The Close Up – Offseason Outlook with Keith Smith

The Close Up – Offseason Outlook with Keith Smith

[Music] [Music] all right all right all right welcome to another episode of the closeup I’m your host Stephen Cameron this show is a part of the Orlando Magic HQ podcast Network um I just want to first off say thanks for your patience on us getting this new this episode out I know I was supposed to release one last week but due to some scheduling it’s happening this week um which which will overlap I believe alen ant will also be releasing a show later this week which will be great but this week’s episode is all about the Orlando Magic offseason um capabilities with the salary cap and player extensions with Keith Smith of SPO track in the front office show um Keith is an awesome some guest if you guys were listening to the show we had him on just before the trade deadline to kind of talk about different trade deadline scenarios that the magic could could see um and their power around the trade deadline so we have a very similar conversation about the offseason the magic have with team salary cap League salary cap new CBA um implications for the Orlando Magic and the league and how that will work this show will inform um you know fans that are already deep into this type of stuff and if not it’s a great introduction for fans that don’t pay attention to it but want to know more about how the magic can uh potentially spend their money and what resources they have this off seon um to improve the roster Keith is a great guest he’s very knowledgeable about this he’s basically the senior editor for spot track.com which is where I go to get all of league and player and team um contract and salary cap information um and then he’s got a show for called front office Fridays and then he’s got a substack which we get into all those are linked into the show description um and if you want to follow along I’m also linking the Orlando Magic bow Trak um 20242 uh homepage where you get into um player contract salary um projections and uh magic cap space projections so you can kind of follow along the show that way if you want to open that up um before we get into the conversation with Keith I just want to remind you all we have a Instagram subscription program it’s $5 a month and it gets you a lot of really cool benefits um go to our Instagram and go to our pinned post you will see all those benefits right away up there and then this show is presented by bet online bet online is your number one source for all summer Sports including MLB golf NBA playoffs and NHL playoffs all the latest stats new scores are available to your favorite teams um at any point in time uh get the latest odds and lines including the latest team matchups player props odds on just about every sport out there it’s it’s pretty amazing how much information and not just information but like news and and bets that you can place through bet online um head over to the website or use your mobile device to get in on the action bet online where the game starts um then also just want to give a shout out to our good friend Brandon Kravitz um he’s done an awesome job covering the Orlando Magic this season he is a part of 969 the game he has a podcast called the zon heads podcast if you’re looking for more than just Orlando Magic news but you want to listen and learn more about UCF Orlando city um you know the Solar Bears like any of those types of teams any Orlando Magic or Orlando uh centered sports information um you know he even talked about rumors of are the r is going to move to Orlando he talks about all that stuff his podcast EP releases four episodes a week um you know very small bit siiz 5 to 10 minute segments from his radio show and other uh private interviews that he does and it’s a phenomenal place so tune in to the zon heads podcast on any of your preferred podcast listening platforms um the magic are in their offseason they obviously got eliminated in the game seven to the Cavs and uh Keith and I just get into all of that so enjoy the show this is a good good one um and again shout out Keith for jumping on the show if you’re not following him go ahead and do that now and please like And subscribe to this podcast um give us a review if you can all right enjoy the show all right everyone like I said we got Keith Smith of spa track welcome Keith how you doing man I’m doing well thank you so much for having me I appreciate it it’s good to have you back on the show last time we talked it was um around the magic trade deadline kind of looking at what sort of movable contracts the magic would have then we took a peek at you know some projected players obviously the magic didn’t really do much then but but the season has since ended for the magic and we know so much more information about this magic team going into the summer about needs and sort of you know we saw the conclusion of a lot of player performances and stuff like that and and listeners like I mentioned in the beginning of the show like this show is all about um you know the magic spending power this summer kind of the type of moves they can make different types of contracts you know implications that they need to take into uh consideration for this summer um and there’s no one better to have this conversation than Keith in my opinion um unless you’re talking to Jeff welman’s Cap guy on his team himself uh and that guy probably really wouldn’t give us much information realistically on where they’re thinking so uh Keith is probably the best person um Keith man before we get too deep into this conversation uh you know we’re we finished the end of the season now we’re we’re watching the Celtics and we’re watching The Wolves and you know the second round is about to conclude today uh for many teams and um let’s just look back on the Magic season H how did you enjoy it how did you think it went yeah awesome really fun team they they all the signs from the what I like to say were the final twoth thirds of last season because the the first third was a mess and shocking right when you have no healthy yards and you’re asking a rookie power forward to initiate a lot of the offense it was pretty messy but the final two thirs the magic played really well played pretty competitive they they were competitive into March the beginning part of April and that was good this year the Hope was all right step forward try to make a playing tournament or something like that and they were even better than that which is is great to see you know that they took not only a step forward but several steps forward now what I always say is co Coes will tell you going from bad to good is one thing going from good to Contender is a whole other thing and the latter is a lot harder to do but great season for the magic good individual growth from several players uh great team growth I think Jamal Mosley uh learned a lot of important lessons throughout the course of the regular season and in the playoffs um with different things that he had to do and adjust to and and now you know we’re in a spot where the future is as bright as it’s been here in a decade decade and a half I would say I know there were those couple playoff years but even then I think most people were kind of like H you know this okay we’re happy to make the playoffs again after not for so long but that team had kind of reached its ceiling we knew what that team was GNA do exactly yeah this team we don’t have any idea what the ceiling is because all the pieces aren’t even in place to try to determine that yet which makes this even more exciting yeah it’s it’s fun i’ I’ve kind of tried to compare this to you know like explain to my parents who they’ll tune in for some games but very much the definition of a casual like magic fan and I’m like when you look back at the you know 2019 2020 season with Vu you’re looking at a guy who was like in his late 20s maybe hitting 30 around that time and you know was at the best of his ability and was barely an Allstar right and now you’re looking at a team that is built around a person who is 21 second year who made an All-Star and it’s like the this there’s so much more room to grow and it’s just it’s really fun when you think about it because like you’re right we have no idea what this this team ceiling is and like we know obviously first round is is a floor to an extent right things could change a little bit next year East could get more competitive like next year getting to where they got this year isn’t necessarily um