LeBron to the Toronto Raptors???

[RandomGuy]

...........

[TheGloveinRapsUniform]

Notice how I wasn't talking to anyone specifically. I just think people should stop trying to push ideas that are borderline impossible. LeBron is not coming here.

clearly you havent met tenforthewin. TFTW!

and there's no such thing as "borderline impossible". if its close to impossible then it cant be impossible because there is still a chance for it to happen.

it maybe "highly unlikely" or "a million to one" chance that lebron signs here but its never impossible. well unless they move the team somewhere else, or Lebron loses all his limbs therefore he cant sign his name anymore, or if the Toronto Raptors dont want him on the team.

but theres always a chance and possibility. who knows, the day Masai makes a pitch to lebron, all planets align and for that brief second that lebron says "yes" and signs on the dotted line, he realizes he's going to be a god here in toronto, then 2 seconds later he realizes how cold it is here and how much taxes we pay. hahahaha.

[mcHAPPY]

Interesting times these are.

So much of this summer is going to depend on what happens with LeBron.

I wonder if he would consider teaming with Melo in LakerLand?

They'd have to take a pay cut and LA would have to get rid of Nash somehow (I dunno, Salmons + future 1st for Nash/#7?).

Kobe's $23M really effed the Lakers. Even if he had taken $20M so much more could have been done. I guess the fact all these top free agents starting at $22M really set the tone here. He had to be making the most, maybe?


I'm just talking out of my ass here..... hopefully that is obvious.

[DanH]

How it would most likely have to work, moneywise:

1. Existing team salary after we drop Salmons and Hansbrough: approximately $41 million
2. Trade Novak to get rid of his salary to drop us to $38 million
3. Renounce 2Pat's Bird rights to go to $35 million
4. Sign-and-trade Chuck Hayes (drops us to $29 million) and 1-2 of our draft picks this year/future picks to Miami for LeBron at $23 million, bringing us to $52 million, which gets us just under the cap with Lowry/Vasquez' cap holds
5. Re-sign Lowry at $9 million, getting the "LeBron discount"
6. Re-sign Greivis at $3 million
7. Sign remaining rooks, MLE free agent, and vet minimums as necessary

It's certainly do-able.

Whoa, hold up, you are WAY off with your numbers here.

1. Existing team salary after we drop Salmons and Hansbrough [and Buycks and Stone]: approximately $67 million
2. Trade Novak to get rid of his salary to drop us to $64 million
3. Renounce 2Pat's Bird rights to go to $56 million
4. Sign-and-trade Chuck Hayes (drops us to $51 million) and 1-2 of our draft picks this year/future picks [trading the #20 drops us to 49M] to Miami for LeBron at $14 million, bringing us to $63 million, which gets us just under the cap with Lowry/Vasquez' cap holds
5. Re-sign Lowry at $9 million, getting the "LeBron discount"
6. Re-sign Greivis at $3 million
7. Sign remaining rooks, Room MLE [3M per year] free agent, and vet minimums as necessary

[Letter N]

This is why i dont understand why the elite players dont even want to consider the Raptors.

Ceez is right. If you sign here and make this team a contender, you dont just have a city, you have an entire country supporting you. You will be the first player to make a dynasty here. Imagine the endorsements and exposure you'll get.

Seems players nowadays just want the jewelry and not whats really behind it.

That country has as big a population as California and about a quarter of the interest in basketball. Also aside from that it's 2014, you don't need to be in a country to be popular in a country. I'm sure there are more Lebron jerseys sold in Saskatchewan than Raptors jerseys.

[iblastoff]

This is why i dont understand why the elite players dont even want to consider the Raptors.

Ceez is right. If you sign here and make this team a contender, you dont just have a city, you have an entire country supporting you. You will be the first player to make a dynasty here. Imagine the endorsements and exposure you'll get.

Seems players nowadays just want the jewelry and not whats really behind it.

this has been rebutted many times too. why would LBJ/KD/global stars give a shit about a whole 'country' supporting you when the whole WORLD already does. you seriously think LBJ/KD/etc are lacking of endorsements? their biggest ones will ALWAYS be from US and chinese companies. Who does Canada have to offer? fucking sears? are they even canadian anymore?

[magoon]

Whoa, hold up, you are WAY off with your numbers here.

1. Existing team salary after we drop Salmons and Hansbrough [and Buycks and Stone]: approximately $67 million

This number is just wrong. Total Raptors team salary in 2013-14 was $68 million, so saying "it's 67 million base this year after we exercise all options to get rid of non-Amirs," even with cap holds, makes no sense at all (especially considering we're not paying Quentin Richardson or DJ Augustin anything any more).

Actual salary commitments in 2014-15, not counting cap holds, total just over $51 million. Drop Salmons (savings of 6m - 7m minus 1m buyout expense which goes against cap), Hansbrough (savings of 2.3m - 3.3m minus 1m buyout expense), Buycks and Stone ($1.8m together) and that's a total savings of $10.1 m - taking us to $40.9m before we count cap holds.

2. Trade Novak to get rid of his salary to drop us to $64 million
3. Renounce 2Pat's Bird rights to go to $56 million

Dropping Novak (3.5m) takes us to $37.4m. Renouncing Bird rights for 2Pat (3.1m)and Nando de Colo (we both forgot him, 1.5m) takes us to $32.8m.

