Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[F Gump]

The number I'm using is from this coming summer.  $17mm for next season plus $5mm partial guarantee for 24/25.  So, $22mm divided by five years equals $4.4 cap cost per year.  I believe FG had a more thorough explanation of this in a post the other day.

Thanks, DS. I will post some more numbers to work with in a while, when I have some time to write more at length. But one important note to keep in mind -- on these calculations, there are different numbers, different ways to count salaries, and different uses for cap room, taxpayer, and hard cap (apron) numbers. On some it's total salary (for 15), not just 12. Minimums don't work the same in all cases. It messes me up as well, and the numbers I used before may need revising.

You also wrote "I fear a Phoenix attempt to get Kyrie using Ayton.  If it was a straight up deal, then Kyrie has to take a discount.  There are ways to add a little salary from Phoenix to get him to his number, but they don't have a ton of options for trades or S&T's to add to the deal."

I'll address that with more number details later as well, but my general comment is that PHX has to do a lot of amputation to make that possible. Probably way more than is possible.

The idea that Kyrie might just sign there is pure clickbait, aka Windy talking out of his ample azz. Start with the fact that he asked out of BKN because he wanted some team who would offer him the max (since BKN would not). I'd say that has no real chance of changing. He knows it's a business, where you can be shipped from team to team at their whims, and he's going to take care of his business first.

Wave a magic wand to get rid of all of CP3, Shamet, and Payne with no salary coming back, and KD-Booker-Ayton + empty roster charges leaves them with less than MLE money.  It's not even close to what he wants.

As for a SNT, that requires BOTH of (a) Dallas cooperation, which cannot be assumed if Dallas wants him, and (b) much of the same blood-letting of contracts as previously mentioned, to stay under the hard cap and be allowed to do a SNT, as even KD-Booker-Paul-Kyrie (max), with Ayton outgoing, busts the hard cap by a lot.