you know confirmed for sure but it would be unur it would be very surprising if they didn’t at least make the first round um you know and if anything they should be better based on experience and you know some potential roster changes did you get to go to any games this year as as media and how did it feel when you were there uh if you did go how did it feel this season compared to like past Seasons because I know you’ve gone to many many games over the years covering this team to an extent yeah funny enough the only time I caught the team even though I live in Orlando was when they were on the road I actually saw them twice um on the road I just I don’t go to as many games anymore now now that I’m covering the league as a whole um because I’m trying to watch stuff and and ultimately what ends up happening and and I’m not asking anyone to shed any tears for me don’t get me wrong because I love what I do but if you go to a game you’re there basically by the time you get there it’s 4:30 4:45 7:00 tipped game ends at 9:30 but you don’t everybody has this perception right because when you go to a game as a fan game ends you walk out and you leave um for for media you have to do the postgame stuff then you’re doing waiting for the locker rooms to be ready for you to talk to players and the like so it’s on an early night 11 o’clock on a later night maybe midnight before you’re out of there and at that point you’ve missed basically everything going on uh that night so then that turns into I’m watching a bunch of games at night and those kind of things so that’s just a long answer to say only caught them twice in person both times on the road I think they were you you could tell this group loves each other um you could tell they’re like playing together I was around them a little bit more non-game time um but you could just see they’re they’re really relishing growing together uh from the coaching staff through the players this is a group that has really kind of figured it out together um with this and they they say it a lot but more than saying it they show it a lot which is really important I think that part of this makes that much more fun because we see sometimes teams come in and they they go from being a bad team because they have a ton of cap space maybe one or two okay players and then they kind of take the mercenary approach they sign a bunch of free agents they trade for guys and that’s fun too don’t get me wrong nobody feels bad if that team wins A bunch of games but when it’s kind of your guys your homegrown guys are building together and going and winning those games it just feels more important and I will say this the attachment the city has to this team is way different than anything that I felt really since the the NBA Finals years with Dwight Howard um on the roster that was the last time I felt like the city was fully invested in behind this team it was so cool on the playoff days I went out on one of them to do groceries in the morning as a public and I heard two separate places where it was a a kid probably I’d say 12 13 and then one was a guy who’s probably about 35 40 years old uh two separate times like we got to hurry up we got to get back because I don’t want to be late for the game and that’s just so cool right like that’s that’s just a different kind of environment you saw a lot more magic gear out and about around town you saw a lot more people with like the car flags and all that stuff that people get get fired up about so that that that part’s really a lot of fun yeah Keith so it’s it’s interesting when you like look look at all all those types of things that you mentioned I I’ve had to tell some fans you know on on Twitter and just in the community is like we really have to enjoy this season as it is right because the feel-good Vibes are never going to feel the same with this team as they are because this year we didn’t really have expectations the expectations were be better than last year show competitiveness competitiveness and and you know make a play in well they exceeded that we were having to adjust our expectations and our our standards for this team the entire season because they just kept getting better and better and then it was like Hey okay you’re not just making the play and like you have a chance to make the playoffs and avoid the play oh you have the chance to be a homecourt Advantage team like they were games away from being a homecourt Advantage team that went down you know for the listeners who might not have known how close it was like literally home court was being decided the last two games of the Season that the magic played um and even I think the last game depending on other scenarios it with other teams winning or losing like they could have been the fourth seed you know um at one point as potentially as high as like the second seed now that was a little bit more of a reach like a lot of things had to go right but that’s that’s how much this magic team changed expectations and and now that we’ve kind of seen this and they’ve established a foundation like our expectations are going to change and their expectations are going to change it’ll still probably be a fun vibe and a fun culture but there’s going to be different demands from us as fans and media and them as teams so it’s going to be a little bit of a different vibe um and obviously some roster stuff could happen that would would would make it I don’t necessarily think that the team will ever not be like in the next couple years I don’t think they’re going to go from this funloving culture to this like you know Downer super like serious like that’s just not who they are that’s not who coach Mosley will will allow them to be um but it there’s just going to be a different feeling to an extent yeah I completely agree it’s the the the climb is always really fun especially when it happens faster than what anybody expects but yeah once you’re there like you said now there’s real expectations no no one is going to be super happy if they fall back into fighting in the playing tournament next year everybody’s going to be hey get there one thing I always caution people this came up a lot we’re recording this after Oklahoma City season ended and one of the things that I said last night with the Thunder is it people like to think Young team bunch of flexibility you know the future is super bright and it is but it is not linear it does not mean you’re going to everybody improves on the roster and everybody sticks around and it all goes great there I’ve just watched the NBA and covered it for too long now to know sometimes things go wrong sometimes there’s an injury sometimes somebody gets unhappy with a rooll sometimes something happens where hey I was the number two and you brought in a new guy ahead of me and now youo where is this at are you not committed to me sometimes one guy gets paid and another guy doesn’t things can go super sideways and this is where it gets very crucial for teams like Oklahoma City who’s who’s basically a year ahead of Orlando in kind of that curve and then Orlando um because you have to really cautious with the way you build this out because it is extremely fragile it is not a guarantee we’re just moving forward with all right now you know they were the fifth seed so next year they’ll be the third or second seed and then it’s you know title contention time that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s how it’s going to work out we all hope that’s where it goes but you know it’s it’s now now the the hard work starts if you will yeah totally and like you know the I I will say one difference between the Magic and Oklahoma City Thunder is like they have an established like 26y old in SGA who’s who’s got years of experience to help them get to this point the magic are relying on a 22 and a 21y old to to kind of take that next step so it’s like we’re we’re changing our expectations to guys who are have hardly stepped foot in the league to an extent you know compared to you know SJ who I think this is year six or seven for him and then which is kind of wild to think about you know he was in the same draft with with Mo bomba um and then and uh yeah it’s just it’s just different so um I really much enjoyed it I’m glad you did too it was it was a really fun season and I’m glad the fans did too is like I’ve gotten so many texts and phone calls from random people in my life that that like man this team’s great and they know I’m a die hard so it’s you know they’re what what do you