u/NihilisticTaters

The NBA requires all teams to have 14 guarantees but can have up to 15 and three 2ways. We just signed both our 2nd round picks to be 2ways and now have 13 guaranteed spots filled with JQ and Reed Jr signing today. The luxury tax threshold for 2026+27 has been set at $200.43M.

I just looked at the updated cap numbers with Jules extension $15.35M, Harris $15.04M, Barnes $8.00M, JQ $3.90M and Reed Jr $3.08M.

With those added in, we only have $4.60M below the luxury tax.

2+ year vet minimums start (and are capped at) counting against the cap as $2.45M so I'm now confident we will NOT be signing 2 of those guys before the season starts since it'd be silly for ownership to start our clock on being a repeater tax penalty team + pass on getting a cut of the tax pool payout next season by going into the tax $300k for a 15th spot vet minimum.

DJG only has 1 year of NBA experience so a minimum for him would only cost $2.19M. Unfortunately, him + another 2+ year vet minimum at $2.45M puts us over the luxury tax by ~$40k lol.

There is a way around this though!

Player salaries count against the cap based on % of the season their contracts are on the books....So what we'll do instead is go into the season with 14 guarantees and keep the 15th open for a signing that counts against the cap with a pro-rated amount of the contract value to the % of season left from the day they're signed.

We would only have to wait like a week to just slide under the luxury with the pro-rated contract for DJG, but may not want to commit to him like that and instead bring him back on a 2way where he'd compete with our other 2ways through the season for that 15th spot, to be playoff roster eligible. If we wait long enough, we could even bring in any 2+ year vet FA when buyout season hits on a vet minimum since half the season will have been gone.

Kenrich "Kenny Hustle" Williams shot 39% from three on 441 attempts across the last 3 seasons, decent mobility and strength for defending 4s and 5s, will be 32 next season, doesn't make mistakes, and has championship pedigree as an in and out of rotation role player that doesn't complain when he goes from DNP-CD to 20 mins to 5 mins between games in a playoff series, like this year's WCF.

OKC will almost certainly decline his $7.2M team option, making him a UFA that can probably be convinced to not return to OKC on a 1 yr vet minimum that'd pay him $3.6M (9 yrs service) for a ~$5M AAV 2 year contact.

We basically need reliable shooting stretch 4s that aren't defensive liabilities. The 2 first round rookies will combine to approx $7M against the cap for 2026-27. Assuming we decline the team option and renegotiate Julian on a more team friendly deal like $66M/4, that would still leave us with $24.7M in cap space below the tax. Non-tax MLE makes up $15M and BAE another $5.5M and 2 vet minimums gets us just up to the tax threshold. Ideally a large chunk of the non-tax MLE (~$10M) goes to starting or back up 4 like Collins or Bagley, but would be great to have another cheaper stretch 4/5 like Kenrich as injury insurance and depth.

On why he will almost surely not get his team option picked up by OKC:

OKC entered the off-season $28.6M above the 2nd apron for 2026-27 and just salary dumped Aaron Wiggins' $9M salary to Atlanta to cut their tax penalty from $213M to $152M. But last night they also drafted Mara ($5.7M) and Stirtz ($4.7M) bumping them back up $10.4M, or +$1.4M above where they started with Wiggins on the team (so now $30M above the 2nd apron).

Word is they're prioritizing bringing back both Hartenstein and Dort (team options) on longer term contacts, but also looking to save large on their tax bill like the Wiggins move so wil be looking to offload Kenrich Williams ($7.2M team option), Isaiah Joe's $11.3M and Topic's $5.4M in salary dump trades, which brings down their cap $23.9M. It seems unlikely any team would want Kenrich at $7.2M without some 2nd rd picks coming their way so OKC will almost certainly just decline and renounce him, making him a UFA. If they got rid of all 3, they'd need to add one more player to get to the roster minimum of 14 standard contracts...almost certainly a vet minimum which they'd likely offer to Kenrich unless he was convinced to sign elsewhere for more than that.