Excluding Suggs, Paolo, Franz & KCP, we have 9 players who have about $82M in cap hits for next year (of course, cap hits change every year of a contract and JI’s is being heavily frontloaded which makes it a very team friendly contract down the road).
Once we extend Franz & Suggs, we will start to lose some of our cap flexibility. Once we extend Paolo to a max next summer, we’ll have little to none.
With several of the FA signings and WCJ’s contract, we have several players who contracts are up in the next 2 years, which will give the FO one last shot at free agency.
We also have a ton of flexibility with using our future draft capital paired with several players to offset the cap of a big player (a play that would need to be made in 1-2 years once Paolo, Franz and Suggs have had more time to develop). This is extremely important if we’re past the 1st apron following all 3 of their extensions (Im not entirely sure if it would put us there).
TLDR
I definitely dont fully understand the very complex cap space rules, but it seems like the FO has given our guys a 2 year timeline to make a jump in 2 ways:
1) Use combination of rotational players we have on 2 year contracts to match the salary of a player we trade for (very doable w amount if draft capital we have)
2) Have one last shot at signing a FA in 2 years when all of their contracts expire, and bring back key guys through bird rights.
Total Cap of $182M includes Cap Holds for pending FA’s
by jakoby414
4 Comments
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/orlando-magic/cap/_/year/2024
It’s really one year, because we have to max paolo in two years
I don’t see it unless the current FO either gets desperate or gets fired for some reason. Big trades and FA signings are not how they operate and all these moves were made with the new CBA in mind after Paolo/Franz extensions.
And in 2 years people will say the same thing. Rinse, repeat.