think you know it’s been fun Keith all right so let’s get a little bit more more nerdy where where your head lives and my head loves to live too sometimes um and and let’s talk about the magic and their their their power this summer kind of the moves they they they should make and and just kind of their C their salary cap and some of their their player contract situations before we get super specific into that there was a new CBA agreement that went into place about two years ago if I’m remembering correctly and it was a slow first year this was the first year was the first year um what are some of the major differences between the old CBA and the new CBA that teams like the magic and just the league in general have to take into consideration when building a roster um yes I’ll just leave it at that what are the things they have to take in consideration when building a roster yeah the simplest way I can can say this is the NBA had been operating for a number of years now with a handful of teams way up here and for those only listening I have my hand up around the top of my head then you had a bunch of teams operating down here and my this hand is down much lower what this CBA was designed to do was bring those expensive teams down bring the lower spending teams up it’s never going to be even where everybody spends the same but just bring people within range of each other so what I think even casual fans understand because they’ve probably heard the term second apron right what that second apron was designed to do was take teams like the Warriors the Clippers what the Nets were becoming and make it so they couldn’t just continue to spend spend spend spend we were at a point where those teams were going to be in a position where between salary plus tax penalties they were going to be spending a half a billion dollars on their rosters and the NBA not because they care about the half a billion dollars it was more about hey we can’t have the Warriors resigning resigning resigning trading for guys and then going and adding like Dante D venzo on top of it like they did a couple seasons ago they also didn’t want it to be a position where it is hey you can stack up salaries go trade for another star the next thing you know these teams have three four star guys that make 40 million each and that’s how how The rosters go so what they did was they introduced a series of penalties on those teams Beyond just Financial ones the financial ones actually get more severe a year from now so though those will kick in uh one more year but the roster building penalties really kick in this year fully so a team that is super expensive like that they are basically limited to resigning their own free agents signing their own draft picks signing players to minimum contracts and making trades but trades that are way more restrictive than anybody else in the league and what I mean by that is you can no longer take a player who makes 15 million and a player who makes 5 million and go trade for a player who makes 20 million that’s not allowed they can’t aggregate or add together those salaries in a trade they are in a spot where what they have to do is you could trade a $20 million player for 20 million player but you cannot uh put yourself in a spot where you say we’re GNA add add up salary stack them together and go get a guy you also are limited to you can only take back in a trade as much money as you send out or less so send out 20 million you could get back a 15 and a $5 million player and have two two for one that way you could do it in the reverse way but you can’t send out 20 million use that little buffer that always exists in trades where it is all right you can take back 23 or 24 million that’s no longer allowed they’ve eliminated that so those are kind of Parts one and part two with that the second part what they did I talked about how they’re trying to push teams up so if we remember back a couple years ago we had like the Indiana Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs 40 million plus under the salary cap and they’re everybody’s favorite third teams in on the trade machine because it was ah man they’re not going to want the oh dump them on the Spurs with a draft pick and there we go and that kind of thing now what the NBA has done in the new CBA is they’ve said we are going to force you to spend your money in the summertime or what happens is on day one of the regular season if you’re 20 million under the salary floor you get an artificial $20 million cap hold put on your books that brings you up to the floor so you can no longer sit millions of dollars under because what was happening was that was actually taking money out of the system because the Spurs sitting on 20 million in cap space they’d go into the regular season some team would say man we got to dump a $20 million player Spurs would take it but that $20 million player has already been paid so what happens is now they want that 20 million spend it spend it on a free agent spend it go another way spend it in a trade with a team so that opens up a signing exception for that team which introduces more money into the system so that’s what we’re trying to do is push everybody a little bit closer to the middle it’s going to work for some teams some teams Boston Phoenix Milwaukee Denver though Minnesota’s coming up on this they’ve blown right through that second apron and then we’ll see and that’s going to be something where we may need two three years of full Fallout from this to see how does that really work that’s the basics of what this new uh CBA has done to try to curb spending on the top end while forcing teams to spend on the other end well well said beautifully uh explained for you know I for for me and for for for a lot of people that might not know how things have shifted with with the new CBA um it makes a lot of sense right this magic team um you know they have a lot of cap space with which we’ll get into in a second and you know the Spurs and who who else are the big open I think the Pistons also have a lot of cap space um I feel like I’m missing one other team who Philadelphia Philadelphia yeah they’re kind of the the the big one and it’s a weird spot because normally a team that has established All-Star guys like embiid and Maxi aren’t sitting on cap space but the important thing is yes they have 60 plus million in cap space or likely will um but that’s all they have isn’t be to Maxi to get there they basically have to clear the deck uh the Pistons about 64 million I project them to have the most uh then you get into all the teams that are in a similar type range Utah Oklahoma City Orlando uh and then San Antonio is kind of a little bit lower um on the Spectrum with that so all those teams like Oklahoma City Orlando Utah that’s all going to be somewhere between let’s call it 30 and 40 million uh likely in Space the magic could higher which I know we’ll get into here in a moment but uh yeah those teams are all in that range so it’s kind of Detroit and Philly at the top and then you’ve got a bunch of teams in the middle what’s very interesting is Orlando and Oklahoma City two good teams with cap space fairly rare um for a team to be in that spot and Utah is a team that I think could flip things very very quickly um if they use some of their cap space as well so we’re in a weird spot where a bunch of these cap space teams are actually pretty good this is not like the drgs of the league that are and it’s like well they’re going have to overpay guys to get maybe the pons will be there but everybody else is in a spa where hey let’s get get things moving in a different direction which makes it a lot of fun hypothetically speaking if the magic just kind of like ran it back to an extent they would have that 20 million like kind of fake cap hold in there to work with yeah or not to work with but to like force them to be at a certain spending level yeah they they could have that but that’s only the important thing to remember that only comes in at the start of the regular season so start of the summertime they’ll have you can spend whatever you need to you can create cap space operate that way where the Magic’s projection I guess we maybe get into that a little bit gets a little tricky is they have actually very little guaranteed money on their books they only have about 66 million in guaranteed money on their books the the high of that is uh let me just ask you without looking do you know who the highest paid player on the roster is for next