damn i wanted POB to end up in Sac with Diogu. LOL

Marc Stein: Chicago's Thabo Sefolosha is headed to Oklahoma City for one of the Thunder's five stockpiled first-round picks in the next two drafts.

• I'm also told that Sacramento will be releasing Mikki Moore after the Kings were unable to include him in any trades before the deadline. Given the leaguewide need for big men, there figures to be a fair bit of interest in Moore once he clears waivers. Expectation is high that he will wind up in Boston, reports ESPN The Magazine's Ric Bucher.

• The Kings have also agreed to a minor deal with Toronto in which they will receive guard Will Solomon and cash considerations for a future second-round pick.

TMC wrote:

first off wrote:according to the espn rumor page, NYK's david lee is supposedly off the trade market, I think we try to get him as soon as possible in the off season.
it's nice that he's restricted FA because as long as we offer something big (6-8Mill) the Knicks won't be able to match and he will be ours!

We cannot offer that amount. Our payroll for next season, not including the rookies, is already close to $60 million, so there's no chance we can offer more than the MLE to anybody unless Crapford opts out.

actually after I posted that, I read that now multiple NBA executives are predicting the salary cap will be around (this is an estimation) 57M next year. this is down from ~58 mill this year. if it was following recent history it should jump up to ~62M.

Bada told me this earlier in the year that it might be lower, but I didn't believe him because it just sounded like a rumor. But now with this shitty economy and hearings from actually NBA executives I suppose it is very plausible.

I was thinking lux tax thresh is ~10 mill higher than the Salary cap, and I was thinking we would be just under the cap at the end of this season. so throw 6-8 million at Lee (basically in place of Foyles buy out), and then it's not really that much to finish up the rest of the team.

Crawford/Beli/ CJ (resigned at 1-2Mill)
Monta/Azu/ Morrow
Jax/ Maggs
Lee (6-8 Mill)/Wright/AR
Turiaf/Beans

and somewhere in there ad a first round draft pick salary of 1-2mill

~7M + 1.5 Mill + 1.5 Mill = ~10. right below lux tax.

that's in my perfect world though. and unfortunately we do not live there

also; I forgot what article I just read it from off of ESPN.com; but Lee is allegedly looking for upwards of 10Mill per season next year, which REALLY would be way more than we could offer.

TMC wrote:Also, the Knicks can match any offer for Lee. If they want to match, that is.

yeah that's what I'm talking about... Knicks can't afford to keep Lee @6-8Mill, that's why restricted free agency is good. pundits were saying the only way they could keep Lee is by getting rid of curry (trading for an 2010 expirer, and that never happened.

first off wrote:Bada told me this earlier in the year that it might be lower, but I didn't believe him because it just sounded like a rumor.

Well, that was your first mistake! I know ALL!

here's to hoping crawford opts out at the end of this season!

first off wrote:I was thinking lux tax thresh is ~10 mill higher than the Salary cap, and I was thinking we would be just under the cap at the end of this season. so throw 6-8 million at Lee (basically in place of Foyles buy out), and then it's not really that much to finish up the rest of the team.

Still can't happen. The amount that sets the limit to what you can offer to a free agent is the salary cap, not the luxury tax. Hence, if you're over the cap, no matter how much you're below the luxury tax, you can't offer more than the MLE to any free agent. If you're below the cap, you can offer anything you want til that cap... which can be less than the MLE.

Unless you have Bird rights over that guy, of course, but that's not the case.

first off wrote:

TMC wrote:Also, the Knicks can match any offer for Lee. If they want to match, that is.

yeah that's what I'm talking about... Knicks can't afford to keep Lee @6-8Mill, that's why restricted free agency is good. pundits were saying the only way they could keep Lee is by getting rid of curry (trading for an 2010 expirer, and that never happened.

I refuse to believe all that crap about the Knicks allowing Lee to leave. It's just retarded. They'll be in a pretty good situation in a couple of years to sign LeBron, even if they keep Lee, so it makes no sense to get rid of him right now.

yeah that article I was talking about

espn.com wrote:If the Knicks stand pat at the trade deadline, the Lee and Robinson situations -- and their impact on the summer of 2010 fiscal plan -- will move to the forefront beginning July 1.

Lee, who earns $1.79 million this season and will be tendered a qualifying offer of $2.7 million for 2009-10, is expected to seek a multiyear contract in excess of $10 million per season...

http://nba.fanhouse.com/2009/02/16/how-a-lower-luxury-tax-could-kill-10-nba-teams/