Salary Cap Expert Keith Smith Joins To Discuss Detroit Pistons Cap Situation And The 2nd Apron
in today’s episode we’re going to be talking with Keith Smith to break down everything salary cap related just like we have every offseason stay tuned for all of this and today’s episode of the lock on Pistons podcast you are locked on Pistons your daily Detroit Pistons podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day so want thank you guys again making lock on Pistons your first listen of every single day we’re free and available on your podcast platforms if you haven’t already head to the YouTube channel at lockon Pistons hit that subscribe button or leave us a five star review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to this on that’s another great way to support the podcast and today’s episode is brought to you by prize piics the easiest most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports go to prix.com MBA and you and use code my goodness I couldn’t get it out there use code all lowercase locked in NBA for first deposit match up to $100 uh before we get started with today’s episode I want to let you guys know I did tell you guys in the last episode that Monday would be the first episode of our Prospect episodes we’re going to push that back to Tuesday because I want to get this episode out for you guys so don’t worry it’s coming Tuesday just stay tuned um but thank you Keith for joining the podcast man you’ve joined it the last two years to talk with us about everything salary cap related you can find him over on Twitter at Keith Smith NBA contributed over at spot Trak um if you want to ask anything salary C related Keith is your guy Keith how you doing today man I’m doing well thanks so much for having me and yeah I uh this is what I do this is my time of year so I’m super excited to to get into a bunch of offseason topics with you all right so let’s go ahead and get into it so obviously the Pistons had absolutely horrible horrible season this past year but they’re heading into the off season with a lot of cap space but for those out there who may not know just how much cap space the Detroit Pistons have Keith could you explain what this the Piston salary cap situation is looking like heading into the off season yeah I project them to have the most cap space in the league uh going into to the uh off season I project them to have about 64 million in in space it’s a little flexible there there could be a little bit of a a wiggle room in there maybe slightly higher maybe slightly less if they decide to keep a free agent or two but but that’s that’s where we’re at and this is all post uh draft lottery which is I guess if there’s any Silver Lining to dropping to the fifth pick they got a little bit more cap space I I don’t know that that’s anybody’s jumping up and down and celebrating over that one but you know hey we we we’ll try to keep it positive um so yeah 64 million they they their guaranteed salaries on the books uh right now are pretty minimal they they they don’t have a lot and most of it is tied up in guys that are still on their rookie scale deals outside of Isaiah Stewart who is moving into the first year of his extension everybody else is rookie scale guys of their free agents I other than Sani Teo I’ve got them basically letting everybody else go for now doesn’t mean they won’t be back but just not not keeping them on the books with their various cap holds and the like and then I’ve also got them waving uh Troy Brown Jr uh from his non-guaranteed contract that’s the one that could kind of go either way I think they they’ll have a better idea when they need to make that decision but that’s how we get to 64 million the guaranteed salaries that are left plus about 8 million about 8.3 million uh for the number five pick and that that gets us up to that that big number of 64 million all right so for those people out there who are listening that may not understand what like cap holds are could you explain uh what cap holds are I’m looking at SPO Trak as we’re recording this obviously you got James wisman with a 30 million doll cap hold Malachi Flynn with 11.6 million cap hold uh Simone Fant with five then you got Jared Rhoden Todd Gibson Etc could you just explain to everyone what are cap holds and how you maneuver around that sure so what a cap hold is designed to do is I think even casual fans know teams can resign their own players and go over the salary cap to do so but in the case of the Pistons what they don’t want to do is say hey you’ve only got x amount of guaranteed salaries and then go spend that 60 million in cap Bas then resign James wisman and Malachi Flynn and all these other guys um let’s just say those guys were awesome All-Star level guys you could very easily create the superest of super teams ever if you went in that direction so what they do is how a cap hold works is in order to sign a player over the salary cap or to pay them the maximum amount you can outside of using cap space there’s things called bird rights so there’s three types there’s non-b bird rights that’s players coming off a one-year deal with the team a early bird rights that’s a two-year deal with the team or a full bird rights that’s three or more years with with the team so in that case so even like James wisman even though he’s traded he still has full bird rights because of because you they you inherit them from the other team when a player is traded so in this case for we’ll just use James wisman as the example if the Piston said man we really need to make sure we keep his bird rights that’s a $30 million cap hold what a cap hold is designed to do is roughly represent the maximum contract that they player could sign for coming off of their current contract now wiseman’s not going to get $30 million a year we all know that but that is a carryover from his draft status as a former high draft pick that carries over uh there so in order for the Pistons to create that much cap space they go through a process which is called renouncing uh cap holds so they they will renounce free agent rights so for a guy like James wisman they will renounce him or simply resign him let’s say let’s say they’re going to resign him for 7 million a year you might do that right away get that done and go so a player’s cap hold sits on the books till you either