I would approach with caution.
Is Butler available? With the Riley has been saying, it does make me wonder. I know he is old, but man he is exactly the player I hope to have on our team. Give him a 3 year (team option 3rd) max deal after we trade for him. Heck I would trade both of our picks this year for him
It seems less expensive (asset-wise) to trade for PG directly in a s&t (if that's allowed). I know Balmer probably doesn't want to, but if the threat of losing him for nothing to philly is on the table he might deal with us and it could be less expensive than trading for cap space.
So it looks like the Clippers could S&T George, but they couldn't receive any salary back for him. That certainly makes it harder to match him. It looks like the Clippers could extend-and-trade George if he opts in. That would be a $153.7M/3 deal. The only restriction they'd have then is not being able to take back more salary than they send out. The Spurs would need to send out almost exactly $39 Million to match, though it doesn't all have to go to the Clippers. The easiest way to create this matching salary would be to trade Johnson and Collins, for $35.7 Million total and then to increase Graham's guarantee to $3.3 Million to make up the rest of the salary. Then the Spurs can pay a team to take Collins and trade Johnson and Graham to LAC along with some seconds so the Clips can trade Graham away to save on that tax hit if they so choose or keep the seconds to use later.
What it would take to get off Collins is the biggest question. In the scenario I laid out yesterday, I had the Spurs trading Collins, 5, and the worse of the ATL picks to Atlanta for 10 and Graham, seconds and cash to Detroit. That trade down was necessary to open up the extra cap space. It wouldn't be necessary here, so other ideas could be explored. Or the Clippers could keep Collins in return for getting say the CHI and CHA picks.
Let's assume the Spurs have 6 and 7 (which are as far as I could tell the two likeliest results for the picks) and decide to stay over the cap by holding onto their cap holds. After making the George trade, they'd have the two firsts, two seconds, MLE, LLE and min contracts to fill out their rotation. I think to a lot of posters, this would seem like a superior scenario. But I think that undervalues Johnson in relation to the rest of the league. That team badly needs competent bench players. I'm going to assume the team drafts Castle and Knecht with the picks just to continue the trend of picking new players every scenario. Knecht adds much-needed shooting and scoring to the bench, but he lacks play-making and defense. Castle has the defense to eventually move into the starting unit, but most of the other things are lack. I'm going to just assume the second-rounders are two-way guys to get them out of the way, because no team that trades multiple firsts for Paul George should be projecting second-rounders as rotation players.
I'm going to go a little out of left field and have Chris Paul sign with the Spurs on a 1-and-1 MLE deal. That's way below his market, but I'm not sure if he would see a better fit out there. For the LLE, the Spurs would sign Mason Plumlee. Hopefully between him and Bassey/Barlow those minutes can be handled. Then bring back Mamu using his EB rights.
Paul, Jones, Wesley
Vassell, Branham, Castle
George, Knecht, Champangie
Sochan, Mamukelashvili, Cissoko
Wembayama, Plumlee, Bassey
This increased the team's strength on paper a lot, but that bench feels really weak on both sides of the ball. Swapping out Knecht for Holland would mean there's a lot of defensive potential, but he shooting would be a struggle. I'm skeptical that Plumelee that is still a viable center. If you're going to bench Branham to give Castle his starting spot, you may as well trade him. It's easier in my mind to come up with a viable bench with Keldon on the team rather than with him off it.
Pat Williams from chicago is the better sf for us to pursue without giving up so much capital and performing financial gymnastics.
Graham only has 2.85M guaranteed, by itself that's too little for even a single SRP.
As for Collins, I don't think any of the available free agents are worth the price tag of getting out of his contract this offseason, but moving forward you could trade him at the february trade deadline for some expiring deal, so you're basically asking that team team to take one more year of salary at 18M as opposed to 2 years. Considering that the Spurs got a single SRP for about 7M (Osman + Stevens) last year, then maybe 3 SRPs could do the trick especially if Collins bounces back to the point that he's playable so just overpaid as opposed to dead money.
Another variation of that scenario is taking an expiring who can also be a contributor, so you can pay a little extra but then you're not just burning assets for nothing. One target that made sense to me was Brogdon, but since moving Collins to Portland could be a bad look given his history there, it would probably require a third team taking him and and sending something else to Portland (even if an equally bad contract). Something along the lines of:
- Portland sends Brogdon to Spurs, receives an expiring from third team plus 2 SRPs.
- Third team sends expiring to Portland and receives Collins + 2/3 SRPs.