season right now I I do um I don’t know if the I don’t know if the listeners do and I have some like funny observations like I know most of the players contracts just by heart but yeah it’s Jonathan Isaac if they pick up the option or if they they guarantee his contract for next season he’s the highest paid player at $17 million who’s the highest paid player with guaranteed money so we’ll take Isaac out of the mix do you know who that is I I do cuz like you know I was doing some prep for this this but here’s the funny thing all right I I had some funny observations so just to kind of like give listeners a little bit of peak the magic have I think 11 players on on guaranteed salary for next year or or projected guaranteed salaries yeah um depending on if the team like picks up their options or whatever um Cole Anthony will make about $700,000 more than Paula Ben Caro next year um Cole will make because his extension kicks in at at 12.9 million Paulo is at 12.16 million another funny observation I noticed Keith is the Vagner Brothers Mo will make a little bit more than fron next year he make about I think how it should be right as the older brother he probably should make a little bit Yeah talent wise no but Mo play Mo pays fr’s rent money well what’s funny is pretty and that that’s a uh let’s let’s say there’s a very limited time that that’s going to be a thing that he makes more than France um this is the last year so My my point was with with going through all that is Cole Anthony has the highest guaranteed salary on the magic next year which is just gives you a sense of how clean their books are because 12.9 million for Cole Anthony who has grown into at a very least a very solid uh six-man backup guard that’s fine that that is nowhere near a bad contract or anything magic do not have a single bad contract on their BS now where things get very fun I guess for lack of a better term with the magic is there are a lot of different ways they can go I have done their cap space projections at this point I I probably tweaked my cap space projections once every two three weeks in the season with the big changes coming leading into the trade deadline obviously post trade deadline then now leading into the off season I have earlier in the year I project Ed they’re going to get out of the Jonathan Isaac contract they’re just going to wave him he can’t ever get on the floor there’s no reason to to keep this around and he started off the year with another injury so I was like that that’s just going to be done now I’ve completely flipped it to Jonathan Isaac stays on the books at 17.4 million because you can’t risk waving him because then you don’t have any control whether you bring him back or not and now that becomes a risky thing and is 17.4 million too much for Jonathan Isaac in my opinion yes that is too much considering he’s roughly a 20 to 25 minute a night player off your bench because I don’t know if you said we’re GNA start Jonathan Isaac every night and hope to get 65 games out of him in 30 minutes a night I don’t think he holds up I think he’ll have another injury and you’re G to end up that was your plan going in you’re G to end up with Jonathan Isaac playing 35 games and minimum minutes I think that they have finally figured out this he’s passed the injuries now we know how to keep him on the floor we know we need to limitate his role but because the rest of the cap sheet is so clean who cares 17.4 million is fine it’s it’s not going to hurt anything with that so now your big decisions come around Mo vogner’s team option Joe Engles team option Marquel foltz’s cap hold those are the decisions that the magic are going to have to make around the guaranteed money plus Isaac plus I factor Caleb Houston into staying he barely makes above the minimum and in this case Caleb Houston has been I know fans don’t necessarily love it but he’s earned uh Jamal Mosley’s trust where when somebody else is out he gets minutes now ideally hopefully Caleb Houston is like your 12th guy next year and you’re not having to rely on him to play as much but I can’t see them simply saying we’re waving him now if we get to a point where they need two million more in extra cap space to go land player X is a great you know trade Act position or free agent signing sure see you later Caleb Houston but for now I factor him in there I basically then then my typic Point becomes what happens with Marquel FS because I think they will decline the team options on Engles and and mo Vagner with the idea of hey we’d love to have you back but we want you back on less money but maybe more years maybe Eng Les gets a three three-year contract worth 5 million a season or something like that which makes up the money he would have lost by the team option going away Mo might be back on you know hey we’re going to give you you know three years you know 253 million or something like that where it’s you know we’re just going to spread things out a little bit more something in that range because he’s proven to be a very solid backup for them but that’s where we’re at with them that’s why I have the magic right now cons very very conservatively at about 25 million in cap space but no that could go up to 50 with one more move without having to do you know much and that would just be renouncing Marquel fultz I just have him in for right now just because I don’t know that the team is fully ready to say we’re done we’re walking away we don’t need the bird rights for him and but no they could easily do that and create 50 million in cap space and be right there with all the other players without much of a challenge i w to pause for a second and have you explained to the listeners what exactly bird rights and cap holds are and how they go into a place like this right A lot of people will see you know Markel holds 15 I think that’s what he made this year $15 million like as a non-guaranteed for you know or you know expiring contract but they don’t they might not understand that there’s still a cap hold with that um and and how that impacts the the the team going into the offseason yeah so the team I’ve been using for an example when I explain this is Philadelphia so Philadelphia we talked about it they could have 60 million in cap space pretty easily so in the in the 76ers case though what I said was that’s with only Joel embiid and tyres Maxi left because in order to do that they’re gonna have to wipe out everything else that they can off their books now what that means is that means uh getting rid of the cap holds what a cap hold is is it is designed to mirror a reasonable expectation of the player’s next contract so so how that ends up working is if a player was making $30 million and you have full bird rights on them you’re going to see a $45 million cap hold on the books um or up to the players Max salary it could could it’ll cap out at that amount so what happens in that place is now are all $30 million players going to sign a max deal no absolutely not they’re not but what they’re trying to avoid is let’s say Philadelphia continue to use them as the example I think most casual fans know to resign your own free agents you can go over the cap to to keep them I think a lot of people understand that concept now so what what if you’re using Philadelphia here Philadelphia if there was no such thing as cap holds they would go spend 60 million in cap space through trades free agent signings or whatever then they’ turn to whatever free agents they wanted to Da Back say it’s Buddy hee let’s say it’s uh Paul Reed whoever it is and they would say we have your your rights to resign you buddy heal we’re going to give you 15 million a year and that’s how they would stack it up in order to keep a players free agent rights which are what we we generally in the NBA we call Bird rights you have to keep their caph hold on your books otherwise what happens is if you remove their cap hold you lose their free agent rights so you lose that ability to resign them so what it’s basically doing is closing a loophole from a team spending a ton of cap space and then resigning all their free agents if you want to resign your free agents you got to keep them on your books if you want to use cap space you got to use cap space you can’t generally do do both there some teams are very good Philly is a good example they’re going to use a mixture of a little bit of both of those to do some of their work this summer but you can’t just come flying in and and hey we spent all our cap space now we