Potential Free agent/trade/sign tracker
- Thread starter iowamcnabb
- Start date
Alright I'm making good on my "wild/interesting" trade ideas pledge earlier in the thread since many options seem to be removed from the table.
To start, I still think it's interesting that the Holmes deal is not official which made me think that this is the piece that might be part of something larger. I'm curious if McNair is holding off on making it official in an effort to widen his cap space even more. Let me explain...
However, Holmes makes $12.046 mil which means we could reroute him in a trade for up to $16.057 mil. This effectively means we could sign someone for $20.3 mil and trade for someone around $16.1 mil giving us $36.4 mil in "cap space." I'm wondering if McNair is exploring this option 1st to see if there is a trade out there which allows him to extend that cap space a bit more. If not, they may just finalize the deal as is and work with the $30+ mil in cap space.
So I started to think of some scenarios that involved expanding the Holmes trade and then using the rest of the cap space to sign someone, this is one of the scenarios I landed on...
Let's assume the trade is not finalized when FA begins, we'd technically have $20.3 mil in cap space. However, I'm wondering if a S&T for Cam Johnson makes sense. I was thinking it could be:
BKN Gets: Davion Mitchell
SAC Gets: Cameron Johnson
With Mitchell's salary going out, we'd be able to offer Johnson a max 1st year salary of $25.370 mil which would be $109.347 mil over 4 years. That might be a price point that BKN wouldn't love matching and receiving Mitchell gives them enough incentive to let him go.
This would now effectively bring our cap space to $0 with the following players technically under contract:
PG - Fox / Monk
SG - Huerter / Dozier
SF - Johnson / Edwards
PF - Murray / Lyles
C - Sabonis / Holmes
We then could expand the trade with Dallas to be something like this:
DAL Gets: Richaun Holmes & #24
DAL Gives: Fake DAL 2nd
Why for DAL? Dallas gets a great PnR C to pair with Irving/Luka but more importantly another cheap, young asset to hopefully develop into an impactful player.
SAC Gets: OG Anunoby & Fake DAL 2nd
SAC Gives: Richaun Holmes, PJ Dozier, Kessler Edwards, #24, 2026-28 SAC 1st (Unprotected), & 2028-30 SAC 1st (Unprotected)
Why for SAC? Anunoby gives the Kings an elite & versatile defender who is an excellent fit at PF next to Sabonis.
TOR Gets: OG Anunoby
TOR Gives: PJ Dozier, Kessler Edwards, 2026-28 SAC 1st (Unprotected), & 2028-30 SAC 1st (Unprotected)
Why for TOR? Toronto avoids losing Anunoby for nothing in FA next year (especially if VanVleet is on his way out) and pick up 2 distant unprotected 1sts which could yield a great player. They also take on no long term salary and get immediate cap relief.
This trade allows the Kings to actually go over the cap since Anunoby makes more than Holmes, Dozier, & Edwards (hence why the Holmes trade may not be finalized). The Kings would then use Lyles' cap hold to resign him, use the room exception on Sasha, sign our two 2nd round picks, and fill out the rest of the roster with minimum contracts. We'd be left with the following roster going into this season:
PG - Fox / Monk / FA Min
SG - Johnson / Jones / FA Min
SF - Murray / Huerter / FA Min
PF - Anunoby / Sasha / Slawson
C - Sabonis / Lyles / FA Min
This scenario obviously means we're not giving Sabonis a raise and then extending him long term, but I'm not very concerned with him resigning next year. We have a great culture, we have a great coach, he likes living here/in Napa, he seems to really like his teammates, we're coming off a 3rd seed season and hopefully trending upwards, he was just named to an All NBA team here, and we can offer him the most money next offseason.
Coming back to the roster I assembled above, the only question mark for me is Johnson at SG since he's mainly been used at SF (and small ball PF). However, his physical profile was essentially the same as Klay Thompson's...
So it actually looks like Johnson has the same length as Thompson but is a bit quicker and can jump higher. Couple that with Johnson being a solid & smart defender, and I think it could work.
Johnson, Murray, & Anunoby would be great size, shooting, rebounding, and defense on the wings. Our shooting in general would just be insane. Huerter, Johnson, Murray, & Sasha could all be in a 3PT contest one day (some already have) and Monk, Anunoby, & Lyles are no slouches in that department either. It would be quite the weapon to be able to throw out 3 of Huerter, Johnson, Murray, & Sasha next Fox & Sabonis.
Just thinking through the minute rotation, I think it could be something like...
PG - Fox (34) / Monk (14)
SG - Johnson (20) / Monk (12) / Huerter (16)
SF - Murray (30) / Huerter (10) / Johnson (8)
PF - Anunoby (30) / Sasha (14) / Lyles (4)
C - Sabonis (34) / Lyles (14)
Fox = 34 min
Sabonis = 34 min
Murray = 30 min
Anunoby = 30 min
Johnson = 28 min
Monk = 26 min
Huerter = 26 min
Lyles = 18 min
Sasha = 14 min
To start, I still think it's interesting that the Holmes deal is not official which made me think that this is the piece that might be part of something larger. I'm curious if McNair is holding off on making it official in an effort to widen his cap space even more. Let me explain...
