Kings to make qualifying offer to IT?
- Thread starter New Era
- Start date
Yeah, well if Rudy walks at $19mil, we'll have plenty to sign just about any free agent. 
The 14-15 salary cap is now projected to be at $63.2 million. The Kings, minus Gay and Thomas, are projected to be at somewhere like $47 according to Sham. But that's not quite right, because Cousins' max extension is based on a percentage of the cap, and is not a hard number. So Cousins' contract will increase along with the salary cap, let's say to about $15 million. So the Kings have (assuming they pick up Acy's option) $49 committed before dealing with Gay and Thomas.
Oh, but then there's the 2014 first round pick. Another $3 million, so now we're at $52. And then the QO/cap hold for Thomas, which is around $3 million according to Cap'n above, so then we're at $55.
So, we only have $8 million to play with if Rudy walks, and that's assuming that we could sign someone before having to deal with signing/matching Thomas (who we re-sign over the cap, I'm assuming, based on Bird rights?).
are you sure about this, because it sounds off. I've never seen any signed player's salary change due to an increase in the salary cap. the salaries they are signed to can be tied to a percentage of the salary cap that year, but once the ink is dry, the numbers shouldn't change any more, except for performance based bonuses. at least that's how I understand it. could very well be wrong, though.
D'Alessandro doesn't seem to be high on Isaiah, basically saying "Isaiah wants to be here but business is business, we will do whats best for both sides".
http://www.news10.net/story/sports/...r-pete-dalessandro-season-and-future/8040357/
The thought of Gay and IT both being gone and being left with just Cousins and a bunch of young guys is discouraging(and the big guy will not be happy either).
http://www.news10.net/story/sports/...r-pete-dalessandro-season-and-future/8040357/
The thought of Gay and IT both being gone and being left with just Cousins and a bunch of young guys is discouraging(and the big guy will not be happy either).
hm. if PDA indeed "already has a number in his head for how much he's willing to pay thomas," i hope he's aiming for a sign-and-trade in the event that IT gets offered a larger figure from another team. as much as i conceive of thomas as a sixth man rather than a starting PG, i certainly don't want to see an efficient 20 ppg scorer walk out the door for nothing.
To answer the above nonsense. It's been implied on this board numerous times that Cousins is best buddies with IT and if IT were gone then he would go berserk and not want to be on this team. I think that is insane talk. Cousins wants to win. PERIOD. We've seen him light up IT on the court. I don't necessarily think he wants IT gone, I am almost positive he wants him to play different. But I don't think it would be catastrophic to his psyche if he were no longer here like some do.
I'm telling you right now, if IT is gone and we get a pass first PG that sees the court and feeds the ball to Cousins he could give two craps that his little buddy isn't here.
I'm telling you right now, if IT is gone and we get a pass first PG that sees the court and feeds the ball to Cousins he could give two craps that his little buddy isn't here.
Funny, I always thought the body language between those two was less than "buddy buddy". I cannot believe that DMC would not shrug off losing IT in favor of a distributor and defender. The talk of those guys being tight is a diversion in my opinion, an over-correction in my estimation.
I bet we pass on matching IT's big offer from the Lakers.
I bet we pass on matching IT's big offer from the Lakers.
I used to think this way -- and when were a perennial playoff team looking for any edge we could get in the Western conference, it was probably a smart way to approach managing our resources. But I don't think it's as big of a deal anymore, at least not while we're trying to put a competitive team together. Firstly, Isaiah's stats were probably inflated by the situation he was in. I don't think we'd be losing a reliable 20 pt scorer. We'd be losing a scoring bench guard like Lou Williams or Dion Waiters. Valuable roster guys, but committing money on one of those types of guys leaves less money to be spent elsewhere so it's a tradeoff. Secondly, bringing in a mediocre player or low draft pick in exchange for IT could benefit the team or it could not make much of a difference. Vasquez hardly compensated for losing Tyreke's talent, for instance, and we ended up throwing him into a trade for a guy Toronto was determined to dump no matter what. Had we instead lost Tyreke for nothing, I'm not sure it would have made a difference.