resign everybody it doesn’t really work that way makes sense um and yeah so in the magic we’ll have cap holds to keep into consideration for a couple of people like like you said Marl FZ and whatnot um the league is going to have what is the projected cap space or yeah for for each team next year is it 141 milon salary cap yeah salary cap sorry yeah the salary cap for next year projects at 141 million right now that’s maybe a little conservative by the NBA but part of what’s being priced into that projection is that which the magic were un fortunately caught up in was the B Sports kind of collapsed I’m under Diamond Sports as their their head of the programming and in some markets that went way worse than it did for Orlando where it basically it went away entirely and teams were like all right we’ll take it on the league will eat the cost and we’ll program them through local TV or whatever it is um the league kind of jumped in to try to save the rest of the teams so because of that uncertainty that’s TV everybody gets so focused on the national TV deals and I get it because those are the billions upon billions of Dollar Deals but these are hundred million doll deals on the local levels and when you have roughly a third of the league or so in this kind of Uncertain environment with what is their local deal going to look like that leads to some cap uncertainty there so other things that’ll impact it right now it’s actually been a fairly short playoffs we had a lot of short series um we we only had the one game seven the Magics and the first round fortunately got two here in the second round but we’ve also seen a bunch of series end in like five games in those things so that’s a little bit of a spot where you lose some money because you don’t have as many games so you’re not you’re not getting as many games on TV and most importantly you’re not getting as many people through the buildings and those kind of things so sure the League’s being a little conservative right now and I know people have probably heard well they’re signing all these new TV deals worth billions upon billions of dollars those are next year those will will be impacted next year so the 2025 off season you’ll see the cap go up we’re not going to have a cap Spike like what we saw in 2016 unfortunately there won’t be any Tima mgov and LU alang type contracts handed out right um because what they did in the CBA was they said let’s cap how much the the cap can jump cap smoothing so they can only go up 10% at maximum um but that’s a little bit of a different thing so so but that that’s a next year thing so so right now we’re at a spot where probably about 141 million or so next year okay um the magic right now like you said they have anywhere from like 25 to I just lost it 25 to if they really want to open up the books the floodgates and get up into like the $60 million range what is the window of of time where they have this flexibility because we know players like frons and Suggs are going to get EX like a second contract whether it’s a extension this year or they figured out The Following Season what’s the window of the magic have this ability to bring in a larger contract player yeah got about a two-year window here it’s this summer and next summer so what’s going to happen is this summer we just covered it somewhere between 25 and conservatively let’s call it 55 60 million somewhere in that range a lot of that again depends on all the decisions they make with the players currently on the roster and some of that will be decided upon on what they know right now is yeah yeah we think we have a chance of trading for player X or signing player y or whatever so maybe maybe our best bet is to just keep Mo Vagner for8 million we don’t need to clear that off the books because we’re not going to need that cap space so that’s all decisions the front office is making next year what’s going to happen is you’re going to have frons on a new contract he’s extension eligible this summer that’s probably gonna push near a Max I I think it’ll be very close if not a max deal um I know some people he didn’t have the season this past year that I think a lot of people wanted to see him have but I think there’s still that first max contract more guys get it when it’s projecting what they really could be versus what they are necessarily it’s that second max deal that is more about what are you as a player so I think there’s a world where the magic it probably starts with Fran’s team saying in extension talk I want the Max and it probably is the magic saying can we do a little bit less and that’s where the negotiation will lie they’ll come back and forth one thing people will people love to say is well they’re gonna have to understand you know Paulo’s getting a Max we want to add Talent it’s not how it works players don’t have to understand anything they command what they can command and then it’s on the team to figure out the rest of it you know that’s not that’s not France Vagner nor his agency’s problem necessarily and he’s also not at a point he’s not a 15year veteran who’s just trying to win a ring before he gets out there so he’s not because I had somebody ask me just the other day well wouldn’t he be better off taking like 25 million a year so that the magic can really build out the roster no why why would he be why would he be the magic would be better off sure why would he be better off so right I think I’m starting to use this new term because it was the first time we saw something like this I’m using it as I call it the Desmond Bane Max which is it is a Max deal but only if the player hits all of their incentives then they get up to a max deal and I think that’s where the magic could get a little creative they have not been a team that has favored incentive heavy deals in the past they’ve generally said we’re going to pay a number and we’re going to go forward and there’s there’s reasons for that it gives you far more certainty in the things but they could say with fron especially with the huge dip in his shooting you could put in an incentive where it is hey we’re going to give you let’s say his max projects to roughly I’m going to round it off to about 36 million on that first year in 25 26 they may say hey we’re going to do thir we’ll do 36 million but two million of that is tied up in bonuses if your three-point shot comes back around this coming season then you can earn more that’ll put push you up to more money and those kind of things that could be where we go uh with this it wouldn’t shock me if that’s where it went because he’s not a no-brainer Max guy like Apollo will be in two years from now but he is a guy who you don’t want to mess around too much because you mess around too much you risk angering the player then he goes in restricted free agency yeah you can match him but once you’ve angered a guy he usually doesn’t go very well for you down the line so I think they’ll get that done that’s all kind of a long way of saying we are at a spot where you’ve got spending power this summer you’ll have some more next summer depending how they spend this summer they go and trade for guy who makes $40 million well that’s going to and then he’s got three years left I know some people have talk about Zack LaVine or Donovan Mitchell or whoever if you went and got a guy like that well you you did your spending now you may have a little bit of room to spend in the summer 2025 but probably not the reason why it’s really a two-year window is by the time the summer of 2026 rolls around the magic will be in a spot where Paulo will now be on what I am going to call a no-brainer Max right fron a near Max and then you’re going to have whatever else you did over the course of the LA the next two years on the books as well so you’re in a spa where you’re probably going to be very very expensive at that point and you’re probably now you’re talking about where are we at in relation to the luxury tax and those kind of things versus we’ve got cap space yeah I mean and the team also has to consider someone like Jaylen Suggs who’s probably gonna make an all defensive team and was the the team’s best and most reliable three-point shooter this season out a at a very respect volume and on the team by a pretty wide margin this year that’s no the other guys that’s more of that’s how well jayen played this season he he really took that that that leap and I think he was even on the most improved like vote list for I mean he had like one or two votes but but he made the