You like these guys? Lets keep them together…
11/06/01

Lets face it. Over the last few years we’ve seen a revolving door. Jelani McCoy, Aaron Williams, Billy Owens, Vladimir Stepania, Emanual Davis, Pat Ewing, Greg Foster, Vernon Maxwell, Moochie Norris (OK YOU GET MY POINT). The Sonics have had more roster turnover than any team in the NBA over the past few years. This has been a big part of their recent decline. Now management is making the claim that we have our young guys, like them, and are sticking with them. Personally after watching Rashard Lewis, Desmond Mason, and Vladimir Radmanovic over the last few games I tend to agree. These guys are entertaining and talented and I’d like to see them on the roster long term. With the coaching staff we have in place I think they could all develop into real stars.

The problem that everybody anticipates is salary. Can we afford to keep these guys? How will the cap and the luxury tax affect us? Actually the Sonics have done a very good job working with the current CBA to get some young guys in good deals and leave room to re-sign their guys. Having both Mason and Radmanovic seem to be contributors on small rookie deals REALLY helps. They’ve obviously given this a lot of thought and the future is bright.

Keep in mind that I really don’t expect this to happen. Every team makes trades and Vin Baker and Shammond Williams are prime candidates. There will be a couple of free agent suprises and a couple of draft flops that we can’t anticipate but they should tend to balance out. Still this should show that the core of the roster can stay together for the next 5 years while we develop a contending organization. We should consider fine tuning with minor moves (Shammond Williams) instead of blowing the team up by trading GP.

There are some assumptions made here. Since the cap and luxury tax numbers for future years are not set and we don’t know what players will sign for we have to estimate. In addition the current CBA does expire in 2 years and the players would like to see some major changes. Unfortunately we have to just guess a little bit and work with the information we have.

Assumptions made:

The salary cap and luxury tax line will both go up approx 10% annually. THIS IS A BIG ASSUMPTION. We really don’t know what will happen with these numbers as both are calculate as a percentage of BRI (basketball related income). However they’ve averaged about 15% increases over the last several years. In addition the current TV deal expires after this season(You wonder why MJ signed a 2 year deal?). So we may see a major spike this year then smaller increases the following year. I think the 10% average should be fairly conservative.

Rashard Lewis signs for the max after this offseason. Book it. He’ll be a max player

Mason and Radmonovich both sign deals below the max. They’ll be great players but hopefully not get the superstar deals. Most likely one will be higher and the other lower, but they’ll average out between $7 and $8 million. There is still some room in case they need to go higher.

The Sonics will lowball Gary Payton. If he’s still on the roster he’ll be forced to take a pay cut. He won’t be happy at all but it’s the only way they can give Rashard and Mason their deals. We’ve seen it this year. Older players have a tough time getting the deal they want. I have him penciled in at $7 million per year for 3-4 years.

Jerome James gets a deal roughly equivalent to Marc Jackson. He may not live up to this hype so this is a bit of a reach. If this deal doesn’t go to James I think they’ll probably offer it to another player next season so it makes sense to include it anyway.

The Sonics get a lottery pick in 2002/03, next year’s goes to Toronto, and then another pick in 2004/05. Hopefully both these picks turn into contributors.

OK! Here goes. This chart was originally provided by realgm.com. I’ve penciled in projections and estimates in red:

So it is financially possible to keep this team together. Here’s a projection of what this development could look like:

2003:

This is the only year where we are right up against the cap. Look for accommodations in either James or Lewis’ deal to keep us just under. For that matter we could wind up only carrying 12 guaranteed contracts to get below the tax by seasons end. This is probably still a rebuilding year. A playoff team but still developing the young guys and out in the first round.

SG
2003 Rotation
PG SF PF C
Gary Payton Desmond Mason Rashard Lewis Vin Baker Calvin Booth
Shammond Williams Brent Barry Vladimir Radmanovic Predrag Drobnjak Jerome James
Earl Watson Min player 1 Draft Pick 2003

2004:

As you can see the Sonics free up some space by low-balling Gary and clearing about $5 million. Other than that there are no dramatic increases this season. The Sonics have retained pretty close to the same roster for 3 years now and should be projected much higher.:

2004 Rotation
PG SG SF PF C
Gary Payton Desmond Mason Rashard Lewis Vin Baker Calvin Booth
Earl Watson Brent Barry Vladimir Radmanovic Predrag Drobnjak Jerome James
Min player 2 Min player 1 Draft Pick 2003

2005:

For the fourth year in a row, the Sonics return almost the exact same roster. They lose only Drobjnak who could not be afforded and replace him with a rookie or minimum salary guy. Rashard and Vladi will both be playing a lot of PF to balance this out.. This would be the year they should expect to make a title run. Gary can still compete; Rashard, Desmond, and Vladi all in their prime, and another third year lotto pick to help them out. Just the right mix of veterans and youth for real title contention.

2005 Rotation
PG SG SF PF C
Gary Payton Desmond Mason Rashard Lewis Vin Baker Draft Pick 2003
Draft Pick 2005 Brent Barry Vladimir Radmanovic Predrag Drobnjak Calvin Booth
Min player 3 Min player 2 Min player 1 Jerome James

2006:

Again the Sonics can return almost the exact same squad to make a run. This is also the year they will have lots of room to make deals with Vin Baker and GP in the last years of their deals and plenty of young guys to pick up the slack. Either way this should be a damn impressive team. If they were close to the title last year they can swing a major deal to try to get GP his ring in his final year.

2006 Rotation
PG SG SF PF C
Gary Payton Desmond Mason Rashard Lewis Vin Baker Draft Pick 2003
Draft Pick 2005 Brent Barry Vladimir Radmanovic Draft Pick 2006 Calvin Booth
Min player 3 Min player 1

2007:

If we haven’t won a title in the last three years this is the time to reload. We still have Rashard, Desmond, Vladi, and all our other draft picks under contract. With Vinnie and Gary saying goodbye we have about $20 million in cap space to reload the roster and make a go of it. They may try to get Bones’ contract out of the way this same year to free up even more money. There’s almost no way to project the roster but maybe something like this:

2007 Rotation
PG SG SF PF C
Draft Pick 2005 Desmond Mason Rashard Lewis Vladimir Radmanovic Draft Pick 2003
Free Agent Brent Barry Free Agent Draft Pick 2006 Calvin Booth
Min player 3 Min player 1 Min player 2

SUMMARY:

As you can see the future is actually pretty bright just by keeping this roster together. Of course we count on Rashard, Desmond, and Vladi to carry a big load but if they don’t step up then we don’t have a future anyway. If we wind up with a star C or PG out of this years lottery pick we could look at a 3-4 year dynasty between 2004-2007 (yeah, I know its best case scenario and way optimistic). It should really make us think twice before making a major move.

I’ll be leaving next week for a brief stop in Hawaii and then overseas. This may affect my ability to write columns (I won’t be able to see any games). Feel free to write me mail with salary cap or roster questions and I’ll try to at least answer those to the best of my ability.

--Brian Robinson (b_e_robinson@hotmail.com)

Back to the From the Post Archive

All opinions expressed in this column are solely the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of other columnists or staff of Sonicscentral.com