I think the other possible profile of a team is one in need of a star/name. That certainly includes the Knicks and might include (for totally different reasons) the Warriors. I'm not sure I see the deal in either place, but I do think that's an additional viable profile for an acquirer
New York has been discussing two different types of deals, a trade up in search of a player, or a trade for a name vet. My suspicion is that they just want a name to sell the public to convince them that there's hope for the future. They
do have a collection of PGs, but they either suck (DSJ), can't shoot (Payton), or are Wanamaker level players (Frankie Smokes). Hence all the talk about a CP3 trade.
Put another way, they're certainly a possibility for a Kemba Walker deal because he is a regular season closer that can help their good young guys (Barrett and Robinson) to the postseason. I'm also still relatively high on Kevin Knox if they could change the culture there. If New York could sell Kemba on their future, and he were OK with a deal, then Walker for #8 makes some sense. I mean, yes, he's getting up there for guys his size, but if he can help Barrett make that jump, there'd be hope there. And in this draft the odds of finding anyone as good as Walker are slim (and, honestly, as likely at #25 as #8).
For me the big thing that pops out of the analysis is that the Kemba signing was almost surely premised on 1) an assumption about revenue continuing to increase and 2) a commitment from ownership to pay the tax at some point.
What we don't know is the degree to which the change in 1) impacts the commitment in 2)
It's not about a one year dip so much as it's about avoiding the escalating taxes for being over the tax line three years in four and four years in five. At some point you need to reset the tax.
Man reading this thread is depressing. its about 85% we are screwed because of the Tax.
If thats truly the case then the NBA needs to make some serious changes. No way a team who (granted) spent for a couple of all Star caliber FAs and grew practically the entire rest of the roster should be hosed.
See Ben Hogan below. This last year everything that could possibly go wrong for Boston did. Based on pre-2019 revenue projections Boston was only slated to be a bit above the '21 tax line. But close enough to get under it. Then came the China kerfuffle followed by covid19 and the world changed.
Boston's original planning left them the ability to reset the tax next year if they had to. Unfortunately collapsing revenues have forced their hands here. Tatum will be getting the immediate second max deal as a designated rookie extension. Thanks to imploding revenues Brown's contract actually
is a max one now. Amusingly he might actually be getting
more than the max because he signed a sub-max extension with a set dollar amount whereas a lot of players just signed for 25% of the cap, which might not be be $100 million next year.
Most teams probably had it going from $109MM to $117MM in their 2020-21 models last Summer. Then people got a little uncomfortable after the Morey tweet. Obviously, the Pandemic is the game-changer.