4. Sign-and-trade Chuck Hayes (drops us to $51 million) and 1-2 of our draft picks this year/future picks [trading the #20 drops us to 49M] to Miami for LeBron at $14 million, bringing us to $63 million, which gets us just under the cap with Lowry/Vasquez' cap holds

Sign-and-trading Chuck Hayes - and let's say it's just Chuck Hayes for now plus some future draft picks - takes us to $26.8m. At that point, with Greivis and Lowry's cap holds intact (combined just under $9m), and assuming a 2014/15 cap of $66m as projected, we can afford to pay LeBron the max we can pay him of $23m because that takes us to just $49m. We then re-sign Lowry and Greivis, our rooks (which are cap exceptions), and MLE/vet minimums. If LeBron could be had for $20m per year, you could even potentially keep 2Pat on cap hold.

[2kfeen]

There is only one way for the math to work, and we should only do this if Lebron is sure to come to Toronto.
Otherwise, we put ourselves in a somewhat unideal situtation.

Dropping Hansbrough and Salmons saves us roughly 7 million (salmons has 2 mill guaranteed, hansbrough 1)
Trading a pick with fields, and a pick with hayes to teams that are tanking so that saves us roughly $13 million

so that's like $20 million in free cap space
get rid of stone, buycks, so that's 2 mill gone there

sign lebron james outright with all that cap space
re-sign lowry at a good deal at maybe $9 mill cause he's playing on a true title contender now
get hungry players looking for a ring
look to re-sign vasquez at a better deal or go for a better backup pg at a similar contract if they are intersted

PG: Lowry, Vasquez/better backup PG
SG: Derozan, Ross
SF: Lebron, ???
PF: Johnson, Patterson
C: Big V, Cole Aldrich???

[feet85]

I don't troll, I speak the truth.

F Brooklyn

[imanshumpert]

clearly you havent met tenforthewin. TFTW!

and there's no such thing as "borderline impossible". if its close to impossible then it cant be impossible because there is still a chance for it to happen.

it maybe "highly unlikely" or "a million to one" chance that lebron signs here but its never impossible. well unless they move the team somewhere else, or Lebron loses all his limbs therefore he cant sign his name anymore, or if the Toronto Raptors dont want him on the team.

but theres always a chance and possibility. who knows, the day Masai makes a pitch to lebron, all planets align and for that brief second that lebron says "yes" and signs on the dotted line, he realizes he's going to be a god here in toronto, then 2 seconds later he realizes how cold it is here and how much taxes we pay. hahahaha.

Umm what... yes there is.

Impossible means it has a 0% chance of happening. If something has like a 0.0001% chance of happening then yes it is close to or borderline impossible. Not sure what your point is here.

[DanH]

This number is just wrong. Total Raptors team salary in 2013-14 was $68 million, so saying "it's 67 million base this year after we exercise all options to get rid of non-Amirs," even with cap holds, makes no sense at all (especially considering we're not paying Quentin Richardson or DJ Augustin anything any more).

Well, I guess I can spell it out for you.

DeMar DeRozan $9,500,000
John Salmons $1,000,000
Amir Johnson $7,000,000
Landry Fields $6,250,000
Kyle Lowry $9,315,000
Chuck Hayes $5,958,750
Steve Novak $3,445,947
Jonas Valanciunas $3,678,360
Tyler Hansbrough $1,000,000
Patrick Patterson $7,763,253
Terrence Ross $2,793,960
Greivis Vasquez $5,375,470
Nando de Colo $1,901,900
Draft Pick 2014 $1,215,300
Camby Buyout $646,609

Those are the salary commitments and cap holds for this upcoming season. They sum to 66.8M. You can add them up yourself if you like since I listed them all for you. Also note how I didn't forget Nando - I just assumed you were waiving his rights, like I assumed you were waiving Buycks and Stone.

This time around you've excluded cap holds, so if I do that (and waive the 4 horsemen), you are looking at 42.5M. Then you renounced rights to 2Pat (which you already did when you said you were excluding cap holds, remember?) - so that 3.1M (which is also wrong, his cap hold is over 7M) does NOT come off your calculation. Nor does Nando's amount - you took it off already to be able to start from 51M. So in your math, you are still sitting at 42.5M.

Then you trade Novak and Hayes (and our pick) effectively for nothing (one as part of a S+T for James, but the effect is the same). That brings your total to 31.9M. Except of course for roster slot holds - now that you've waived your rights to Patterson and de Colo, and waived the 4 horsemen, and traded away Hayes and Novak for nothing, you've got 6 roster slots to fill at a minimum, meaning 5 roster cap holds. So really you are looking at 34.4M.

Now, you need to absorb James' salary and also re-sign Lowry and Vasquez. You think you can re-sign Vasquez for 3M, and that's fine and dandy, but until you do, it is not his salary that counts against the cap but his cap hold, which is quite a bit higher (5M+). Still, let's give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you knew this and were planning to sign Vasquez before the LeBron deal shook out. So you need to leave 12.315M for their cap holds/contracts. That means 46.7M committed. That looks to be around 16.3M you could offer to LBJ, if you get GV to sign for 3M, and more like 14M if his cap hold stays on the cap and he is signed after the LBJ deal happens.

[imanshumpert]

DanH is right, except you forgot the empty roster spot cap holds so we actually have even less than that.

[DanH]

DanH is right, except you forgot the empty roster spot cap holds so we actually have even less than that.

I have roster slot holds in there.

Except of course for roster slot holds - now that you've waived your rights to Patterson and de Colo, and waived the 4 horsemen, and traded away Hayes and Novak for nothing, you've got 6 roster slots to fill at a minimum, meaning 5 roster cap holds. So really you are looking at 34.4M.

[imanshumpert]

Oooh missed that.

[iblastoff]

Umm what... yes there is.

Impossible means it has a 0% chance of happening. If something has like a 0.0001% chance of happening then yes it is close to or borderline impossible. Not sure what your point is here.