- With Fox, Sabonis, Huerter, Holmes, Monk, Murray, Mitchell, Dozier, Edwards, & Lyles (cap hold) on the books, the Kings have $20.3 mil in cap space.
- With Fox, Sabonis, Huerter, Monk, Murray, Mitchell, Dozier, Edwards, & Lyles (cap hold) on the books, the Kings have $31.2 mil in cap space.
However, Holmes makes $12.046 mil which means we could reroute him in a trade for up to $16.057 mil. This effectively means we could sign someone for $20.3 mil and trade for someone around $16.1 mil giving us $36.4 mil in "cap space." I'm wondering if McNair is exploring this option 1st to see if there is a trade out there which allows him to extend that cap space a bit more. If not, they may just finalize the deal as is and work with the $30+ mil in cap space.
So I started to think of some scenarios that involved expanding the Holmes trade and then using the rest of the cap space to sign someone, this is one of the scenarios I landed on...
Let's assume the trade is not finalized when FA begins, we'd technically have $20.3 mil in cap space. However, I'm wondering if a S&T for Cam Johnson makes sense. I was thinking it could be:
BKN Gets: Davion Mitchell
SAC Gets: Cameron Johnson
With Mitchell's salary going out, we'd be able to offer Johnson a max 1st year salary of $25.370 mil which would be $109.347 mil over 4 years. That might be a price point that BKN wouldn't love matching and receiving Mitchell gives them enough incentive to let him go.
This would now effectively bring our cap space to $0 with the following players technically under contract:
PG - Fox / Monk
SG - Huerter / Dozier
SF - Johnson / Edwards
PF - Murray / Lyles
C - Sabonis / Holmes
We then could expand the trade with Dallas to be something like this:
DAL Gets: Richaun Holmes & #24
DAL Gives: Fake DAL 2nd
Why for DAL? Dallas gets a great PnR C to pair with Irving/Luka but more importantly another cheap, young asset to hopefully develop into an impactful player.
SAC Gets: OG Anunoby & Fake DAL 2nd
SAC Gives: Richaun Holmes, PJ Dozier, Kessler Edwards, #24, 2026-28 SAC 1st (Unprotected), & 2028-30 SAC 1st (Unprotected)
Why for SAC? Anunoby gives the Kings an elite & versatile defender who is an excellent fit at PF next to Sabonis.
TOR Gets: OG Anunoby
TOR Gives: PJ Dozier, Kessler Edwards, 2026-28 SAC 1st (Unprotected), & 2028-30 SAC 1st (Unprotected)
Why for TOR? Toronto avoids losing Anunoby for nothing in FA next year (especially if VanVleet is on his way out) and pick up 2 distant unprotected 1sts which could yield a great player. They also take on no long term salary and get immediate cap relief.
This trade allows the Kings to actually go over the cap since Anunoby makes more than Holmes, Dozier, & Edwards (hence why the Holmes trade may not be finalized). The Kings would then use Lyles' cap hold to resign him, use the room exception on Sasha, sign our two 2nd round picks, and fill out the rest of the roster with minimum contracts. We'd be left with the following roster going into this season:
PG - Fox / Monk / FA Min
SG - Johnson / Jones / FA Min
SF - Murray / Huerter / FA Min
PF - Anunoby / Sasha / Slawson
C - Sabonis / Lyles / FA Min
This scenario obviously means we're not giving Sabonis a raise and then extending him long term, but I'm not very concerned with him resigning next year. We have a great culture, we have a great coach, he likes living here/in Napa, he seems to really like his teammates, we're coming off a 3rd seed season and hopefully trending upwards, he was just named to an All NBA team here, and we can offer him the most money next offseason.
Coming back to the roster I assembled above, the only question mark for me is Johnson at SG since he's mainly been used at SF (and small ball PF). However, his physical profile was essentially the same as Klay Thompson's...
So it actually looks like Johnson has the same length as Thompson but is a bit quicker and can jump higher. Couple that with Johnson being a solid & smart defender, and I think it could work.
Johnson, Murray, & Anunoby would be great size, shooting, rebounding, and defense on the wings. Our shooting in general would just be insane. Huerter, Johnson, Murray, & Sasha could all be in a 3PT contest one day (some already have) and Monk, Anunoby, & Lyles are no slouches in that department either. It would be quite the weapon to be able to throw out 3 of Huerter, Johnson, Murray, & Sasha next Fox & Sabonis.
Just thinking through the minute rotation, I think it could be something like...