renounce them which means basically you wipe it off the books or you sign the player or the player signs somewhere else in the NBA to be clear because if they sign outside of the NBA that doesn’t count the free agent hold still stays on the books okay for everyone listening I want to make sure you guys know that in the last segment we will be answering questions you guys asked me to ask Keith about the pist and salary cap situation so if we haven’t hit on something that you’re expecting to hear it’s most likely that you’re going to hear about it in the final segment so just stay tuned we got a long episode um so the next place I want to go with that um is Simone fono so he is a restricted free agent um what is the whole situation with Simone fanto because it’s likely that the Pistons I mean he voiced after the season that he wants to come back the whole goal is going to be to secure a long-term contract with the Detroit Pistons what’s the most they can offer him what would be the best way about handling that with with a restrictive free agent while maintaining that salary flexibility that you mentioned at the beginning yeah so what happened with fonio because he started enough games between the Pistons and the Jazz last season he uh hit what’s called starter criteria which basically what that does is that gives a player an increased uh qualifying offer and cap hold so in his case his qualifying offer would have been fairly minimal uh would have been pretty small like $3 million-ish because he hit this starter criteria what happens is that bumps his qualifying offer up to about 5.2 is million I think if I remember that correctly off the top of my head I should probably just look uh yeah 5.2 million so what happens with fono is in order to keep a players restricted free agent rights which means you have the right to match any contract they sign with another team uh you have to issue what’s called a qualifying offer uh that is a one-year contract offer in Fon teo’s case 5.2 million dollar offer he could just sign that and play we occasionally see players do that uh it’s fairly rare it’s maybe one or two each year uh that do that at the most um but what what will really happen is the Pistons will issue that they’ll have 5.2 million on the books when I say they have 64 million in cap space too that accounts for that 5 million uh cap hold for fun Teo that’s already accounted for in that figure because we all assume they’re going to do this then what happens is 5.2 million that’s sign you’ve already got 64 million if they need five million more to make two uh Max signings see you later Sone F Teo right like that’s probably how that’ll go down but in reality what they’ll do is they’ll kind of do all of their other work signing players uh trading for players whatever it is then they’ll have already agreed to a contract with funo and then they’ll resign him uh doing that the only way they may go a slightly different direction is they only have early bird rights on him so they are limited in what they can pay him uh this summer if they use the early bird rights but it’s not so limiting that they couldn’t do it because it’s a contract that’s up to about $17.4 million per season so they’re probably not going to get into that range so what’s more likely to happen is um they’ll they’ll wait they’ll do everything else then they’ll use his bird rights to get him let’s say he’s gonna make eight to 10 million 12 million whatever it is and they’ll use his early bird rights that way to pay him they wanted to pay him let’s say 20 to$ 25 million next season again completely unrealistic they’d have to use their cap space to do that and that’s not something they’re going to do so he’ll sit on the books you it’ll be funny people probably Panic a little bit why why are they not announcing fono resigning I know yo W tweeted that they’re signing him what happened you why is this one it’s just an order of operations thing where you’re going to use up all your cap space first then you’re going to go out and take care care of he is the only free agent I’m projecting to stay on the books so you’ll take care of him last in the order of operations okay perfect that’s what I had a lot of people asking about that um I had a lot of listeners asking is this uh an Austin Reeves kind of situation with Simone fono do you think it is is it is it similar to that or no um it it is in theory uh the difference is the Pistons have cap space so they could pay him more than the limited amount that a player is allowed to get um through through the early bird rights the other option is you what you could see is if a team wanted to sign him to an offer sheet that offer sheet is limited by um uh what’s called the Arenas provision so that’s one of those ones where the most famous examples everybody goes to were Jeremy Lyn and om Asik where their contracts I know we’re going back away here we’re almost a decade out now from those but what happened in that situation was they were signed a contracts what I like to call is medium range medium range then huge salary huge salary um and that’s what can happen under the Arenas provision it I don’t know that a team team would because it would take another team with cap space to be able to make an offer like that and I don’t know that another team with cap space uh whether that be Philadelphia or Orlando or somebody is like we got to make someone fono or you know number one priority let’s go out tie up all our cap space in an offer sheet Force the Pistons to match and that I don’t think that’s going to happen so that’s the little bit of a difference where with Austin Reeves there was all those rumors of well the Spurs might sign him to you know four the most common quoted one was four years 100 million which is a little bit of rounding in there um but that’s that’s the place where the Situation’s the same but it’s just enough different that the Pistons can operate differently with how they could retain and where the Lakers they had no shot at being in a cap space team so they were going to have to then match an arena offer sheet if he signed one somewhere else in Reeves case which he ultimately did not end up doing PR Pi is America’s number one fantasy sports app with more than three million members it is the easiest most exciting way to get in on the action while you watch