This isn't meant to be snarky, but what does that accomplish?
We clear cap room, but does that matter?
You don't think clearing the worst contract off our payroll matters? We're gonna have to resign Nurkic next summer. CJs contract is kicking in. Paul Allen will be paying his roster $250M (including luxery tax) if he doesn't shed salary.
In the end, we accomplish 3 things:
1.) We shed $36M in salary. That's a big amount, that leaves us $5M below the
salary cap line. Our payroll would be $99M and the salary cap is projected to be $104M.
2.) We get cheaper, more cost-controllable players in the early 2nd, that aren't much worse off than the players at 20 and 26.
3.) I think we can designate players drafted in the 2nd round as our "16th and 17th" contracts. That means we only take up our "Major League Roster Space" with 1 rookie instead of 3.
Shedding these two contracts means we can really gain cap space.
Davis and Aminu won't be hard to move at all. That's $13M in cap space right there. We could even get a 2nd rounder for one and rotate our three 2nd round rookies with 1 on the NBA roster and 2 in the D(G)-League. After trading Aminu and Davis, we would be $18M or so beneath the cap.
Not only that, but if we really want to gain max cap space, a team will bite on Harkless+Leonard+Future 2nd. Brooklyn is the type of team to try out Leonard as a reclamation project and take Harkless (a NY native) as their starting SF. Adding young assets for free is what they have to do because they have no early round picks. With the position their in, Leonard won't be a hindrance because they don't have the power to attract free agents and won't have that power in the next couple years (because they don't have their picks). So if Leonard isn't a hindrance, then they would surely jump at the chance to add a young talent like Harkless. That's an extra $19.5M in cap space.
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So basically, we could have $35M in cap space while still having Lillard, McCollum, Nurkic, Vonleh, the 15th pick, and two/three 2nd rounders. That's a good position to be in.
We will be able to move Davis, Aminu, Harkless, and Leonard without giving anything up, because Harkless and Aminu are positive assets to other teams that will make it worth taking Leonard.
Essentially: If Olshey is able to move Crabbe and Turner in deals like that, we'll be able to keep our young core while creating $35M in cap space. We'll be able to add veterans that compliment our core (James Johnson, Kyle O'Quinn, etc.). Don't land the right players? Well we could overpay a veteran or two on one year contracts. Jrue Holiday might be willing to be our 3rd guard if we give him a 1-year max. This would make us a good team next year, while keeping flexibility for next summer to try to add the right pieces (as long as we wait on resigning Nurkic until after the 2018 free agency period).
Turner and Crabbe are the key to the off-season. With them, we have no flexibility. Without them, we have full flexibility.
