Forget that Sixers Game, How ‘Bout the Gasol ‘Rumor?’
There’s not much to glean from the Spurs’ 100-75 win over the 76ers on Monday night. That Philly clusterf*** full of undrafted players might look like an NBA team a year or two from now, but that roster situation is nowhere near anything that might resemble competitive on a nightly basis. (How did they almost beat the Rockets the other night?) So let’s talk about something more fun.
Kawhi Leonard’s contract situation was the dominant point of discussion around the Spurs as the NBA tipped off its 2014-15 regular season in late October. As you surely know by now, the two sides did not come to an agreement by the Oct. 31 deadline, sending Leonard into his fourth year without an extension and the prospect of restricted free agency as part of his upcoming summer plans.
However, while the idea that things could go horribly awry and the Spurs could lose their Finals MVP to another suitor is something that weighs heavily on the minds of some, opting not to lock Leonard in to a long-term maximum contract — the going price for his services — is absolutely the smart move at this juncture (as I wrote about here), and it sounds like Kawhi understands the game plan going forward.
And it’s good that he does, because its execution is vital to the immediate success of the franchise if we are indeed witnessing a team on the doorstep of a major identity change.
A few weeks after writing the aforementioned piece on Leonard, the inimitable Zach Lowe of Grantland published an extensive piece covering several different extension situations around the league. He reiterated the potential concerns and risks in waiting to lock up the lanky lockdown defender before expounding on the situation at hand: What if the Spurs created enough space to pursue Marc Gasol should Tim Duncan retire?
Naturally, in today’s hyperactive, transaction-hungry world of NBA consumption, this idea started to spread, even as ¹rumor-mill fodder in some places: If Duncan and Manu Ginobili retire at the end of the current season, the Spurs could take advantage of Leonard’s ~$7.23-million cap hold by first signing a max-caliber free agent with the available salary space, then using Kawhi’s Bird Rights to sign him to a long-term deal. By allowing the deadline for 2011 draft-class extensions to pass, this is exactly the strategy San Antonio has decided to employ, but it’s not going to be as easy as it may seem on the surface.
¹Side note: Any headline that reads something like “Report: Spurs Pursue Marc Gasol” is not a report, it’s speculation. Pure, out-of-the-butt speculation that’s easy to create. If Tim Duncan retires, why wouldn’t the Spurs — or any team with big-man needs and cap space for that matter — explore their options when it comes to one of the NBA’s best centers? It’s like speculating that once that hole in the crotch of your jeans becomes just a little bit too noticeable, the responsible course of action beyond patching it up would be to buy a new pair of pants. Gasol has publicly made it known he’s happy in Memphis, the Grizzlies are currently atop the Western Conference, and the Spurs sure as hell aren’t going to be making their future plans known.
First of all, Duncan and Ginobili have to call it quits before any of this is possible, and that’s anything but a forgone conclusion. If they do decide to stick around, they’d likely eat up enough payroll to make the dream of offering a free agent a max deal an unrealistic one. Instead, the Spurs would shift their focus to the offseason of 2016 and beyond, when the new television deal kicks in and the salary cap blows its lid. And, hey, this is a possibility. If the two future Hall-of-Famers feel they can keep bringing the band back together for Finals runs, then more power to them.
Let’s assume, for this scenario, they’ll play out their contracts this year and mosey off into the sunset or car shop or whatever. That would leave the Spurs with ~$40.7 million in guaranteed salary, including the qualifying offers for both restricted free agents, Leonard and Cory Joseph, which aren’t actually guaranteed. Most projections have the salary cap at around $68 million for the 2015-16 season, so we’re just going to use that as a theoretical mark for now.
But all that salary space you see is a mirage. Before the Spurs would be able to do anything in free agency, they’ll have to deal with their own roster first. Even if Duncan and Ginobili retire and their salaries disappear, the addition of the team’s active cap holds will nudge their payroll snugly against the cap at ~$65.6 million. That would leave only about $2.4 million to work with in unrestricted free agency, so clearly there is work to be done beforehand.
And what exactly do the Spurs want to do with that roster? There are only five guaranteed contracts on the roster (again, Leonard and Joseph are RFAs), and you expect a sixth spot to belong to Kawhi, so that leaves nine spots available. Without Manu, don’t you need to retain Danny Green and Marco Belinelli? Speaking of Joseph, is he worth re-signing when Patty Mills is already locked up, or is this is last year in a Spurs uniform? What the hell do you do with Aron Baynes, Jeff Ayres, Austin Daye, and Matt Bonner?
The obvious priority in terms of incumbent free agents is Leonard, who will almost assuredly command a max deal worth around $16 million. The second priority, though, is Green. He’s been vital to this iteration of the Spurs, and losing him on top of Ginobili’s retirement would be pretty brutal. For most guys in that starter-level 3-and-D mold seem to be going in the $8-million range, and I think that’s a generous starting point in terms of what the Spurs’ shooting guard is worth. But San Antonio owns his Bird Rights as well, so it can go over the cap to sign him, but his cap hold is actually about $400K more than Leonard’s. Between the two, we’re looking at roughly $15 million in holds, which is a pretty decent chunk of change, but not nearly as high as it would’ve been had the Spurs gone ahead and extended Leonard (~$23-24 million).
But here’s the deal: If the Spurs want to clear max space in order to entice a major free agent, theoretically, they won’t have much wiggle room if they choose to re-sign both Green and Leonard. Realistically, they’d only be able to sign one more player for anything more than the minimum — perhaps Belinelli starting around $3 million — and still, that would leave them with only eight players on the roster before heading into free agency.
Even if the Spurs were able to lure a max player to San Antonio, would they be comfortable bringing him to town, locking in Green and Leonard, and piecing together the remaining roster using the Mid-Level Exception (assuming they stay far enough below the luxury-tax apron with the Leonard/Green deals in place) and by signing other players to minimum deals? Would they break up that cap space on multiple players and make Kawhi their one max-contract guy? It will be interesting to watch, especially considering the fact that there will be a team or two out there who will come after Leonard with one of these nasty Chandler-Parsons-type contracts to try and lure him away or ²force the Spurs’ hand.
²Remember, in order to make it all work, San Antonio has to use up its cap space BEFORE re-signing Leonard to a max deal. That means there will be a stretch of time during which Kawhi is waiting idly by while his team constructs the rest of the roster. The Spurs can still offer him more than anyone, and he has the ability to refuse any other offer sheet while he waits on R.C. Buford to deliver the contract, but there will be temptations from other suitors in the mean time. Will he wait it out, or will he jump at an offer from another team (perhaps similar to Chandler Parsons’) that will essentially max him out short-term and give him the ability to opt out in a couple of years? Again, he said he’d like to stay, but tones can change when a pile of money is sitting in front of you.
The complicated matter in all of this remains the unstable future of the impending salary-cap spike. Players could be in a position where they would benefit greatly by signing a short-term deal next summer and re-entering free agency a year or two later for a much larger payday; and until the logistics are worked out, teams are going to be operating in an unfamiliar environment. The NBA’s offseason whirlwind is going to get nuttier before it stabilizes, and depending what happens with Duncan and Ginobili next summer, San Antonio will be right in the thick of it.