your favorite sports and players you just pick more or less on two or more player stats and watch the winnings roll and get in on the playoff action and win up to 100 times your money on prize picks as you and the world’s best players take the game to a whole new level during basketball’s postseason you can now win up to 100 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midnight on uh July 1st so that is I think most people know now free agency opens at 6:00 pm Eastern on uh the June 30th but in order to do the rookie scale deals you still have to wait till midnight so that’s one where you’re gonna have to stay up late probably on on that night to wait to see if if it drops right away so what we’re looking at for him is a first year salary starts about 35 5.25 million so let’s uh let’s plug that in right here Live while we’re doing this it should have been a little bit bit better prepared but it’s all right we’ll get there pretty quick uh so his M his I don’t want to say it this way I was gonna say his minimum Max salary the lowest Max salary you can get which is 25% of the cap would start at 35.25 million and that would be for 5 years $24.5 million so call it 5205 that’s that’s the figure that would be quoted and that is a projection right now because we the salary cap is not yet settled for next season Once that does then we will have it uh have that number fully locked in but until that point um we are at uh that that that’s where we’re at they could also do the language in there the designated player language where if Cunningham makes all NBA next year in the final year of his rookie scale contract um or wins MVP or Defensive Player of the Year let’s keep but more realistic and say all MBA um they could give him a contract that starts at 42.3 million and how that one ends up looking is it ends up being like I said 42.3 million in first year salary that would be 5 years 245.000 million in total so you’re looking somewhere between 5 years 205 and 5 years 245 as the contract for Kade Cunningham and I do project that will get a Max uh extension because I think he’s he while he hasn’t quite knocked all the way through to allar status I think the Pistons can be hopeful that let’s improve the team around him he could probably get there and at that point the the 25% Max is generally what what we see uh guys who are All-Star level guys coming off their rookie scale contracts that’s generally what they get all right so there you go I know a lot of you guys were interested in the K Cunningham numbers and what exactly look like but what I’m super interested in getting into is this second apron stuff because this has been watching the Phoenix Suns get get knocked out of the playoffs I think really sparked a lot of this conversation I feel like the second apron talk kind of you know went away for a minut like people just kind of forgot about it for a second but as soon as the sun’s lost it’s been talked about Non-Stop and in the Pistons community at least at the beginning of the year Troy Weaver the Piston’s current GM I don’t think he’s going to be that once they sign their president B operations but at the beginning of the year there was a lot of referencing to this second apron this is going to open up some doors for the Pistons and obviously it may open up some doors for other small Market teams as well but I’ve had a lot of listeners ask what is the second apron what’s going on with the second apron and I’ve tried to explain it from what I know but obviously you know way more about this than I do so can you just give a brief explanation and we’ll obviously dive into it some more but what is the second apron what’s the purpose of it yeah so what they did in this I’m going to keep calling it the new CBA even though we’re we’re now fully into it um but what they did in the new CBA the the whole goal of it was the the very publicized goal was let’s limit teams like the Warriors and the Clippers and what the Nets were becoming from spending what was going to be in range of a half a billion dollars on salary plus tax penalties we got to curb that we got to bring that down we got to re those teams in EXC excuse me then what we see happen ultimately is with the um with the second apron which is up here right those are the teams that are way up here at the top uh for anybody not watching I’ve got my hand up above my head um for the teams with the um the teams at the bottom end of the salary what they forc those teams to do is spend up to the floor um before free agency really wraps up before the season starts so if you remember a few years back the Spurs and the Pacers went into the season with like $40 million on their books and they became like everybody’s favorite third team in to three team trades and trade machine because it was like well we’ll just dump the salary on them um what they forced is those teams have to spend money and the whole idea is make teams spend their money to to get up to to at least the minimum to the floor and not sit under it going into the season so that money gets spent in the off season and you’re not just everybody’s sitting on money and then we’re playing kind of a money laundering game by moving it around we want that money injected into the system going to free agents getting more guys paid so what happens there is you’re taking the teams up here the teams down here and you’re trying to push everybody closer together it’s never going to be like this even flat but you get it kind of pushed a little bit closer together and that should in a in an Ideal World introduce more parity so now there’s your basic part the second apron what they did was how they’re going to re those teams in uh there’s there are kind of five levels there are under the cap there’s right at the salary cap there is under the tax or or right at the tax then there is the first apron and then the second apron second apron teams are the most expensive teams everybody knows who they are they’re the Phoenix Suns the Boston Celtics the Milwaukee Bucks uh the Golden State Warriors have been there they’re going to try to rectify that sum this off seon uh the Clippers are probably going to be there pending what happens with with Paul George James Harden in in those guys so what what they did was they put restrictions on those teams so if we go back a couple years ago the Warriors