PG - Fox (34) / Monk (14)
SG - Johnson (20) / Monk (12) / Huerter (16)
SF - Murray (30) / Huerter (10) / Johnson (8)
PF - Anunoby (30) / Sasha (14) / Lyles (4)
C - Sabonis (34) / Lyles (14)
Fox = 34 min
Sabonis = 34 min
Murray = 30 min
Anunoby = 30 min
Johnson = 28 min
Monk = 26 min
Huerter = 26 min
Lyles = 18 min
Sasha = 14 min
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I believe the reason the deal hasn't happened yet is that OKC is sitting on a ton of dead money in '22-'23 (Kemba and others) and against all odds are actually over the salary cap, so they can't absorb the Bertans contract into cap space until we roll over into the '23-'24 season. Since the Bertans trade creates the TPE that Holmes is being sent into, the deal can't happen until July 1.
Took me a minute to land here, but I think what I would do is go get Grant Williams and Bruce Brown. Tough, excellent defenders that don't need the ball in their hands on offense and directly address our biggest concerns on defense. Keeps our spacing elite too and gives us all kinds of versatlity with LU options. Also puts a much bigger offensive emphasis on Keegan developing into the 3rd option.
I just don't see how the Celtics can afford a big contract on Williams with the Jaylen Brown extension coming up and what they just paid Porzingis. 4/60 should get them to run away. Similar idea with Bruce Brown too; offer above the MLE, knock out those teams and just make it impossible to turn that much money down from returning to DEN.
Fox || Davion
Huerter || Monk
Keegan || Brown
Williams || Vezenkov
Sabonis || Lyles
Queta, Jones, Edwards, 3rd vet min PG, vet min round out the bench. Slawson/Ellis take 2 of the 2-way slots.
The Kings just have to go get good defenders and stop thinking internal improvement can be enough. The beauty of Brown and Williams is they vastly raise the bar on defense, but they give you excellent role player value through shooting/passing etc on offense.
I just don't see how the Celtics can afford a big contract on Williams with the Jaylen Brown extension coming up and what they just paid Porzingis. 4/60 should get them to run away. Similar idea with Bruce Brown too; offer above the MLE, knock out those teams and just make it impossible to turn that much money down from returning to DEN.
Fox || Davion
Huerter || Monk
Keegan || Brown
Williams || Vezenkov
Sabonis || Lyles
Queta, Jones, Edwards, 3rd vet min PG, vet min round out the bench. Slawson/Ellis take 2 of the 2-way slots.
The Kings just have to go get good defenders and stop thinking internal improvement can be enough. The beauty of Brown and Williams is they vastly raise the bar on defense, but they give you excellent role player value through shooting/passing etc on offense.
Hahaha, 9 figures? Quickley is a nice lil player and defends well but I feel he is not worth more than the NTMLE, maybe $15M per year maximum. Cause he is not good enough of a primary play-maker at PG... and too small and not good enough of a 3-point shooter at SG. So he is best used in the 2nd unit. This kind of 6'3" combo-guard works best when you have a Doncic or Jokic as a large primary play-maker, and he still needs to improve his 3-point shot (or take and make more of them)... not when Jalen Brunson (6'0") is your PG.
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Agreed. It would be a massive misstep on our front office to have this happen. But I also take that article with a grain of salt. All it says is some guy at the Athletics says the Lakers are confident they can sign Brown. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen but this is the time of year where the only articles we get are about how the Lakers are linked to every free agent.
And bring back Barnes to Sac and also get any of those players is really affordable? I don't think it is unless we don't do the Domas movement to renegotiate his contract, HB accepts a huge discount to come back to Sacramento and we renounce to the Lyles rights.
If the Kings do the Sabonis and Lyles expected movements we are only going to have around 25M left, aren't we? And to sign any of G. Williams, PJ Washington, J. Hart we should pay them more than the MLE to beat other teams offers.
I would be happy with something like PJ Washington 3/20M and then a SF or C backup piece for 2+1/5M (Jalen McDaniels, Taurean Prince, Cam Reddish, Mason Plumlee, Thomas Bryant, Moritz Wagner, Goga Bitadze or Drew Eubanks).
If the Kings do the Sabonis and Lyles expected movements we are only going to have around 25M left, aren't we? And to sign any of G. Williams, PJ Washington, J. Hart we should pay them more than the MLE to beat other teams offers.
I would be happy with something like PJ Washington 3/20M and then a SF or C backup piece for 2+1/5M (Jalen McDaniels, Taurean Prince, Cam Reddish, Mason Plumlee, Thomas Bryant, Moritz Wagner, Goga Bitadze or Drew Eubanks).
I think the biggest out with Middleton is the years. I imagine the Bucks want to line up his extension when Giannis is able to be a FA. If we come in hot with like a 4/130 type deal.. Then we're talking about a serious cash difference if the Bucks don't want to commit to Middleton for more than 2 years.
