Bulls Rumors: Hoiberg, Thibodeau, Reinsdorf
Those in Tom Thibodeau‘s inner circle heard that the Bulls and Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg reached an understanding that he would accept an offer from Chicago, prompting the team to fire Thibs, writes Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. GM Gar Forman has been “obsessive” about hiring Hoiberg, according to Wojnarowski, who details Thibodeau’s failings to act more diplomatically in a Bulls organization that’s hostile to those who don’t give deference to management, Wojnarowski believes. Here’s more on the coaching change in Chicago:
- Several close to Thibodeau have suggested that he sit out this coming season, when the Bulls will continue to pay him toward the nearly $9MM left on his contract, and wait for the NBA coaching vacancies of 2016/17, tweets K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune.
- One NBA coach likened the way the Bulls let go of Thibodeau to a crucifixion while another insinuated that owner Jerry Reinsdorf stabbed the coach in the back, according to Steve Aschburner of NBA.com. Indeed, Thibodeau confidants told Wojnarowski that the coach was especially hurt by Reinsdorf’s comment in the statement the team released to announce the firing, having deeply valued his relationship with the owner.
- Forman and executive vice president of basketball operations John Paxson weren’t the only ones in the organization who didn’t get along with Thibodeau, as Jon Greenberg of ESPNChicago.com heard from staffers whose attitudes toward Thibs ranged from apathy to loathing.
Offseason Outlook: Utah Jazz
Guaranteed Contracts
- Gordon Hayward ($15,409,570)
- Derrick Favors ($12,000,000)
- Alec Burks ($9,463,484)
- Dante Exum ($3,777,720)
- Trey Burke ($2,658,240)
- Rodney Hood ($1,348,440)
- Rudy Gobert ($1,175,880)
- Grant Jerrett ($947,276)
Non-Guaranteed Contracts
- Trevor Booker ($4,775,000)1
- Chris Johnson ($981,348)
- Jack Cooley ($845,059)
- Bryce Cotton ($845,059)
- Elijah Millsap ($845,059)
Options
- None
Restricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- Joe Ingles ($1,045,059) — $1,045,059 qualifying offer2
Unrestricted Free Agents/Cap Holds
- Jeremy Evans ($3,410,255)
- No. 12 pick ($1,866,500)
Draft Picks
- 1st Round (12th overall)
- 2nd Round (42nd overall)
- 2nd Round (54th overall)
Cap Outlook
- Guaranteed Salary: $47,030,610
- Non-Guaranteed Salary: $8,041,525
- Options: $0
- Cap Holds: $6,321,814
- Total: $61,393,949
The Jazz appeared to be taking a step back at the trade deadline in February, when they gave into the trade demand of center Enes Kanter, to whom they committed the No. 3 overall pick in 2011, and dealt him to the Thunder for a protected first-rounder and other uninspiring assets. That Oklahoma City pick is for 2017, the draft that follows the first season after Kevin Durant‘s contract is set to expire, but the lottery protection on it extends through 2020, by which point it would turn into two second-rounders, according to RealGM. The pick will never come close to the value of the one the Jazz used on Kanter. Yet what happened after this year’s trade showed the Jazz need not lament a pick at the back end of the first round.
Rudy Gobert, the 27th overall pick from 2013, took over the starting center job for the departed Kanter and quickly established himself as a game-changing defensive force. He garnered more votes for the NBA’s All-Defensive Teams than anyone who didn’t make the cut, which wasn’t shabby for a player who saw started fewer than half of his team’s games and saw only 21.9 minutes per night before the trade. The Jazz had the NBA’s fourth most porous defense before the All-Star break, when the trade went down, according to NBA.com point per possession data. After the break, they gave up the fewest points per possession by a long shot, as NBA.com also shows. That’s a stunning turnaround.
Utah would go 52-30 next season if it kept up its 19-11 post-trade pace, but the Jazz would be wise not get caught up in a 30-game sample size. The rest of the league will have a full offseason to study what Gobert and his teammates did so effectively down the stretch, and Jazz coach Quin Snyder will have to make counter-adjustments once the season starts. Some regression is to be expected, particularly if the Jazz don’t make a sudden push to engineer win-now moves this summer. That wouldn’t be in keeping with the team’s sharp focus on building from within under Dennis Lindsey, though Lindsey hasn’t encountered a juncture quite like this since the Jazz hired in him as their GM in August 2012. Most executives around the league thought, as Utah put the finishing touches on its second-half resurgence, that the Jazz would survey the trade market for their first-round pick this year, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe reported then.
The team’s ability to find Gobert so late in the first round of Lindsey’s initial draft as GM might dissuade the team from trading this year’s 12th overall pick, though the jury’s out on Trey Burke, Dante Exum and Rodney Hood, the three other first-rounders Lindsey’s come away with. Still, there may well be intriguing possibilities. Maybe the Pistons, committed as they are to re-signing Reggie Jackson, would be willing to part with Brandon Jennings for former University of Michigan standout Burke and the No. 12 pick. Perhaps the Nuggets would give up the disgrunted Ty Lawson for Exum and the No. 12 pick. Either move would solidify the point for Utah and allow the Jazz to trade uncertainty about whether Exum and Burke will deliver on their promise for a more well-known commodity, but there’s danger in giving up on either of them too soon. That’s particularly true with Exum, who’s still only 19 and who came into his rookie season this year with no college and precious little experience against other high-level talent.
Utah could keep the pick and venture bringing yet another highly drafted point guard onto the team with a selection of Cameron Payne, Jerian Grant or Tyus Jones, but there are other matters the Jazz can address. Alec Burks was the only member of the Jazz who saw regular playing time and hit more than 36.5% of his three-point attempts this past season, so Utah would do well to grab Kentucky sharpshooter Devin Booker if he’s still on the board at No. 12. Burks and Booker play the same position, but unless the Jazz select a point guard, they probably won’t plan on plugging anyone they draft into the starting lineup next season. The Jazz lack a backup center, so Utah could go with the high upside of Myles Turner from Texas or the familiar quantity of Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky.
Utah can also fill holes through free agency. The Jazz can clear up to roughly $16.6MM in cap room against a projected $67.1MM cap if they keep their first-rounder, enough to bid on a restricted free agent or a player entering unrestricted free agency early, like Greg Monroe or Wesley Matthews. Monroe probably wouldn’t have interest in Utah, where he’d compete for minutes against Gobert and Derrick Favors, but Matthews, who spent his rookie season with the Jazz, would be a more realistic possibility, particularly since he would come more cheaply. Such a move would give the Jazz two shooting guards coming off major injuries, and while Utah could afford to be patient as they heal and return to form, it would turn one of them into a highly paid reserve in the long run. The surprise four-year, $42MM extension to which the Jazz signed Burks this past fall is no mega deal, and it would be more palatable to have him as a reserve than it would be for the Jazz to bring in someone to play in front of the more well-compensated Hayward or Favors. Still, Hood played most of his minutes at shooting guard this past season, and there’s little call for the Jazz to spend at a position where they can get quality production on the cheap.
A bid for Patrick Beverley would give the Jazz the potential to become a frightening defensive team, while an offer sheet for Brandon Knight would afford Utah the chance to add scoring punch. The Rockets and Suns nonetheless appear to want their respective point guards back, so the legitimate threat of the match looms for each restricted free agent. Utah could instead spend on its bench, as it did last summer when it signed Trevor Booker to a healthy-sized deal that the Jazz can essentially escape after one season if they want. Booker’s partially guaranteed contract gives the Jazz the flexibility to keep him on the roster while seeing if there’s anyone on whom they’d rather spend his full $4.775MM salary, and either cutting him for the paltry cost of $250K if so or keeping him around if not. The Jazz can similarly sit on the non-guaranteed deals of Chris Johnson, Jack Cooley, Bryce Cotton and Elijah Millsap and wait to see how the market develops, and they can use some combination of those four and Booker as trade ballast if necessary.
That option doesn’t exist with Jeremy Evans, who’s finally hitting unrestricted free agency after five seasons of sticking on the Jazz roster despite failing to stay in the rotation for any long periods of time, with the exception of his 18.3 minutes per game in 2013/14. His minutes regressed this past season, so it seems that Utah is much more likely to retain its other free agent. The Clippers planned to re-sign Joe Ingles after they released him shortly before opening night, but the Jazz snatched his non-guaranteed minimum salary contract off waivers. The Clippers, in need of cheap bench help, could only watch as he validated the fanfare that had seven or eight NBA teams in pursuit of him this past summer, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported then. The 27-year-old small forward started 32 games, and while he doesn’t figure to start much going forward, there’s mutual interest in a return, as Gordon Monson of The Salt Lake Tribune reported, and the Jazz can match all offers. A deal somewhere between the three years and $7.3MM that Hawks gave Shelvin Mack and the three years and $10MM they shelled out to Mike Scott makes sense. Both Mack and Scott were restricted free agents last summer, and Hawks GM Danny Ferry, like Lindsey, is a Spurs disciple.
The Jazz are on the rise, but just how far and how quickly they continue to ascend remains to be seen. Kanter was an exception for a front office that’s made a habit of paying to retain its young talent in recent years, and that was as much Kanter’s choice as it was the Jazz’s. Still, no emerging talent on the roster will command eight figures this offseason, and with the salary cap surge coming in 2016, Utah has a chance this summer to use cap space on more seasoned help without compromising its ability to retain its young core. Take advantage of that opportunity, and that 52-30 record for next season is certainly within Utah’s reach.
Cap Footnotes
1 — Booker’s salary is partially guaranteed for $250,000.
2 — The cap hold for Ingles would be $845,059 if the Jazz elect not to tender a qualifying offer.
The Basketball Insiders Salary Pages were used in the creation of this post.
Fallout From Tom Thibodeau Firing
Bulls GM Gar Forman and executive vice president of basketball operations John Paxson didn’t say as much in their press conference today, but the now-vacant Bulls coaching job is Fred Hoiberg‘s to lose, tweets K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune. There has been some doubt about whether Hoiberg, coming off heart surgery last month, would head to the Bulls this year, but sources close to the Iowa State coach tell Randy Peterson of The Des Moines Register that they believe Hoiberg would accept if, or when, offered. Indeed, several close to Hoiberg are confident that he’s ready for the challenge of the NBA, Johnson hears (Twitter link). There’s much more on Hoiberg, the fired Tom Thibodeau, and the Bulls, as we relay:
- There’s no way Hoiberg would turn down the Bulls job, tweets Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press, and the coach was ready to jump to the NBA if the Warriors had offered him their job last season, according to Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (on Twitter). However, the Warriors got the sense then that Hoiberg wasn’t quite ready, notes Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group (via Twitter). Still, Hoiberg last month told recruiting target Cheick Diallo that he couldn’t guarantee that he’d remain the school’s coach for 2015/16, sources told Travis Hines of the Ames Tribune (hat tip to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv).
- The Bulls have also fired assistant coach Andy Greer, Forman confirmed at the press conference today, as Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com notes (on Twitter).
- Forman also said that Bulls management got the sense they needed to make a change after meeting with players and other team personnel, Friedell tweets. That would jibe with Johnson’s report that some players conveyed in their exit meetings this month that they didn’t endorse Thibodeau’s return.
- The GM denied that the Bulls viewed Thibodeau as an asset they could use to extract compensation from other teams and confirmed that no team had called to ask permission to interview the coach this year, Friedell passes along (on Twitter).
- Paxson suggested that the Bulls would have kept Thibs if they’d won the title this year, advancing the idea that the team’s inability to get past the Cavs in the playoffs further lowered Thibodeau in the eyes of management. “We wouldn’t be sitting here if we won a championship,” Paxson said, according to Vincent Goodwill of CSNChicago.com (Twitter link). “I feel like we had a real chance.”
And-Ones: Wolves, Lakers, Pacers, Celtics
Several players and agents suggested to Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders that any given Eastern Conference team would be more attractive than a comparable one from the Western Conference given the disparity between the conferences. One agent told Kennedy that players “absolutely” want to be the East and that he hopes his draft clients are taken by Eastern teams, though an executive cautioned that the presence of LeBron James might dissuade free agents from jumping out of the West. James is set to represent the East for the fifth straight time in the NBA Finals, and while we wait more than a week for tip-off, here’s more from around the NBA:
- Chad Ford of ESPN.com hears D’Angelo Russell is in the mix for the Timberwolves at No. 1, says Karl-Anthony Towns, but not necessarily Jahlil Okafor, would be a lock for the Lakers at No. 2, and also writes in his chat with readers that the Pacers and Celtics would love to move up. Ford has heard chatter among GMs that the Thunder have promised Cameron Payne they’ll take him at No. 14, but he isn’t sure just how much truth there is to that, as the ESPN scribe writes in the same piece. Sources have suggested to Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders that Payne has a promise from some team. Our Eddie Scarito has Payne going to the Thunder in the Hoops Rumors Mock Draft.
- UNLV shooting guard Rashad Vaughn had an especially impressive workout this past weekend, Ford observes in an Insider-only piece, and Vaughn also opened eyes in his workout Tuesday for the Heat, reports Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Ford adds in his piece that scouts have told him that French center Alpha Kaba is willing to stay in the draft rather than withdraw by the June 15th deadline if he receives a promise from a team.
- The Bulls and Pelicans have interest in former 16th overall pick Royce White, reports Shams Charania of RealGM, though it’s not clear if they’re yet considering him for any sort of deal that would go beyond summer league.
Melvin Hunt Front-Runner For Nuggets Job
Nuggets interim coach Melvin Hunt is the front-runner to take the job on a formal basis, a source tells Bleacher Report’s Jared Zwerling (Twitter link). The chances that Hunt would fill the vacancy have improved since season’s end, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported last week, and while Stein wrote that Mike D’Antoni was still in the mix, the long-ago Nuggets coach has yet to interview for the vacancy Denver created when it fired Brian Shaw, Zwerling adds.
The Nuggets are “not an option” for Tom Thibodeau, sources told Ken Berger of CBSSports.com last week, even though it had earlier seemed as though he would be the favorite once the Bulls let him go, as they finally did today. Alvin Gentry is reportedly a candidate for the Denver job, but reports have linked him to all four current NBA head coaching vacancies. Michael Malone, Scott Skiles, Fred Hoiberg and David Vanterpool are others who’ve been in contention, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.
Denver’s brass sees Hunt as a viable coach for a rebuilding team, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders wrote this week. The Nuggets are apparently contemplating major changes, but Hunt drew strong support from existing Nuggets players after he took over the team for the stretch run. That included plaudits from Ty Lawson and Kenneth Faried, who are otherwise losing confidence in the team and have let the Nuggets know that unless they make the right kind of coaching hire or pull off a significant trade, they’d rather be traded themselves than go through rebuilding, Kyler wrote.
Southwest Notes: Gasol, Calathes, Draft
One comment that Marc Gasol made to Spanish media should be encouraging for the Grizzlies, while another appears to fuel Spurs hope. Gasol said that he hasn’t thought about changing teams and once more cited his deep roots in Memphis, according to Adriano Correal of Gigantes del Basket (translation via HoopsHype). Still, he called the Spurs a model franchise and expressed his admiration of Tim Duncan, as Abraham Romero of Diario As passes along (translation via Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News). The Spurs are the team the Grizzlies fear the most among Gasol’s suitors, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com recently reported. Here’s more from the Southwest Division:
- Nick Calathes told Jorge Sierra of HoopsHype that his primary goal is to remain in the NBA and denied a report from Javier Maestro of Encestando.es that he wanted to leave the NBA and that his camp had offered his services to Barcelona of Spain (translation via HoopsHype). Calathes, whose contract with Memphis expires at the end of next month, is nonetheless expected to draw pursuit from several European teams, according to Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia, who says the 26-year-old stands to make more money overseas than he would remaining in the NBA. The Grizzlies can match competing NBA bids for him if they tender a qualifying offer worth more than $1.147MM.
- The Mavs on Wednesday were set to work out Florida shooting guard Michael Frazier, Villanova small forward Darrun Hilliard, Nebraska swingman Terran Petteway, Arkansas shooting guard Michael Qualls, Baylor small forward Royce O’Neale and Incarnate Word combo guard Denzel Livingston, a source told Michael Scotto of SheridanHoops (Twitter link).
- Terrence Jones questioned whether he would ever play again after suffering a nerve injury earlier this season that knocked him out for nearly three months, so he’s not too upset that the Rockets benched him during the playoffs, as Jenny Dial Creech of the Houston Chronicle examines. Jones is eligible for a rookie scale extension this summer.
Bulls Fire Tom Thibodeau
The Bulls have fired coach Tom Thibodeau, the team announced via press release. K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune reported overnight that resolution to the long-running drama between Thibodeau and Bulls management was expected no later than Friday.
“When Tom was hired in 2010, he was right for our team and system at that time, and over the last five years we have had some success with Tom as our head coach,” Bulls GM Gar Forman said in the team’s statement. “But as we looked ahead and evaluated how we as a team and an organization could continue to grow and improve, we believed a change in approach was needed.”
Owner Jerry Reinsdorf also made a lengthy comment in the statement that spoke to a breakdown in cohesion among the coach and management, essentially confirming a well-documented storyline that’s persisted for more than a year. The Bulls let Thibodeau know his fate at a meeting today, but the coach knew the news was coming, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter links). The Bulls are still on the hook for the nearly $9MM they owe Thibodeau for the rest of his contract, which covered the next two seasons, but that would be offset if he takes a coaching job elsewhere within two years.
The Magic and the Pelicans are known to have interest in talking to Thibodeau, Marc Stein of ESPN.com wrote Wednesday, but as of last week, no team had contacted the Bulls to ask permission to hire Thibs, according to Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. Thibodeau wasn’t willing to meet with teams or talk to them about their vacancies while he remained under contract with the Bulls, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders heard. The Nuggets are not an option for Thibodeau, sources told Berger. The Bulls reportedly wanted to hold off on firing Thibodeau and seek compensation in return for allowing another team to hire Thibs, but teams didn’t appear willing to give it up for a coach whom Chicago was well-known not to want back.
Multiple reports have cast Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg as Chicago’s top choice to succeed Thibodeau, but the Bulls are interested in Warriors assistant Alvin Gentry, too, Kyler reported, and one source who spoke with Howard Beck of Bleacher Report considers Gentry the favorite for the job. Bulls lead assistant coach Adrian Griffin is also in the mix as a potential Thibodeau replacement, as Stein reported. Hoiberg had open heart surgery last month to replace his aortic valve, and Kyler and Beck have heard doubts that he’ll jump to the Bulls this year. The Nuggets and Magic appeared to have interest in Gentry at various points this spring, and the Pelicans interviewed him.
Thibodeau had plenty of on-court success in his five seasons with the Bulls, who gave the longtime assistant his first NBA head coaching job. He went 255-139 in the regular season, winning the 2010 Coach of the Year award, though he was just 23-28 in the playoffs, and Stein heard that the Bulls were displeased with his team’s inability to get past a banged-up Cavs team in the second round this year.
Knicks Eye Paul Millsap, DeMarre Carroll
The two way games of soon-to-be Hawks free agents Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll have Knicks president Phil Jackson intrigued, according to Marc Berman of the New York Post. Still, the Hawks are “supremely confident” that they can retain both, according to USA Today. A source close to Carroll tells Berman he’d like to play with Knicks coach Derek Fisher, his former workout partner. Berman reported last month, when Carroll responded affirmatively to a question about whether he would have interest in playing in New York, that Fisher was similarly high on Carroll. Carroll nonetheless said in the wake of Tuesday’s season-ending loss to the Cavs that he’s prioritizing a new deal with the Hawks, according to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“In the end my agent is going to do all the work,” Carroll said. “He understands [the] situation for me. Right now, I’m a Hawk until the Hawks don’t want me any more — that’s the way I look at it.”
Carroll’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, is believed to be looking for an average annual value of $12MM in his client’s next deal, Berman writes. The forward who blossomed on the two-year, $5MM deal he signed with the Hawks in 2013 admits that money will play a role in determining where he goes next but said city, team and fit would also be factors, Vivlamore notes. Reporters have heard estimates from executives and other sources ranging from $8-9MM to $9-12MM to $12.5MM or more about what Carroll can expect to receive each year in his next contract. The Lakers, in particular, and the Celtics and Pistons are also interested in Carroll, according to Sean Deveney of The Sporting News.
There are whispers that Millsap, ostensibly even more valuable, might need surgery on his sprained right shoulder, as Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck heard. Speculation suggests Millsap will command the max, or close to it. Still, Atlanta seems more confident in re-signing Millsap than Carroll, as USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt said recently, and the power forward’s recent comments and remarks from agent DeAngelo Simmons support the idea that the Hawks need not fret.
The Knicks are armed with plenty of cap flexibility, since they only have about $32.4MM in commitments for next season, not counting the No. 4 overall pick. The Hawks have only Early Bird rights on both Millsap and Carroll, but with just approximately $39.3MM in guaranteed salaries for 2015/16, they can also use cap room to re-sign their talented forwards.
Magic Interview Mike Woodson
Magic GM Rob Hennigan met with Clippers assistant Mike Woodson this past weekend in Southern California, but the team is focused instead on Scott Skiles, whose status as the front-runner for the Orlando job has only strengthened, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The Pelicans have also interviewed Skiles, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported late Wednesday, so ostensibly Woodson remains in the hunt for the Magic job as a fallback option.
Woodson spent the past season as an assistant to Doc Rivers after the Knicks fired him last year. He’d meet the Magic’s desire for candidates with NBA head coaching experience, as he’s spent parts of nine seasons as the bench boss for the Knicks and the Hawks, going a combined 315-365 in the regular season and 18-28 in the playoffs. Rivers earlier reportedly called the Magic to endorse the hiring of Tom Thibodeau, a former assistant of Rivers.
Resolution to the drama between Thibodeau and the Bulls is expected no later than Friday, as K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune reported, with a firing seemingly the likely outcome. So, Thibs could become available to the Magic and other teams without the requirement that Orlando send compensation to the Bulls. Several reports have indicated that the Magic have had interest in Thibodeau, but many have overstated the level of that interest, Johnson wrote last week.
Mavs Consider Chandler-Jordan Sign-And-Trade
Members of the Mavs front office have tossed around the idea of engineering a sign-and-trade that would send Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton to the Clippers for DeAndre Jordan, should Jordan elect to sign with the Mavs this summer, reports Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com. The Mavs brass, who talked about the idea in a brainstorming session, according to MacMahon, wants to “do right” by Chandler, who would sign a market value contract with the Clippers as part of the scenario, though Dallas would insist that Felton be a part of such a deal, MacMahon writes. The Clippers appear poised to offer Jordan the max to stay, but the league’s leading rebounder has said the Clips aren’t necessarily the favorites to re-sign him and has apparently made it clear to the Mavs that he’s highly interested in playing for them, as MacMahon previously reported.
The Mavs would seek to re-sign Chandler, a somewhat less athletic version of Jordan at the center position, at market value if they miss on Jordan or sign LaMarcus Aldridge instead, MacMahon writes. Chandler has expressed a desire to return to the Mavs, but the Clippers may well hold appeal as an alternative, since Chandler is a Southern California native and former teammate of Chris Paul, MacMahon notes. The Clippers, given their existing salary commitments for next season, likely won’t have the means to sign Chandler outright. President of basketball operations Doc Rivers would thus be “crazy” not to show interest in a Chandler-Jordan sign-and-trade proposal from the Mavs, MacMahon posits, though a guaranteed long-term deal for Chandler would tie up money the Clips could spend in the summer of 2016 and beyond.
The Clippers have more than $58MM in commitments for next season, not counting more than $6.7MM in non-guaranteed money for mainstays Jamal Crawford and Matt Barnes. The luxury tax threshold is projected to come in at $81.6MM, meaning the luxury tax apron, the line the Clippers can’t cross in any sign-and-trade acquisition, is projected at $85.6MM. It’s unclear just how much a market value deal for Chandler would entail, but Felton will be due more than $3.95MM next season once he makes his decision to opt in official, so the mechanics of the sign-and-trade the Mavs are considering could get dicey.
Chandler, a veteran of more than 10 seasons, is eligible for a max that’ll probably come in around an estimated $22MM. Jordan, a seven-year vet, could make about $19MM next season based on those same estimates. They’d be limited to four-year deals and 4.5% raises in any sign-and-trade deals.