super duper expensive they go out they sign Dante Devon chenzo and everybody throws up their arms and like how how did they add Dante Devan chenzo for5 million what happened here well you used to be able to do that they used to be able to make trades they could package money together and go make trades that’s kind of how they ended up Landing ultimately with Andrew Wigan on the roster because they just kept moving money around what’s happened now with those second apron teams they have no signing exceptions like the non-t taxpayer the taxpayer the buy annual those are all gone you can’t use those uh if they want to make trades they can only send out one player in a trade so you can’t take a $15 million player in a $5 million player and go get a $20 million player they’re not allowed to aggregate uh salaries together like that uh in a trade you can only take back as much or less than what you send out so I think most people know there’s always been a little bit of a buffer where if you send out like 20 million you could bring back like 22 23 million that’s gone you can only bring back 20 million if you send out 20 million uh you can split that up though you could send out 20 million and bring back 15 and five you could bring back two players uh there is also they can’t sign buyout players who made more than the non-t taxpayer midlevel so no more Kevin Love joins the Miami Heat kind of situation that’s not allowed uh you can’t buy a draft pick so team like Phoenix which is way over the second apron has very few roster spot filled they couldn’t go to a team sitting on extra second rounders and say hey here’s a couple million bucks we’re going to buy a second rounder from you that’s no longer allowed either so what those teams can really do is those very restricted trades they can sign players to minimum contracts they can sign their own draft picks and they can sign um resign their own free agents that’s pretty much it so you’re kind of what you see is what you get minus a handful of other uh restricted ways to fill out your roster so that’s that’s where they’re trying to put the squeeze on those teams nobody’s saying hey Warriors we know you drafted Curry and Thompson and green we’re not saying you can’t keep resigning those guys but if you do you’re not going to be able to do that and then on top of that go sign to Divan chenzo or somebody like that so what I find so interesting about all this is that my question is and obviously my my take away from everything you said when I heard about the second apron I read up on it is basically you can’t do anything like if once you hit that second apron it’s going to be hard for you to do almost anything so I don’t understand what the suns are doing but this isn’t locked on suns this is locked on F so we’ll leave that alone um but for me it’s basically like okay you can’t do anything if you’re above that second I don’t know how you can get better um but the interesting part to me is and this is why I want to lead and we eventually you guys will see where I’m going when tying this to the Pistons is the question I have is how many of these teams could everyone just assumes Troy Weaver spoke about at the beginning of the year I think he kind of assumes it I think a lot of people kind of assume well yeah you’re gonna want to get out that second apron they’re gonna get out of it how many teams do you think are just going to say screw it like is it possible for all the teams to just say whatever we don’t care we’re just gonna go on the second apron anyways like is the penalties that severe to where you think teams are actually going to say we have to get out from this we need to trade Uh Kevin Durant or call Anthony towns to get out of it or do you think they’re just gonna say you know what it is with it screw it we’re gonna pay the money it’s winner take all time in the NBA and NHL and fanduel’s G you a shot to bring home a big win of your own right now new customers get $150 in bonus Bets with any winning $5 bet that’s 150 bucks to bet on spreads money lines player props and more so visit fanduel.com so that’s lock down make every playoff shot count remember a few years ago I’ve told you guys this many many times when Betty became legal in Michigan I didn’t know where to go I wasn’t I was new to all of this didn’t know anything about it so I tried out FanDuel I have not turned back since I’ve loved it it’s super self-explanatory super easy to use and a lot of fun to use maybe a little bit too much fun for me um but visit fanduel.com likeon and make every playoff track count and start the fun today visit FanDuel again fanduels americaas number one sports book I’m glad you added cat there because Minnesota’s definitely going to be a team that’s going to be dealing with the second APR next year as uh extensions kick in for a bunch of their guys so we’re going to see right we don’t know yet exactly where teams are at the Warriors for example have been very open in UPF front going into this summer of whether it be ownership and the front office of we got to start getting out of these second apron issues start getting have less money committed not because they’re spending too much they could continue to spend but they are fully realizing we can’t build a roster that we need and Curry Thompson and green are older they’re not enough just those three guys and the two of us and that’s probably a 500 team right like they they’re they’re not there anymore um I’m assuming you can play a little bit I I I would be definitely everybody be hunting me and they’ try to figure it out but uh but we we we we’ll we’ll assume they could have done that at the peak of their powers um now they’re in a position where we got to fill the roster out right we have to get real talent around these guys we got to be seven eight nine 10 Deep so I think what they’re looking at is Chris Paul 30 million non guaranteed if there was no second apron keep him we’ll we’ll just keep rolling we’ll keep rolling forward with the second apron I think you’re going to see them wave Chris Paul and go into a different different uh kind of place with that Klay Thompson makes 40 something million this year probably only comes back for about half that maybe a little bit more and all that’s going to be driven on let’s get under this second apron let’s give our front office the