salary speculation

[Peter Delevett <pdelevett@sjbj.com>]

Re: Pierce. The 1997 # 10 pick (Fortson) signed a 3 year, $4.3 mil deal and earned $1.29 mil last year. The 1996 #10 pick, Dampier, signed for 3 years, $4 million, and earned $1.36 mil last year. Assuming (which one never should) that Pierce's deal will be worth 7.5% more than Fortson's, which in turn was 7.5% more than Dampier's, PP would get $4.62 mil/3 years, which could theoretically give him a 98-99 cap figure of $1.54 million. If the C's could backload the deal and perhaps get Pierce to accept 7.5% more than Fortson earned LAST year, Pierce's cap figure would be $1.38 mil. We can take the conservative approach and figure the higher amount, or split the difference ($1.46 mil), or whatever.  
If we add $1.46 mil to Warwick's figures, also adding $1 mil to Walker's salary to account for a possible misprint, and including Dino's dough until proven otherwise, that brings the tally, excluding FAs, to $28.63 million. The question then becomes, what will the cap do? If it rises by the same amount it did last year, the ceiling would be $29.4 million ... not much for the C's to do much more than pick up an order of bagels. If, however, Warwick & Josh are right, the cap would rise anywhere between $3 million ($29.9 mil) to $6 million ($32.9 mil). Again, just for fun, let's split the difference -- the cap climbs $4.5 million to $31.4 million.

We thus have $2.77 million in cap room ... well below what Geiger or any other premium FA is said to want. I've proposed before that we could backload a deal that might pay $4 mil in year 1, adding $2 mil a year as Minor & Pervert roll off the books, and culminating in $10 mil for year four; a total of $28 mil over 4 years, or $7 mil a year. That would easily land us Geiger and maybe even Ike. However, based on this new info, we would need to free up an additional $1.3 million in space next year to put together a deal like this, and keeping Popeye would be out of the question.

$2.7 mil, on the other hand, might be more than enough to convince Popeye to stay, considering he earmed almost $1.9 mil last year. I hate to see us forced to choose between Popeye and a FA center -- I've been hoping we could do both -- but unless the cap really does go up by $6 mil, or unless Radja really does roll off the books this year, it looks now like we might not have enough flex to do this. (gloomy sigh ...) Unless, of course, we acquire a center (Elden Campbell/Brian Williams) through trade instead of free agency.

One final note -- Warwick, I don't think the idea of trading for Ostertag is all that bad (groans of disbelief). He can run the court and can block shots (#11 in league last year I believe in just 20 mpg); and his point & rebound total on a per-minute basis is comparable to Travis'. But two things scare me: his 6 year, $40 mil deal kicks in next year, meaning that even if Warwick is right about his figure for next year, Ostertag's deal over its life averages twice that of Trav's. Secondly, Ostertag was just hospitalized for meningitis, so I'd want a very clean bill of health before signing someone who'd had such a serious condition.


 Player                  Pos  Ht  Wt    B-day   98-99 > Salary/ContractStatus
> Kenny Anderson ........  G  6-1  168  10/9/70   $5,845,000
> Dana Barros ...........  G  5-11 163  4/13/67   $3,500,000
> Greg Minor ............ F-G 6-6  230  9/18/71   $2,520,000
> Pervis Ellison ........ F-C 6-10 242   4/3/67   $2,420,000
> Travis Knight .........  C  7-0  235  9/13/74   $2,400,000
> Ron Mercer ............ G-F 6-7  210  5/18/76   $2,034,000
> Andrew DeClercq ....... F-C 6-10 230   2/1/73   $1,440,000
> Antoine Walker ........  F  6-9  245  8/12/76   $1,216,000
> Walter McCarty ........  F  6-10 230   2/1/74     $975,000
> Dontae' Jones .........  F  6-8  220   6/2/75     $814,000
> Bruce Bowen ...........  F  6-7  200  6/14/71     $507,000
> Paul Pierce ...........  F  6-7  220 10/13/77  unsigned 1st round
rookie
> > (Dino Radja ... $2,500,000  released, still against the cap)
> Tyus Edney ............  G  5-10 152  2/14/73  free agent  [$400,000]
> Reggie Hanson .........  F  6-8  195   4/3/67  free agent  [$272,250]
> Popeye Jones ..........  F  6-8  250  6/17/70  free agent [$1,886,538]
> Zan Tabak .............  C  7-0  245  6/15/70  free agent  > [$950,000]Warwick
> > > Total, using these figures, no FAs, no Dino, is 23,671,000.  > Antoine is probably incorrect by, say, one million (does anyone know
for > sure?).
> Paul Pierce will make, what, 1.5 million? Anyone?
> > That's around 26 million.