We need pieces that fit our existing personnel and Malone's style of play. If we can get someone like that in a deal, great. If not, I'd just as soon let IT go for nothing as clutter the roster with assets of dubious value.
We need pieces that fit our existing personnel and Malone's style of play. If we can get someone like that in a deal, great. If not, I'd just as soon let IT go for nothing as clutter the roster with assets of dubious value.
Whee! Raise your hand if you want to start the rebuild all over again! (Hey, Cuz! Why aren't you raising your hand?)
Seriously, that would be an absolute disaster. If Rudy does walk it would seem to be imperative to bring IT back. A team that looks like this:
McCallum
McLemore
Williams/Outlaw
Evans/Landry/Acy
Cousins/Thompson
...let's just say that's not a good place to start from. There's a draft pick, sure. There's Jason Terry, who probably can't be traded for anything useful. And pain. Lots and lots of pain. Sure, there would be about $15M in cap space, but if we can't get Gay (who has been here) to take it, then I can't imagine anybody else useful stepping up to the plate. Carmelo? Doubt it. Deng? Doubt it. Maybe you throw some money at Gordon Hayward, but it would have to be a lot or the Jazz will match. Maybe you make a sneaky play at Gortat - not the be-all end-all defender but at least some rim protection there. But the scenario is not appealing.
Seriously, that would be an absolute disaster. If Rudy does walk it would seem to be imperative to bring IT back. A team that looks like this:
McCallum
McLemore
Williams/Outlaw
Evans/Landry/Acy
Cousins/Thompson
...let's just say that's not a good place to start from. There's a draft pick, sure. There's Jason Terry, who probably can't be traded for anything useful. And pain. Lots and lots of pain. Sure, there would be about $15M in cap space, but if we can't get Gay (who has been here) to take it, then I can't imagine anybody else useful stepping up to the plate. Carmelo? Doubt it. Deng? Doubt it. Maybe you throw some money at Gordon Hayward, but it would have to be a lot or the Jazz will match. Maybe you make a sneaky play at Gortat - not the be-all end-all defender but at least some rim protection there. But the scenario is not appealing.
i don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of thomas' talent level, but i'm mostly interested in his flashy statistics because of their potential attraction for other teams, which is why i was a proponent of trading IT in the first place while his value was peaking earlier in the season. given that the new cba offers no financial incentive for a signing player to agree to a sign-and-trade, such a move is now a desperate measure, at best...
as you say, greivis vasquez hardly compensated for losing tyreke evans' talent, but it was something, and i don't think a small market franchise like the sacramento kings, fresh off eight straight losing seasons, can afford to gamble with its assets. there are so few routes for improvement when you're drafting unreliable 19-year old players and are unable to attract the services of impact free agents. personally, i don't think the kings can afford to lose both rudy gay and isaiah thomas. they just can't. at least one needs to be retained, if for no other reason than to have a tradable asset as next season's deadline approaches...
as you say, greivis vasquez hardly compensated for losing tyreke evans' talent, but it was something, and i don't think a small market franchise like the sacramento kings, fresh off eight straight losing seasons, can afford to gamble with its assets. there are so few routes for improvement when you're drafting unreliable 19-year old players and are unable to attract the services of impact free agents. personally, i don't think the kings can afford to lose both rudy gay and isaiah thomas. they just can't. at least one needs to be retained, if for no other reason than to have a tradable asset as next season's deadline approaches...
Losing both of them would seem to be a big step backward whether it actually is or not. Perception does matter, at least initially. But I don't think it's a huge step backward on the court. Losing both of them isn't going to hurt our defense and distributing their shots to other players might not result in a loss of offensive efficiency either. I certainly agree that Rudy's $19 million dollar expiring would be a nice trade chip to have in our pocket, either during the off-season or by next year's trade deadline. That's up to him whether he opts in or not though. A new 4 or 5 year deal may not be so easy to trade. Same goes for a new IT deal. At a bargain basement contract he was one of the best values in the league this year. Next year, wherever he signs, he's likely to be fairly paid which means he's really only in play as a trading chip for teams with substantial minutes available at PG and matching contracts to unload.
