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

[mvossman]

Thanks. And BTW, there may be almost $2M more in room now under the tax line than we thought. When the deal was signed, Kyrie's total salary came to 120M, not 126M (the other 6M is incentives), over the 3 years. 

At this point I show the Mavs may be tracking towards about 160.5M, almost 5M below the tax line. And that assumes they pay McGee his entire salary rather than erase it or minimize it somehow.

As you note, they aren't going to spend MLE money or that space under the tax line just to spend it, and you make a good point that we aren't seeing a target that would justify the added expense. One angle could be an attempt to take in some player being moved in a Harden or Lillard trade, but without that, it feels like a wait for nothing again (as happened last year). I remember the stupid "Trade for a Big Wing coming in August" thread that I objected to because it felt like a myth but the mod wouldn't change because he had decided it was certain to happen, which proved to be pure nonsense of course.

In fact, if they end up without any use for some tax-free payroll, it's possible they could do some contracts decreasing -- while Kyrie's is done, and Curry/Exum are probably not changeable due to exception limits, they still haven't done GW or Powell.

I think Derrick Jones Jr would make sense for that remaining balance up to the tax line.  But apparently we are still trying to send out Timmy and McGee so that prolly needs to happen (if its going to happen) before anything else.