Re: Miles 2 games from counting on the cap
I'm not too worried about all of this.
One, even if this is true, even IF Miles plays, and even if the amount goes back on the cap, IMO KP and Penn already have the legal stuff drawn up for the appeal of it.
Two, if the appeal doesn't go through, things have changed since September. Then, we were really glad for Miles to be off the cap b/c that allowed us flexibility to work around the Webster and Frye (and to a small extent Diogu) cap holds, ensuring we didn't have to sign them to a high extension price in October with them having all the leverage. It also allowed us to be able to keep Blake and Outlaw and still sign a max- and a mid-level-esque player.
Now, even if that 9M goes back on the books, we've already signed Webs to his extension. His 11M cap hold (iirc) will be about 4.3M, so there's almost 7M in "space savings flexibility" right there. I think we've seen that Frye and Diogu's play does not warrant 9M cap holds, so they'll either be traded or renounced. I don't think Blake or Travis is here the day after the draft, but even if not I doubt anyone in here would lose sleep if we had to trade or not pick up the options on those two b/c we were signing a max player or doing a lopsided trade and needed the space.
In September, we didn't know who our long-term SFs were, if Bayless could play, if Sergio was ever going to be anything but useless, and what we'd get out of the bench. We know now that Frye and Diogu are joining Blake and maybe Outlaw in the "not in the long-term plans" category, with perhaps Sergio joining them (though I personally don't think so, but I'll concede that that's still potentially up in the air). So I don't see this as a crushing blow, even if we lose the appeal. With Miles' 9M, we have ~42M in cap holds for the summer. (That's if we don't pick up the options on Travis and Blake). So we could sign a player for around 18M or so, depending on what the final cap number is. Not that worried.