- Spurs receive Brogdon and gets rid of Collins at the expense of 4/5 SRPs.
Or, if Portland will take that extra year of salary:
- Portland sends Brogdon to Spurs, receives an equivalent contract to Collins from third team plus 4/5 SRPs.
- Third team sends bad contract to Portland and receives Collins simply because they may have more use for him than whomever it is they're ridding themselves of.
- Spurs receive Brogdon and gets rid of Collins at the expense of 4/5 SRPs
Then Spurs would have Bird rights over Brogdon so that they would have max space in '25 and still be able to go over the cap to resign him so that he's not just a 1 year rental.
Of course it doesn't necessarily have to be that specifically, it could be some other player or team, it's just a basic framework to get rid of that extra year that gets in the way of '25 free agency without paying too much and/or getting something in return at least.
Last edited by Ariel; 1 Week Ago at 04:52 AM.
In a heartbeat.
I imagine you understand this, but there is an asymmetry to how partially-guaranteed money is applied. For the Spurs, Graham's deal only counts as the guaranteed portion for matching purposes, but the other team has to be able to take his full contract into space or an exception. Therefore, the Spurs are renting more than $12 Million from the other team. If that team uses a TE, the non-guaranteed portion does not get added back. If they use cap space, they have to avoid making other moves that could drop them below $13 Million until after they complete the trade and waive Graham. Considering the absolute flood of seconds the Spurs have, it's well worth it for them to secure that cap space with a reliable partner rather than shopping the deal around hoping for a lower price.
I'm skeptical of this reasoning. There's a massive difference in renting one year of cap space after the market has locked in and renting a year and change before the off-season starts. Yes, it could happen, just like the Spurs took Graham's two remaining years for Richardson and seconds. But the Spurs were deep in a rebuild, fully tanking for Wemby. I don't know if there will be an equivalent situation for Flagg. I don't think the Spurs should wait until 2025 to make moves anyway, so it might be worth it for them to trade the extra value to put Collins in a deal rather than trying to save money at the expense of improving their roster. But only time will tell how PATFO approaches this situation.Considering that the Spurs got a single SRP for about 7M (Osman + Stevens) last year, then maybe 3 SRPs could do the trick especially if Collins bounces back to the point that he's playable so just overpaid as opposed to dead money.
Brogdan's cap hold is $33 Million. There's no way the Spurs should be planning on keeping that hold on the books in 2025 in order to re-sign Brogdan afterwards. It's hard to imagine dude warrants a deal starting at more than that.Then Spurs would have Bird rights over Brogdon so that they would have max space in '25 and still be able to go over the cap to resign him so that he's not just a 1 year rental.
Last edited by Chinook; 1 Week Ago at 09:40 AM.
Ew, no one in their right mind should want to trade two top-10 picks for Butler. He's a good fit, but this season is showing he may not even be a dark-horse centerpiece anymore. The Spurs have to trade for him with the understanding he's a mentor and not a contending piece, and the value of a mentor is not two firsts from a team that still needs to bring in blue-chip youth.
ok make it 5 second rounders
we have so many to spare that id rather err on the side of giving them up, even below market value, then having to cash them in with picks. unless someone guaranteed me that our SRPs will all be used on guys willing to take 2 way deals
I don't think adding a second is going to work. In the same way that the Spurs have so many they don't matter, eventually additional seconds on a single deal feel meaningless. If 2025's free agency is worth so much to the Spurs, it might be worth it other teams. That would make 2025 cap space more expensive to buy.
A possibility depending on how the season goes would be trying to take on a huge expiring in exchange for Collins' two-year deal. Simmons comes to mind, but I don't think Brooklyn has much interest en bering their 2025 salary sheet for similar reasons to SA. There really aren't a lot of horrible contracts ending this year. MAYBE the Bucks can be tricked into exchanging Lopez for Collins or otherwise take Zach back in a wider trade.
That makes alot more sense to me than trading picks for cap space and signing him out right.
As constructed in that scenario I'd think the team would be looking for a couple buyout candidates to add at the deadline to bolster the bench.
I'm not sure if this is the best path for the team to take per se, but it's gotta be the best path if they want to acquire PG.
8 seconds
I don't know. I still believe he is an elite player. But I'm really pessimistic about our GM. I think he will manage to mess up both picks. I think Wright is very good at making deals. I just don't believe in his ability to scout talent. What would your trade package for Butler be? And not a lowball offer, but one you really expect Riley to consider
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