ability to do other stuff well let’s give uh Mike Dunley and crew the ability to really go make trades go make signings do some other things that he wouldn’t have otherwise now if you go to the other end of the spectrum you have a team like Boston they’re thinking hey unless things really go sideways we should be competing for a title we have a pretty deep roster we can probably for three four years in total uh really commit to being this super duper expensive team let’s just go for it I don’t think they’re in a spot where they’re gonna say man we got to trade Jaylen Brown because we gotta we got to alleviate these apron concerns we got to get under the apron to make other moves because their top seven eight guys are all pretty locked in for at least the next couple of Seasons if not beyond that so they’re in a spot that’s a little bit different then you get to a team like the Suns though we already said it the Suns have $194 million committed to seven players that’s less than a half a roster so then and just so everybody knows the second apron is 189 million so by the time the Suns fill out their roster with seven or eight more signings or Acquisitions through the draft whatever they do we’re talking about a team that’s going to be well over $200 million in just salary then you add the tax penalties on top of that you they’re going to be approaching a half a billion dollars um but they are in a position where they are going to be in a spot where it will be extremely expensive for them they are G to be there part and then they won’t be to your point they won’t be able to really do anything you’re down to all right minimum roulette here let’s play it again we we hit on a couple guys last year but a bunch of those guys washed out and didn’t really work out and then what you’re going to have to see the Suns do is they are going to or the Assumption has been well how do you get out of this well they don’t have like a$ 30 million player they can just wave like the Warriors do with Chris Paul they don’t have a free agent who hey let’s bring him back for half of his contract they’re in a spot where kind of everybody’s like well you’re gonna have to make a trade to get out of it that could be where it’s hey whether it’s the Pistons or any one of the other cap space teams this summer hey we got to trade one of Durant Booker or I’ll say Beal but that’s probably not realistic and it’s not going to be Booker because he’s just starting a new extension he’s the youngest guy sobody he kind of turned to well they might have to trade Kevin Durant and then of course that all started with the well KD’s never happy anywhere anyway maybe wants to go somewhere but James Jones came out and said this week I’m not trading anybody like we’re keeping these three guys we’re going to figure this out and go they just hired one of the best cap guys in the world um to come in um I believe it’s Mark tellum I I I should know that it’s either Mark or Mike I don’t know why I’m getting getting tripped up on that right now um but they just hired him uh Matt tell uh it is to come in he’ worked for the Nets he’s a really sharp cap guy very well respected to come in I think to help hey how can we work around this a little bit but that’s where the suns are at they’re in a tough spot but Minnesota if they fall short they’re going to be very expensive Denver’s super expensive Milwaukee fell way short they’re very very expensive so a lot of these teams that went into the second apron uh did this first year of its existence they’re they’re not really living up to what their team’s paid for and then that’s put them in a very tough spot so to tie all of that in I we need to get all that information out there before we try to tie it into the Pistons so you guys understood everything to tie it back into the Pistons this is something I’ve talked about on the podcast a lot it felt like and I think it’s played out that Troy Weaver and the Pistons front office put all their eggs into the basket of there’s going to be a team that needs to get off a contract we’re going to remain flexible with salary cap so when that comes our biggest trade asset we don’t have a lot of trade assets we don’t have a lot of picks we don’t have a lot of great young players but what we do have is Open salary cap so it feels like all they put all their eggs into that basket of when that time comes we’re g to be one of the only teams that can just take that contract on and free up everything for an opposing team my question is uh is there any players you think that the Pistons or Pistons fans should be watching for and two do you think that is um a a good strategy to have for a team like the Pistons because my ex my opinion is what I look at it as I think it makes sense but you kind of need another team to say we don’t want to be in the second APR if teams just decide they’re goingon to stay there you’re kind of just like sitting on cap space now for no reason so I guess the question I’m really asking is are there any players out there you think fans should be watching for in that scenario and two do you think that having Open salary cap space is as valuable as what Troy Weaver has made it seem like it is do you think it is as valuable as that or do you think maybe it’s being a bit overvalued yeah it’s funny you know they there’s a saying that goes around the NBA of cap space sounds great but cap space has never scored a point in the league right so it’s it is very true it it really it’s great to have it it all depends on how you use it and I know Pistons fans know probably better than most in recent years yeah we haven’t really used it all that great at least to you know we’ve kind of eaten some contracts but we we never ate the contracts to get back the three first round picks or anything like that right it was always just eat a contract and we’re gonna get a second or a middling first or something like that and and I know that gets frustrating for folks so I think where we’re at with the pistons and with these second apron teams I think there are definitely second apron teams that could could for sure look to get off some money uh this summer so right now I project there to be a minimum of Eight Second apron teams going into um the offseason now they may not all be there right at the start of the off season but by the time they fill out