Roy and Aldridge are going to count for over 25 million against the cap no matter what, unless we renounce their rights and let them become unrestricted FA next offseason. If we sign them to extensions 25 million is probably conservative (if guys like Bynum and Bogut can get 10-12 million dollar starting salariesI have to believe Aldridge will see at least 12-13 million, and Roy getting anything less than 14-15ish he can make maximum would be a steal).
But even if we don't extend them this offseason, we still have the nasty business of their free agent capholds, and as both are coming off of rookie scale contracts that makes their capholds pretty high (Roy= ~12million, LA= ~14-15million).
Combined with the ~20 million we would have committed Joel, Oden, Bayless, Rudy, Batum, and the ~2.5 million in additional roster spot cap holds. that leaves us in the neighborhood of a 47-50 million cap number, and unless the cap suddenly booms (not gonna happen) that only leaves ~10 million in cap space.
So the question then becomes, is renting Tmac for 1 year (1 year removed from his latest catastrophic injury) plus any player that we can realistically sign to a 10 million dollar starting salary worth Blake, Outlaw, Webster, every pick we have in the 09 and 2010 drafts (because we would have to renounce all their rights), the rights to all our overseas players(again, have to renounce them to free up room), oh yea and Sergio too. Or we could just use the existing 7-9 million in cap room, or dump Blake/Outlaw and get that cap room even higher, to sign someone this offseason.
(And the max for Lebron's starting salary if he signs a new deal in 2010 will be approx 17-18 million dollars, depending on where the cap threshold moves)
.
