The Suns’ highest-paid player for next season (Eric Bledsoe) has missed more than 90 games for the team over the last three years, and the club’s third-highest-paid contributor (Tyson Chandler) is entering his age-34 season and is almost certainly past his prime. Throw in the fact that Phoenix wasn’t able to move up from No. 4 pick to land a top-three pick, and this looks like a franchise that’s still at least a couple years away from real contention. Still, the Suns have some decent young pieces, and their top three contracts – Bledsoe’s, Chandler’s, and Brandon Knight‘s – are well below the max, giving the team flexibility to add more salary around those veterans, or potentially explore a variety of trade scenarios involving them. Considering they have three first-round draft picks, it will be interesting to see whether the Suns go into full rebuilding mode, or attempt to package some of those picks and young players in deals to fast-track the roster to playoff contention.
See how Phoenix’s cap situation looks for 2016/17 as Hoops Rumors continues its offseason salary cap digest series.
Guaranteed Salary
- Eric Bledsoe ($14,000,000)
- Brandon Knight ($12,606,250)
- Tyson Chandler ($12,415,000)
- Alex Len ($4,823,621)
- Devin Booker ($2,223,600)
- T.J. Warren ($2,128,920)
- Archie Goodwin ($2,094,089)
- P.J. Tucker ($1,500,000) — Partial guarantee; non-guaranteed portion listed below1
- (Michael Beasley $777,777) — Salary remaining from release via stretch provision
- Total: $52,569,257
Player Options
- None
Team Options
- None
Non-Guaranteed Salary
- P.J. Tucker ($3,800,000) — Partial guarantee; guaranteed portion listed above1
- John Jenkins ($1,050,961)
- Alan Williams ($874,636)
- Total: $5,725,597
Restricted Free Agents (Qualifying Offers/Cap Holds)
- None
Unrestricted Free Agents (Cap Holds)
- Mirza Teletovic ($6,600,000)
- Jon Leuer ($1,966,500)
- Chase Budinger ($980,431)
- Ronnie Price ($980,431)
- Total: $10,527,362
Other Cap Holds
- No. 4 pick ($3,563,600)
- No. 13 pick ($1,835,200)
- Bogdan Bogdanovic ($996,700)
- No. 28 pick ($990,700)
- Total: $7,386,200
Projected Salary Cap: $92,000,000
Footnotes:
- Tucker’s full $5,300,000 salary would become guaranteed on June 30th.
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.