their rosters they make some moves they’ll be there so that’s Boston Denver the Clippers the Lakers the Grizzlies the Bucks the Timberwolves and the Suns and those are just presented alphabetically by city um just in case anybody why are they in that order like that there there that’s it it’s just alphabetically by city now we already talked about Boston I don’t think they’re going to be looking to get off any money Phoenix has already said they’re not going to do it now at this time of year I trust my my extent of trust in NBA general managers goes about as far as I can pick them up and throw them down the driveway um which is not very far so but we’ll take him at his word that he he’s not breaking up his big three he’s not looking to you know get just straight salary dump guys so we we’ll take them after word with that uh so that kind of leaves the Clippers are in a weird spot they they are they’re trying to be really expensive because they’re trying to resign Paul George and resign James Harden so I don’t think they’re a team that’s necessarily like got to get out of this second apron Lakers are in a little bit of a weird place too because they’re gonna either resign or trade for some guys or make something happen to be be in a spot where they’re probably going to be pretty expensive too so now we’re kind of left with Denver Memphis Milwaukee and Minnesota somebody out of Denver and Minnesota I think is going to come out feeling a little disappointed I here they’re going to lose a game seven they’re not even going to go to the West finals and I think you may see one of those teams look at it and say all right we got to do something different if it’s the Nuggets could the Nuggets look at it and say you know what it’s now’s the time we got to move Michael Porter Jr let’s try to get a little less expensive let’s free up some tools to try to flesh out our roster a little bit uh whether we trade him and bring in a couple guys or we trade them out just to get off some money that could be a Direction they go because they think they’re going to want to resign cavius C Pope they’ve already they’re they’re going to extend Jamal Murray I think we we can feel safe in that they’ve already got Aaron Gordon they’ve got joic and then the rest of their guys are on rookie contracts that don’t make that much money so that kind of leads me to could have Michael Porter Jr be on the move if you’re Minnesota are you looking at all right man this really went sideways on us we didn’t get as far as we wanted to be and we’re about to be way more expensive than we’ve ever been in franchise history and we’ve got this weird ownership thing going on so maybe they’ll look to rebalance a little bit could that come in the form of a Carl Anthony towns trade maybe maybe they do look at it and say you know what goar Reed that’s good enough we got McDaniels obviously we have Anthony Edwards as a new face of our franchise we go I kind of don’t think they’ll do that this summer I think they’re going to have one more year at least of being pretty expensive and then probably a year from now they’ll start making those decisions but maybe maybe they push into that I think Milwaukee’s in a weird spot where it is not only are they super expensive but they’re also very old so it turns into all right well we’re not moving daname we’re not moving Giannis but could it be time to get off Chris Middleton you know is that a direction we want to go do we want to you know move off him do we feel like uh we’ve got other guys who can step in and play and he only plays 55 60 games a year now anyway you know where are we at let let’s maybe go in a direction like that so those are the things I think you’re looking at with those second apron teams then if we go kind of down a level into the first apron that’s where you’ve got like the Warriors they’re going to be looking to get off some money I think most of it will happen through waving Chris Paul and probably um ultimately uh resigning clay for like half what he makes that should get him about there but they could say man we got to get off Andrew Wiggins contract we’re going to move him uh the Miami Heat maybe the Miami Heat say all right we can’t we haven’t been able to pass Tyler hero together let’s let’s get a get out of that contract uh Dallas I think they’re content being a little bit more expensive I they’ll sh money then we get to two really interesting teams the Atlanta Hawks are way too mid to to use the term my daughter uses um to be as expensive as they are they need to get off salary and not even mid just straight up bad are the Portland Trailblazers who are sitting right around the uh the luxur the know the luxury tax first apron line that can’t be a thing you cannot be that bad and be there so they’re GNA have guys like Malcolm brogon Robert Williams maybe Jeremy Grant maybe DeAndre a they’re gonna have maybe Anthony Simons you’re gonna have a whole bunch of guys outside of like scoot Henderson Shaden sharp the rookie guys rookie scale guys I think they’re going to be very open for business to start moving some players and start really resetting their books because you cannot be that expensive it’d be bad and they’re unlike like like Memphis was bad this year we all know Memphis was bad because the wheels came off you jce bench you had a million injuries it all fell apart on them they kind of took a gap year they’ll be right back in the contention in the west next year at least we assume so Portland’s nowhere close they’ve got years of building to do that you can’t be that expensive and be that bad so they’re going to have to make make some moves uh going into the summer so those are the places where team like the Pistons if you don’t want to go spend it on a bunch of uh mid- tier free agents if you want to do it through cap space you could do it in a way this year where it’s not just give me your Dwayne deadmond contract give me your you know other bad contracts we’ll eat them we we’ll do it that way you could do it in a place where it is hey give me one two maybe even three guys that can actually really play and could help us be a better team next year I think they’re well positioned to be able to do that all right and before we move on to answering all the questions just quick answer here what do you think would be like in that scenario do you think there’s like teams would be requesting legit value back or will like the negotiation be that we’re taking this salary off of you we’re not we’re not giving much in return we’re doing you a solid by taking this the the contract off of you so what what do you think a potential trade would look like from a value Wise from the Pistons are you talking about like a second round pick a first round like what what do you think that would look like yeah it’s it I don’t think it’s going to be just we’re just taking these guys because none of those guys are like on terrible contracts where they’re unplayable type players if we were going to do something like that that would be more along the lines of all right you’re going to pay us and picks to eat Lonzo Ball’s contract or to eat Ben Simmons’s contract guys who W we’re not sure they’re going to even be able to get on the floor next year never mind uh do do much of anything productive for you um those guys are all guy all those names that I rattled off those are all guys that can either still play or are really good in some cases and they’re teams are just in you know tricky spots so I don’t think the Pistons are going to get paid and I don’t think they’re going to get a uh fully sweetheart deal but I don’t think it’s gonna have like if they wanted Carl Anthony towns in just a vacuum normal Market they’re probably having to give up a couple first round picks and probably one of the young players to do it in this world it might be hey we can offer you two picks but we’re not giving up one of our young kids to to do that so what do you think do do you need off the contract that badly that’s the kind of place where I think they could make out okay where it’s not we’re doing all this so I’ll say on most of those guys it’s probably a pick or a or a player or maybe both if the player that good enough um it’s just not in a position where I don’t think it’s going to be anything like here’s our draft moving forward that I don’t project there’s going to be anybody on the market like that this Summer that that the Pistons are uh in play to go get I don’t I don’t think that kind of move would make sense for them or player at this point all right perfect I think that segment everyone’s going to love that this has been something they’ve been wanting to find out a lot of people are trying to get the better understanding of I think that was all great so appreciate you for that Keith um but we’re GNA wrap up this the the podcast I’m gonna ask you some questions that some Pistons fans some listeners wanted to hear you answer um and then we’ll wrap up the podcast here so uh and a lot of this may just be guesswork uh I don’t know if you can if there’s like concete answers for this but anyways uh one of the questions is what do you is there a way you or not a way I’m sorry what is the most expected salaries for you you think for Malik monk Gary Trent Jr and Tobias Harris okay so all kind of different places I think Malik monk is going to get somewhere between 20 and 25 million a year um they it’s I know sometimes when you start talking 100 million that’s still like this magical barrier for some people where it’s like like that’s a lot of money I mean don’t get it’s a lot of money don’t get me wrong I’ll take it if anybody’s going to drop it off you I’ll hit me up I’ll send you my address and bank account info and we’ll go um but I think in the NBA 20 to 25 million is really that’s not that much that is you know far less than 25% of the salary cap you’re down in the range of that’s like 15% of the salary cap now so I think a guy like monk is worth more than the midlevel so that’s going to push his number up he’s pretty plug- inpl in my opinion you can put him in just about any team and he can fit because he can start he can come off the bench he can shoot he can playmake he can do a lot of different things so I’ve got him at about 20 to 25 million the only caveat I’ll put to that is and I wrote about this on Spa track when I wrote the Kings offseason preview um there is a process that Kings could do which is they kind of pay monk a little bit this year and next year and then they make it up to him with his bird rights a couple years later um there is the possibility that could be the direction it goes so that that would be kind of a wink wink kind of deal with him and the Kings and that is certainly possible that it could go that way uh Gary Trent Jr I think he’s more of a mid-level kind of guy maybe a little bit more I think the problem for him to get a little bit more he has to have a team like Detroit Philadelphia or Orlando who really wants him otherwise the most other teams can offer him is the mid-level sorry about that I had cough and I didn’t want to do it in everybody’s ears you’re good then the next guy Tobias Harris that one’s really hard because I now think we’ve gone way too far on the Tobias Harr stinks uh side of things PE people are acting like he’s barely an NBA player anymore and I don’t I don’t think that’s where we’re at he’s also certainly not anybody who’s gon to touch anywhere near a Max contract so I think probably probably what happens is you’re going to see this is generally how it goes first couple waves of free agency happen some teams left sitting around with a bunch of cap space in years past if we go back to the beginning part of the show that team might have said we’ll just we’ll we’ll roll into the season with that cap space can’t do that anymore what happens is let’s say you’re still sitting 30 million under the salary floor um what happens is they they put an artificial cap hold on day one of the regular season up to to bring you up to the floor so you can’t just sit on it so basically it is you might as well spend it because there’s no nothing else you can do with it that’s where I think you know you might have a team or two that says man we got 15 million in cap space left over we we can’t just sit on this money all right let’s let’s you know we’ll throw it to Tobias Harris I think the big thing is you’re GNA see him probably get a very shortterm deal either one or twoyear deal uh might even be like a what we call a a two minus one which is really a two-year deal with a team on option or like a non- guaranteed on the second year uh so the team can control things and that’s probably going to be in that 15 to 