Only $72 million for those ten players? Better recheck your own envelope math. LeBron/Love/Irving alone cost a little over $53 million. I think the problem is HoopsHype doesn't show Kyrie's extension kicking in, which means you've been leaving out a huge figure in your projections.
LeBron: $21,573,398
Love: $16,744,219
Kyrie: $14,746,000
There's $53,063,617 already. Assuming JR opts in (unlikely), Miller opts out (unlikely, who else is giving him close to $3 million?), and Mozgov's team option is picked up (no brainer).
Andy: $9,638,554
Harris: $845,059
JR: $6,399,750
Mozgov: $4,950,000
Gets us to $74,896,980 on seven players alone, past your given salary of $72 million without even getting to our three restricted free agents (TT, Shump, Delly).
I think it's wildly unrealistic to expect Tristan and Shump to both sign qualifying offers for two primary reasons. I doubt we'd risk losing both of them for nothing next summer, and they're both going to be preferably looking to sign long-term contracts. Most players are always going to want the security of a multi-year deal, other than Greg Monroe it's recently been a route rarely chosen by guys with big offers already on the table.
We also just saw an injury prone 30-year-old center get a $10+ million a year contract from this front office earlier this season, courtesy of the team's win-now mode. I'm of the opinion both TT and Shump get similar $10-12 million a year extensions this summer, but factoring in their qualifying offers brings us to:
TT: $7,150,606
Shump: $3,898,691
Delly: $1,020,603 (125% previous salary)
$86,966,880 for the ten players alone- not adding Kyrie makes quite the difference.
Good catch on the Kyrie number for next year.... HoopsHype sucks.
I was using Spotrac for the longest but they seem to have screwed their site up. It's slow as hell and wasn't showing totals correctly or at all for a while on cap figures. I'd also prefer they only include obligated salary in their numbers and not things like team options or, at least offer two different totals. They at least have Kyrie's salary correct for next year though, which is more than I can say for Hoopshype.
I disagree on the Tristan and Shump situations though. I agree that "most players are always going to want the security of a multi-year deal" but this season may be the exception due to the new TV deal. I think most players that are young will try to go for less years in the hopes of attracting a new deal in the new TV deal market.
I don't think Shump will get anywhere near $10-12 million a year. That's Kyle Lowry(4/48) or Eric Bledsoe(5/70) money for a guy that's nowhere near that level of player. Even Trevor Ariza only got 4/32 this past year. Lance Stephenson got 2/18. Keep in mind that few teams have cap room and those that do are typically looking for the "franchise player" kind of guys to use it on. Eating up a big chunk of your cap on a defensive role player that's averaged about 26 minutes and 8 ppg isn't what you're looking for. Contenders that already have star players want guys like Shump and contenders generally are working with exceptions.
Iman has to convince someone to offer him that money and wait to see if the Cavs match or the Cavs would have to just overpay over the kindness of their hearts. I see him getting something like what guys like Jodie Meeks(3/18), Mario Chalmers(2/8), CJ Miles(4/18) and Tony Allen(4/20) got with their deals. Probably somewhere in the 4-6 million a year range sounds right if you look at similar contracts. There's very few guys, even young guys that are getting into the $10 million+ territory without being proven core players(starter, 1st/2nd option, etc.). Here's the guys currently making 9-12 million at the wing position: Gerald Wallace, Gallinari, Batum, Iguodala, Derozan, Stephenson and Deng. Everyone above those guys is an All-Star. Both of those guys are far superior players and were unrestricted free agents that have better negotiating position than an RFA. The 4-6 million range for SGs(excluding rookie deals) is: Vince Carter(3/12), Jared Dudley(5/21), Miles(4/18), Ben Gordon(2/9), Allen(4/20), Jason Terry(3/15), Lou Williams(3/15), Nick Young(4/21), Jamal Crawford(4/21), Courtney Lee(4/21), PJ Tucker(3/16) and JR Smith(3/18). I think he's much closer to this group. Nearly all the guys above 6 million are clearly superior players.
For Thompson, that's probably on the high end for him but possible and we sort of set the precedent with Andy which is essentially 2/20(he'll never see that third year NEVER). Being a younger guy he's somewhat appealing to the building teams but not as appealing as someone like a Greg Monroe, for example that can be a primary scorer. What Thompson does well, is primarily high-level role player stuff that contenders would appreciate more. An important thing to keep in mind is that the PF market is pretty saturated this year with unrestricted guys(all things being equal, teams will go for them first) like Aldridge, Millsap, Monroe, Tyson Chandler, Asik, Amir Johnson, Ed Davis, Amare Stoudemire, DeAndre Jordan and possibly guys that could become UFAs like Brook Lopez, Jeff Green, David West and Thad Young. It's tough to find a lot of comparable guys that have signed recent contract but if you look at PF/C deals out there these are the guys making between 10-12 million average:
Randolph(2/20)
Bargnani(5/50)
Duncan(3/30)
Favors(4/47)
Varejao(2/20)
Deandre Jordan(4/43)
Javale McGee(4/44)
Kevin Garnett(3/36)
Andrew Bogut(3/36)
Vucevic(4/48)
Horford(5/60)
Pekovic(5/60)
Noah(5/60)
Gortat(5/60)
Nearly all of those guys are better players, a true center or both(Bargnani excluded). All the guys above that tier are All-Stars or borderline All-Stars. I'd say he's probably closer to the 8-10 million tier:
Asik(3/25)
Jordan Hill(1/9)
Millsap(2/19)
Jeff Green(4/35)
Ryan Anderson(4/34)
Dirk(3/25)
Gibson(4/33)
Channing Frye(4/32)
Markieff Morris(4/32)
and more likely somewhere between that andlike what Spencer Hawes and Josh McRoberts got at 4/22 or Jason Thompson and Amir Johnson got at 5/30. I'd say for Thompson market value would be somewhere between 5-8 per for 4 years so 20-32 mil. It's possible he could eek $10 million out of us but he's not in a good position to do so THIS year. We can always offer him market value and give him the option of taking the qualifying offer to get a bigger deal next year. If he wants guaranteed money, he takes the market deal. If he wants every last penny, he takes his $6.7 mil next year and then tries again as a UFA. There's very little he can do to build a market for himself THIS year. Teams will focus on higher priority players and UFAs first. Few teams will want to tie up their cap space waiting on him when the market is saturated with better or comparable UFAs at his position. Few teams will want to pay him as a true center(cuz he's not one). He can threaten to walk next year but the Cavs will still be able to pay him more than anyone and will be in a better position next year.
Shump actually would be more likely to draw an offer since there's less wings on the market and his price will be cheaper. However, nobody is going to pay him Kyle Lowry or Eric Bledsoe money. Eric Bledsoe couldn't even get someone to offer him that in an offer sheet. If he really wants paid this year, he could probably fetch something like 3/18 or 4/20 on the high end.
I think both guys would be better off taking the QO and playing out the deal. I understand that, like you said, guys have rarely done that in the past but this offseason isn't going to be like past offseasons. A lot of guys of all types of situations are going to be trying to get as much as they can in the short-term without locking themselves in to a deal that will be below market in a year or two. For Thompson and Shump, that's probably going to be their QO.
