BLAZER PROPHET
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First, this is not a doom & gloom post- it’s more of “here’s a reasonable scenario” and what do we do about it post.
We know the CBA is up at the end of the season and the owners, come hell or high water, will end up with either a hard cap (that a team cannot exceed) or non guaranteed contracts. It would make sense the union would accept the hard cap as guaranteed contracts are a sacred cow with them. So based on that assumption, let’s set a decently high cap at, say, $60 million. It could easily be higher, but that seems pretty good.
Roy’s knees are bone on bone and his effective playing career is most likely over. We’re now going thru the throes of the tail end of it and hoping he will still have a long and prosperous career- but that is to be expected. Not that he still can’t play and contribute, but his days of 76+ games per season, 34+ minutes per game and taking the ball strong to the rim… have a 95% chance of being gone. While I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, he & Aldridge will collect somewhere around $25-30 million per season. Add Matthews and hopefully Batum to that list and there’s probably another $15 million. That’s $40-45 million per season. If Oden waits and plays sparingly to maximize his contract potential, which seems to be the current scheme, I’m guessing some team will offer him a $10 million per season deal. If we take it, then we’re putting out $50-55 million per season for 5 players- with one and very possibly two that will not be serviceable- and still leaves 10 other positions with $5-10 million left to go around. Not a very rosy picture.
So the next question is, what will we do if, and I mean IF, this is somewhat what we’re looking at. And I think this is all very reasonable and probable.
For my part, I think we’d start buying out contracts. Starting with Roy and possibly ending with Oden (depending on how he does, of course). But we’ll still have a lot of roster spots to fill. All this to say, I think building a title contending team for the next 3-5 years appears to be slim. For me, I’d be happy to play a running game and make the playoffs and go from there.
We know the CBA is up at the end of the season and the owners, come hell or high water, will end up with either a hard cap (that a team cannot exceed) or non guaranteed contracts. It would make sense the union would accept the hard cap as guaranteed contracts are a sacred cow with them. So based on that assumption, let’s set a decently high cap at, say, $60 million. It could easily be higher, but that seems pretty good.
Roy’s knees are bone on bone and his effective playing career is most likely over. We’re now going thru the throes of the tail end of it and hoping he will still have a long and prosperous career- but that is to be expected. Not that he still can’t play and contribute, but his days of 76+ games per season, 34+ minutes per game and taking the ball strong to the rim… have a 95% chance of being gone. While I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, he & Aldridge will collect somewhere around $25-30 million per season. Add Matthews and hopefully Batum to that list and there’s probably another $15 million. That’s $40-45 million per season. If Oden waits and plays sparingly to maximize his contract potential, which seems to be the current scheme, I’m guessing some team will offer him a $10 million per season deal. If we take it, then we’re putting out $50-55 million per season for 5 players- with one and very possibly two that will not be serviceable- and still leaves 10 other positions with $5-10 million left to go around. Not a very rosy picture.
So the next question is, what will we do if, and I mean IF, this is somewhat what we’re looking at. And I think this is all very reasonable and probable.
For my part, I think we’d start buying out contracts. Starting with Roy and possibly ending with Oden (depending on how he does, of course). But we’ll still have a lot of roster spots to fill. All this to say, I think building a title contending team for the next 3-5 years appears to be slim. For me, I’d be happy to play a running game and make the playoffs and go from there.