20 million range would be my guess because teams will still look at him be like he can still score some he’s an okay rebounder he can still shoot like yeah we’re we’re we’re good to bring him in and my my thing with Tobias Harris going all the way back to his magic days was yeah Tobias Harris can average 20 points per game but he does it like 25 points tonight Five Points the next 30 points 10 points like he’s just he’s very very inconsistent now he’s never really shaking that label I I think that it sounds like the Pistons are going to be going after to Harrison a lot of Pistons fans have been freaking out about paying him 25 plus million dollars so I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear about what you just said there um yeah you know let me say one quick thing on that go ahead if they pay him $25 million and it’s a one-year deal whatever it doesn’t really matter because it it’s a one-year deal it’s and and I don’t think it would be well you know oh geez we could have traded for uh um Anthony Ed words but we we signed Tobias Harrison instead that’s not going to be a thing right that’s not going to be a real thing that happens so I don’t think they’re going to pay him that at the expense of getting somebody else if they do I’ll happily come back on here and trash them up and down and S sideways because that that that’s not a smart decision right okay um so the last thing I’ll ask you here is and the reason why we only got two questions because a lot of the questions that they sent in you’ve already answered so thank you for that but um the only other one that I don’t think we’ve really touched on yet that they want to hear from you is given the Piston situation given the p uh this off season free agents and given the new CBA or the current CBA like you said what do you believe is the ideal length of contracts the Detroit Pistons should be handing out this offseason yeah it’s a really good question I think it’s I I’m not gonna probably answer it to the person who asked it full satisfaction think it’s very dependent on the player that they’re signing if you’re signing if it’s Tobias Harris one or two years ideally his second year is on team control if it’s a younger player if it’s uh I’m just going to pull pull out my free agent list here real quick if it was like a OG an anobi let’s just say for whatever reason he’s not going back to the Knicks you’re gonna give him a four-year contract and you’re fine like that’s that’s perfectly fine it really is dependent on is this guy a just get us out of being the worst team in the league signing and help us improve help our young guys play meaningful basketball later into the season over the next couple years one or two year deals no problem if it is a man this guy we can’t believe we can get him and he is now a kind of we’re we’re maybe he’s a little bit older but we’re calling him part of our core moving forward four-year deal is perfectly fine with that so it’s very very player dependent there is no um I think people are getting excited because they’re hearing billions of dollars in the new TV deal in the last last time we heard that we had Tima mozgov and L Al Dan get paid ridiculous contracts on night one of free agency we are not going to see a cap Spike like that in the CBA what they agreed to was cap smoothing so what that means is rather than one year the cap jumps $40 million and everybody has cap space and then exactly one class of free agents benefits from it because if we had that Tobias Harris would have got 3540 million probably because you got to spend it somewhere in the cap one way up what we’re going to see is in this case you’re going to see a spa where it is the cap is only going to go up a Max of 10% and that’s not even this offseason we’re talking the next offseason in the next offseason beyond that this offseason it’s going to be a lot it’ll be maybe cap out at 5% probably not even that high but when that TV deal kicks in which would be for the 25 summer of 2025 offseason that where it’s only going to go up 10% now 10% is still a lot you’re still talking a pretty good size jump but it’s not going to be this massive $40 million uh Spike that’s gon to cause all the stuff because of that I don’t think you’re going to see players like angling for like I gotta time it up so I’m a free agent then so I only want a oneye deal this summer or anything like that I think it’ll be much more of a normal type environment as far as length of contracts go all right we’ll wrap it up there uh thank you Keith for coming on I do want to say that final point that Keith Made goes along with what I’ve been saying on the podcast for a minute the Pistons can make numerous different versions of their team over the next six years if they want someone they want to bring in some players that can help them get to playing help them get to respectability they can do so without screwing over their long-term uh fin uh flexibility and that’s a big worry amongst a lot of Pistons fans is oh if you go out and get these guys you’re you’ve capped yourself for the next seven years that that doesn’t that’s not the case it doesn’t have to be the case that’s do two-year contracts have Team options at the back end you can get out of it and then make a new team once you get to that level but you have to get out of worst team in the NBA territory you have to whatever you can just don’t do it by giving long-term contracts but anyways thank you keys for coming on man I really appreciate we’ll see you probably next summer unless something crazy happens this offseason in the free agency that we need to hear why the hell this happened I might hit you up but probably see you again next offseason appreciate you always coming on um you can follow him over on Twitter at Keith Smith MBA I want to thank you guys for making locked on Pistons your first list of every single day fre available on podcast platforms hit that subscribe butt to YouTube channel leave us a five star review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to us on and until next time I’ll see you guys later stay safe out there catch you later peace out
Salary Cap Expert and Spotrac contributor Keith Smith joins the show to discuss the Detroit Pistons cap situation and how the 2nd Apron will affect the Pistons.
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