list which was pretty cool um you know and and that’s not going to be a cheap contract like I like to when I’ve been thinking about like those three players Paulo fron and Jaylen I’ve been thinking about it more in percentages of cap space because just for me with those particular it makes a little bit more sense to think of it that way you know Paulo’s MOX is GNA be 25% you know France maybe 30 oh I guess Paulo will be he’ll be because just so everybody knows in a max deal when you when you sign the extension you can put designated player language in which if the player wins MVP or wins defensive player of the year we’ll we’ll be realistic I don’t think Paulo’s winning either one of those in the next couple of years but if he’s an all NBA player which is certainly you know in possibilities for him and I would say next season definitely is a possibility that he’s an all NBA guy um you can you can write the contract up so it jumps to 30% of the the G and I would assume that’s where that will push to just given what we’ve seen of him through two years I I think they will push for that designated player language so I didn’t mean to cut you off but 25% the Baseline haven’t even been thinking about that so that makes that that’s changing my theory a little bit as well so yeah 25 to 30% of the team’s cap space you got frons who you know potentially could get 25% of the team’s cap space but I think for me I’m like if it would land closer to 20 that would be perfect and then you have uh you know Suggs who potentially like I’m thinking maybe roughly around 17 18% of like it’s going to be a pretty big contract I think um you know again maybe with incentive base like hey you make all you know all defensive team you know that that checks another you know whatever two or three million per per season um you know fron makes all NBA or like you said shooting percentages th those things will kick in too so it’s like they have three big guys like in the next couple of years that will probably make some good money um hold on I’m going through my notes I’m going through my notes so this summer right we’re we’re the magic are attached to some big player names like like Paul George who I don’t really think is going to happen um but but if so that’s going to be a probably a Max or very near max player on a on a big deal for the magic they want to lure him from the teams like Philadelphia and even the West Coast Clippers team that he easily could resign with um you know but then they’re also attached to G like names like Malik Monk and you know rumors about what happens with the Cavs with Darius scarland and Donovan Mitchell and things like that realistically in your opinion how do you think the magic are going to approach this this offseason with with some of these names and and the cap space that they have like we’ve talked about what kind of power they have how do you if you had to take some darts and throw them with a blindfold on at a dart board because you and I both know we have no idea really what’s going to happen what would you think might happen this summer with how they use their cap space I think it is far more likely they trade for a big name player than sign one only because there’s not that many bigname players available in free agency Paul George is the name now that has been connected I don’t know how much that is real versus that is connecting the dots a little bit of oh the magic have cap space they could use a guy like Paul George so they’re definitely going to be interested agent leverage there too right yeah and I’m I’m sure they are right like I I am sure the magic have interest in some level I’m sure they have interest in all kinds of really good players I bet I bet you could even get Jeff welman to fully admit and say yeah we’re interested in just about everybody at some level because that’s true right there there are all kinds of guys you have interest in maybe that interest is this big and it’s that’s making a teeny tiny measure and some is much bigger but that one I don’t know about so free agency is it has become a game where only a handful of true Allstar level guys hit free agency each summer and of that handful only a few of those guys are actually really available for example Tyrese Maxi is going to be a free agent this summer he’s a restricted free agent but he’ll be a free agent but he’s not really available no one’s even going to chase him because they already know everything’s lined up with Philly even a guy like LeBron is available but how available like probably not really available right so so that’s where you got to be you got to start to kind of trim those lists down a little bit when it is you’re going to see those guys on free agent list but you’re just not going to get them that that’s not going to be a thing that happens so now we’re talking all right Paul George that every day he doesn’t sign an extension with the Clippers that becomes a little more likely that he is available in leaves but via trade we’re already hearing all kinds of guys that are potentially up for trade We Have Heard Donovan Mitchell that’s been endless speculation for like a year now Zack LaVine is available the Bulls basically more or less reconfirmed like hey we we couldn’t trade him at the straight de line because he got hurt but we’re we’re open to listen this summer and that probably reicks up again uh we’re starting to hear guys like Jared Allen could be available Darius Garland in Cleveland the rumor came out if Cleveland does extend D Donovan Mitchell Darius scarland wants to go and I think what’s good for the magic is they are in a position where they’ve got all their own draft picks they have I think it’s either one or two extra pick still coming I know they’ve got the Denver pick second round the Denver pick then they have like five uh sorry to jump in but they have the Denver pick next year in 2025 um which you know low pulling power that’s probably going to be in the high 20s um you have a 2026 pick swap with with uh the Suns they traded two second round picks yeah but that pick is like there’s a couple other scenarios Washington TI they do have that and then I think at this point they have still like five extra second round picks yeah and honestly second round picks dude it people like to do things when when they play fake trade games where it’s you all right we’re going to trade or we’re going to trade cap space and I’m just completely making this up but we’re going to trade cap space and you know X for jayen brown and we’ll throw in 3 seconds no one cares about the seconds like that’s not those don’t swing trades one way or another so that’s just a a uh PSA when people I don’t evaluate fake trades when people send them to me generally because one that just opens the floodgates and I get a million of them and that’s not how I want to spend my time sure but two it’s people’s just values are way out of whack it’s youo it’s our players are way more valuable than anybody else’s and you know you should all give us your star for our your know role players like it’s just not how it works and then they think well I made up the difference because I threw in second round picks no one cares those just get thrown in to get thrown in um they’re better to have than not have but doesn’t really matter but the bigger point was if you’re the magic you are well positioned if one of these Stars becomes available through via trade that you want to go get you have the draft Capital to do it they’ve got some some obviously great great cap flexibility to make making a trade easier because you’re not in a position where it is well we have to send you back player x y and z um and they’re in a position where they could move a couple of these young guys if they wanted to because you’re in a spa where all right if we’re going after a big fish something’s got to give so if it turns into Darius Garland for example because they been asked about him kind of add nauseum here in the last week or so if the magic wanted to go after Darius Garland all right sure they can do that but they’re going to have to do something along the lines of probably a pick or two and probably at a minimum like Cole Anthony um something like that because I don’t think Cleveland’s in a position if they’re trading Garland it’s because they kept Mitchell and they’re not in a position where this is a selloff to rebuild right it’s GNA we need some Talent back so that’s where it kind of turns a little differently I was just on the on the Garland aspect I