Mainly I think there's no reason to panic here and overpay to avoid losing them for nothing. We can deal with losing both of these guys. We can't deal with a bad contract tying up some of our salary cap flexibility for the remainder of Cousins' contract. In retrospect, Petrie made a huge mistake when he made re-signing Thornton a priority instead of re-signing Dalembert. Thornton's ability to score the ball quickly become redundant while Dalembert's defensive presence next to Cousins was (and still is) sorely missed. If we have to overpay for post defense, so be it. It's really the only sensible way forward from here (barring lottery luck anyway).
Mainly I think there's no reason to panic here and overpay to avoid losing them for nothing. We can deal with losing both of these guys. We can't deal with a bad contract tying up some of our salary cap flexibility for the remainder of Cousins' contract. In retrospect, Petrie made a huge mistake when he made re-signing Thornton a priority instead of re-signing Dalembert. Thornton's ability to score the ball quickly become redundant while Dalembert's defensive presence next to Cousins was (and still is) sorely missed. If we have to overpay for post defense, so be it. It's really the only sensible way forward from here (barring lottery luck anyway).
The key about losing Gay or IT isn't in losing those players, its in losing the TALENT those players represent. You might be able to recover some of it with an S&T. But S&T's rarely involve equal assets -- just look what happened with Reke last year.
Having them both walk for nothing in return would be disastrous. That would complete any "oh we got back Greivis, and he was part of the Rudy trade" thing too.
Here's what losing those two players with no return would mean -- we would have lost:
Rudy Gay
Isaiah Thomas
Tyreke Evans
our 2012 lottery pick (#5)
our 2011 lottery pick (#7)
in the space of a year and a half. And have NOTHING, not one player, NOTHING, to show for it. You could hardly have a bigger disaster than if the team plane went down.
Having them both walk for nothing in return would be disastrous. That would complete any "oh we got back Greivis, and he was part of the Rudy trade" thing too.
Here's what losing those two players with no return would mean -- we would have lost:
Rudy Gay
Isaiah Thomas
Tyreke Evans
our 2012 lottery pick (#5)
our 2011 lottery pick (#7)
in the space of a year and a half. And have NOTHING, not one player, NOTHING, to show for it. You could hardly have a bigger disaster than if the team plane went down.
Welp, we got a lot of making up to do...
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-24/smartest-spenders-in-sports-2014
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-24/smartest-spenders-in-sports-2014
If both IT and Rudy walk and we get nothing for either of them, that makes the decision to not match on Reke look even worse. You cannot let talent keep walking away from this market, on top of trading away all our defensive talent and not bringing any back in return.
This was a huge reason to trade IT at the deadline. Even a late 1st rounder or a shooter off the bench would be something. I'm getting the impression that PDA has completely misjudged this market and Napear, as much as I despise the guy, does hear things we don't and for him to go on KHTK and say IT is probably gone is not something he'd say unless he had some solid info to go on. And the Rudy comment would go hand in hand with that. But seeing Rudy walk and throwing a large contract at IT just to retain talent doesn't help us all that much either. A Cuz/IT 1-2 punch leaves us right back in the lottery conversation come next Feb/March.
If on July 31st we have less talent than we have now, PDA has got to go. We don't have time for PDA to learn the ropes while putting us through a 3+ year rebuild.
This was a huge reason to trade IT at the deadline. Even a late 1st rounder or a shooter off the bench would be something. I'm getting the impression that PDA has completely misjudged this market and Napear, as much as I despise the guy, does hear things we don't and for him to go on KHTK and say IT is probably gone is not something he'd say unless he had some solid info to go on. And the Rudy comment would go hand in hand with that. But seeing Rudy walk and throwing a large contract at IT just to retain talent doesn't help us all that much either. A Cuz/IT 1-2 punch leaves us right back in the lottery conversation come next Feb/March.
If on July 31st we have less talent than we have now, PDA has got to go. We don't have time for PDA to learn the ropes while putting us through a 3+ year rebuild.
Last edited: