TDL Archived: The 2nd Rnd Pick Yankee Swap

[ItsGoTime]

Okay. The basic issue is that's not a realistic picture, because (1) you're doing more than just trading RW, as in the process you also can't do needed moves to keep Wood, Maxi, or Green, and (2) it's good contract numbers but a wrong CAP number since empty roster spots cost you cap room.

PURE MATH -- Exercising the Green option (which we'll know in Oct before the season begins, but I find likely) and accounting for the empty roster slots after a RW trade-and-walk leaves the team with 7 players in the summer and about 30M in cap room. That's less than the lowest max. BUT no cap rights or cap holds on Wood or Kleber, so they will be lost. Bottom line -- You can't still have this 2022-23 team minus just THJ and Bertans (and Powell, of course) and get to the 30M.

REALISTIC NUMBER FOR ROSTER BUILDING -- If (as I think they really need to do) they extend Wood (his max starting salary for an extension is ~17M.2M) and Kleber (his max starting salary for an extension is 10.8M which should be close to the 2023 MLE) during the season before they get to free agency (this prob works best mid-season imo), there's no 30M. You can whittle on my numbers a little, but I think they're in the right ballpark for each, and you have no usable cap room left.

IF THEY TAKE THE CAP ROOM OVER WOOD/MAXI - What's the value of that 30M? It's a free agent class that might not have more attractive pieces available for the Mavs (within that spending limit) than having both Wood and Kleber solving your stretchy big man needs. But if you wait to July and circle back to them, you're now competing with all the other teams and whatever they want to pay - you have no particular advantage. Kinda like Brunson approach --  c'mon, we wanna play this game again? Of course, if Wood and Kleber suck, you aren't extending them, but we're working on the assumption they are useful and needed, and would leave a big hole or two if they walked. You can't get ahead by filling a hole in one place and making one somewhere else to do it.

Ok, I’m going to show my math and please tell me where I’m wrong. I am using salary numbers from Kamm’s spreadsheet (the updated first post of the stickied Roster Talk thread) and Spotrac’s cap hold numbers.


Salary for 23-24 with all cap holds for Wood ($21,476,190), Kleber ($17,527,500), Pinson ($1,974,849) and Frank ($1,855,319) and adding in Green’s salary (on the spreadsheet). I don’t know what to add in for the vet min contracts we fill in for the 4 open roster spots so I’ll just assume we don’t resign them after their 1 year contracts are up. Subtracting THJ and Bertans (and not adding in Powell’s cap hold) salaries who are gone from the trade. The total comes to:

$134,053,637

I don’t think anyone other than the towels he holds will mind if I scratch out Pinson’s hold.

$132,078,788

I’ll assume Frank doesn’t make the necessary steps needed this year either.

$130,223,469

Wood fits pretty well from the start and extends starting at $17M (for easier calculations).

$125,747,279

Maxi signs an extension starting at $7M (again for easy math).

$115,219,779

Subtract that from the projected cap at $133M and get:

$17,780,221

Use that money creatively like the example I used utilizing the 5 picks we now have. Sign the rest of the roster at vet min and each year add a MLE/BAE bench player(s) upgrade and trade out who doesn’t work out but can be traded as an asset, not a negative.

Without using the cap space or trading out any players yet, our depth chart in the offseason looks like:

Luka/Hardy
SD
Bullock/Green
DFS/Kleber
Wood/McGee

Please show me where my math is wrong?