was talking to this with some fans like I actually don’t know if the magic are great trading partners cuz they’re going to want to stay competitive and we don’t have a lot of great high value vets on this team right now so I was like I was starting with Jonathan Isaac as like a baseline you know I was like he probably has to be included because I’m assuming they’re not going to run it back with both Allen and um uh Moby but but that’s good to know that’s good thinking I don’t want to get too spec caught up on a very specific name like that that’s not what this show is about the future show sorry to interrupt you but just say the biggest takeaway is the magic have put themselves in a be position to be players for one of the stars that comes available and that’s great it’s I always go back to Daryl Mory said been his years working under Danny a with the Celtics before he went to the Rockets one of the biggest things a taught him was when a you never know when a star is going to become available and all you want to do is be in position to make a real offer you don’t want to have put yourself in a spa where you can’t make that offer the magic have absolutely put themselves in a position to make a real offer and the nice thing is now too you’re no longer making the offer in a trade because part of part of a trade is trading for a guy the second part is convincing the guy to stay that he wants to be in Orlando and the magic aren’t making that offer in a place now where it is hey come here and help help help lift this team help make them grow to be a playoff team now what you’re doing is hey we’re there now Lift Us help help us get to the next level that’s a whole different conversation than if this was last summer trying to do this where it is hey we think we can be pretty good and you could be a part of it now guys have seen it guys are going to say all right that team can play like and you one thing NBA players don’t lack for his confidence a bunch of them will say yeah I can be the guy I can be the guy who gets them into Contender status and the like and those kind of things and that’s just a better place to be in too along with the assets they’ve now proven we can win games now it’s about hey help us get even further yeah I mean guys their agents like guys like Paul George and Klay Thompson a year or two ago would never pick up our phone call the Magic’s phone call this year hey I don’t know how real it is but I want to listen and hear right like that’s I bet that’s kind of where the magic are and and yeah I mean they’re an attractive fan base like or attractive uh the team right now with where they’re at how they have established themselves also like you know I don’t think it has as much pull as a lot of people make it seem to be but like the you know the state no income taxes is a thing to an extent um you know what does have more pool didn’t no no state tax thing it’s the nice weather yeah because players talk about it all the time players like I don’t want to live anywhere cold I’d say this all the time what is the first thing guys do when the All-Star break hits if they’re not going to the all-star game they get on a plane and they fly somewhere warm yeah like you know every single guy is like I’m out of here I’m going to Yo Cabo or Cancun or the Caribbean I’m going somewhere nice and warm in that and that is a thing like I can’t tell you how many guys who have when they’ve gotten to Orlando have said man it’s 75 degrees in the middle of January like this is amazing like and it really it does matter to guys like it’s I don’t know that uh Paul George is going into free agency saying well I’m definitely Orlando’s higher on my list because it’s nicer than it is in Philadelphia weatherwise but when it gets down to all right if there’s some tiebreakers to to be made that’s pretty high on the tiebreaker list for a lot of players is that the tax thing that’s always a little because it helps for sure but these guys make so much money that most of them that’s more of a thing that gets said than a thing I think most of the players even can’t concern themselves with because I bet if you asked the players which NBA uh states don’t have income tax it’s it’s maybe a quarter of them can tell you and that’s probably only because some of them have played for the teams in those States already yeah um and to get really weird like the the players have to pay taxes in every state they play a game in so it’s only a portion of their contract that is actually uh you know the non non-income tax aspect of of the contract so um Keith I know we had uh we’re already over the time that we said we were G to do but I’m going to ask two more quick questions um just to uh kind of round out this conversation right um hypothetically speaking if the magic make a big swing via trade or sign a free agent where it’s one of these Max or near max players would they also then have space to go sign um a solid free agent that’s maybe in the the 10 to 125 million range like an example this was a listener question actually I I I gave some listeners opportunities to present some questions to us and we’ve answered a few of them already um but this is one where it was like he specifically said if they signed Paul George would they also be able to go sign a lesser price free agent like Malik monk I added hartenstein in there we don’t necessarily have to use those names but that concept what is that a possibility or if they sign a big name it’s kind of it and then they’re using like minimums to fill out the rest of the roster yeah if we’re doing guys like hartenstein or monk we’re in a position where we’re talking about they went like the more the 60 million in cap space route cuz then 40 plus million goes to like Paul George in that scenario because you’re not getting him for less than the max then yeah you’ve still got maybe enough money to go spend it on somebody else what they will have if they go that route is they they will have the room exception so what happens is if you go under the cap you use whatever you have in cap space then you get $8 million extra to spend I mean that 8 million that actually goes pretty far because you would be able to go we’ve now through the first second wave of free agency couple other guys are available and I think what the uh what the team can do in that spot is all right we’re going to go get you know another player second third tier free agent guy who thought he was going to get the non-t taxpayer Emily somewhere or a chunk of cap space didn’t get it now we can get him for 8 million for a year or two or whatever um you can definitely do something along those lines I I think would be more realistic than going out signing a Max guy and then having another 15 20 million because the other thing you have to remember too is if we go to the point where they have 60 plus million in cap space that does mean like Jonathan Isaac’s gone and we really cleared the the deck fully and if we go to that route what we’re really looking at then is you’ve only got like seven eight guys under contract and you’ve got to fill out an entire roster so you’re probably not then taking 15 20 million and spending it on one player you’re going to try to get two or maybe even three for that money so it it’s it’s possible I don’t want to say it’s not possible but it it’s just not very likely to go that direction that makes a lot of sense um and then my last question is just kind of about two two or three players that are currently on the roster um and if we think they will be back or not granted again there’s so many different scenarios that that it could very not be um marel folz I’m kind of projecting him I know we’re using his cap hold like if they strike out everywhere and they just kind of want to like be safe they’ll bring him back but I also him like does he want to come back necessarily he’s been reduced in role he might want to go I don’t know I’m just gonna throw it out there like the Spurs or some other team where they can give him a little bit of a bigger role in more minutes so I’m I’m kind of gonna leave him out of this conversation for a second because he’s a Hot Topic that might need more time but two guys in particular Gary Harris and Goa bit bitsa I can never say his last name baz thank you um Gary Harris you know injury-prone but was a good vet for this team in in certain ways kind of didn’t have a great playoffs outside of his defense um Goa you know limited role but when he did jump in for the most part he played pretty well what are your thoughts around those two players specifically yeah start with baz because I think that one’s a much easier thing to answer I think sure there’s a world back on a very similar type contract for the minimum maybe even a little bit more if the magic wanted to do that I I think that’s definitely a thing that we could see happen I think there’s a world where let’s say they explore making a big trade uh and Wendell Carter Jr is part of it then baz is probably more likely to come back because I think the magic saw we could plug him in as a starting center he’s more like a 15 20 minute a night starting center and I think the playoffs also showed us as long as you don’t go too crazy with it we can get by with the ji Paulo kind of I I I it’s funny people like well who’s the five and I’m like neither one of them really they’re both like double four lineup like but you can get by with that for moments so I think you could Cobble together bad Isaac Mo Vagner situation where we’re okay like like we we’ve we we we’ve got enough at the five if we trade a Carter so I think he’s I would say he’s fairly likely to return too guys also players will give a lot of um credits not the right word but they’ll they’ll give a lot of credence to this organization believed in me after I washed out somewhere else they signed me they helped me get on track so I think he’s likely to return Gary Harris is in a very weird spot I think ideally for the magic now what we saw last time he was a free agent the magic extended him um right before free agency started but I think what we’re likely to see now with Gary Harris is something more along the lines of we’re going to stay in touch let’s see what else develops if nothing else really hits for the magic this summer then I think you may see them turn and say all right Gary Harris we’d love to have you back well we’re going to resign you we’re going to bring bring you back for another year probably similarish kind of money probably honestly a similarish kind of deal structure where it is more of a one-year deal with a second year that’s some form of Team control either a true team option or a non-guaranteed type contract the big question is what happens with Harris while that we’re playing that waiting game just some other team come in and say hey we’ll give you our mid-level exception to come in be part of our guard rotation and we’ll go from there so that’s where that one’s a little bit little bit harder to answer no it makes a lot of sense you know and and he’s been valuable for this team but that’s also an area that I think a lot of us fans uh media could see him being upgraded at um you know does he want to accept a different role on this team maybe he does I don’t know but yeah little bit more variance there um Keith I we could go on for longer but we’ve already been going on longer than we initially agreed on initially agreed on so I just want to say thank you for this conversation it was brilliant um I’ve learned a lot I know the listeners will get a lot of value out of this um I am going to link the Magic’s 20 2425 Spa track uh homepage that you um basically manage from my understanding so the listeners you can go to the link in the show description and you can look at all the numbers that Keith and I just talked about you can see um you know the player contracts up there and all that stuff it’s brilliant um Keith any last thoughts and uh also any you know let the listeners know where they can find your uh find your work yeah uh you can find my work at spot track uh lots of free agent stuff coming offseason team pre views good news is the magic one isn’t up yet because we go in order of elimination so we they they they have unfortunately over the years been one of the first ones we write this year they’re in the back half which is great right that that’s news great sign there um you can also check out NBA front office show if you really like the cap and roster and transaction discussion uh Trevor Lane and I do that every every uh Monday through Friday each day um we do that we’re kind of in our Peak period of the Year where it is a lot of offseason talk and those kind of things and every Friday we do um front office Friday which is a live show um where we take uh most of that is questions from from the viewers and watching we have a lot of fun on those Friday shows they they get a little weird sometimes because sometimes they’re not basketball questions and we get into other stuff but we have a lot of fun with that so check that out and then you check out the basketball bulletin which is uh myself and Trevor’s kind of written work is there right now we’re being carried by Bryce Simon I am magic fans you’re deeper in the draft than used to way deeper in the draft um than you’re used to being Bryce has covered I think we’re up to like 31 total players so far they’ll probably be well into the 40s by the time the draft kick kicks off so if you want to learn more about this draft class which isn’t one of the kind of prime we know all these guys and all that stuff drafts uh this is a great great way to do it he’s got really good in-depth scouting notes on all those guys Bryce does a wonderful job covering the team and last thing I leave you with Jeff welman says like all the time it’s a great time to be an Orlando Magic fan it’s really true now it really is a great time to be an Orlando Magic fan because this team is really well set up moving forward um Keith it is a great time to be a magic fan it’s a great time to cover the magic as a as as media who are trying to you know do our best to you know give cont to this world uh you want a much better and bigger scale than I am but I appreciate you giving your time to us today it’s always nice to connect again um who knows maybe after the craziness of free agency we’ll maybe we’ll do a recap Gathering uh you know later in July when the dust has settled um I will link all of the uh the information you said the show um the the the the the sub substack um I’ll link all that stuff for listeners so make sure you can check those out they’ll be in the show descriptions um and yeah we’ll see you on our next episode of the closeup thanks magic fans for tuning in and thank you Keith peace [Music]

In this episode of The Close Up we are joined by Keith Smith and we discuss:

– Magic cap space situation heading into the offseason
– Franz and Suggs extensions
– Magic rumors
… and much more.

***

The conversation with Keith Smith focuses on the Orlando Magic’s performance during the season and their potential moves in the upcoming summer. The Magic showed significant improvement throughout the season and exceeded expectations. The team has a bright future with young players like Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner.

The conversation then delves into the new CBA agreement, which aims to bring spending teams down and lower spending teams up. The agreement introduces penalties and restrictions on high-spending teams and encourages teams to spend in the offseason. The Magic have a clean cap sheet with several options for creating cap space. The discussion also touches on cap holds and bird rights, which impact a team’s ability to re-sign their own free agents. The Orlando Magic have a two-year window of flexibility in the upcoming offseasons to make moves and bring in new players. They have significant cap space this summer and next summer, allowing them to potentially sign or trade for big-name players.

The team is well-positioned to make offers for stars that become available. However, the availability of star players in free agency is limited, so trading for a star player is more likely. The Magic have the draft capital and cap flexibility to make a trade for a star player if the opportunity arises. They also have the option to sign solid free agents using the room exception if they go under the cap. The future of players like Gary Harris and Goga Bitadze is uncertain, but there is a possibility they could return to the team.

***

Timeline:

00:00 Introduction and Recap of the Magic’s Season
14:09 Understanding the New CBA Agreement
28:12 The Significance of Cap Holds and Bird Rights
33:29 The Orlando Magic’s Two-Year Window of Flexibility
42:43 Trading for Stars: A More Likely Scenario
53:38 Draft Capital and Cap Flexibility for Big Moves
56:41 Signing Solid Free Agents with the Room Exception
59:05 Uncertainty Surrounding Gary Harris and Goga Bitadze

***

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