Originally Posted by Underdog
If we're talking $30m per year for Hill, and a $103m salary cap, you can remove the Spurs, Rockets, Pistons, and Magic from the list because they're already pushing up against next year's cap... And the Bulls, Knicks, Kings, Wolves, Nuggets, and Bucks would each have to shed upwards toward $10m in salary to afford him, but it's doable... Which leaves the 76ers, Nets, Bucks, and Mavs as the only teams that can sign him outright with their available cap space.
But the Kings, 76ers, Mavs, Wolves, Knicks, Bucks and Magic could all picking high enough to get a rookie PG, with most mocks predicting at least 3 of these teams landing one... It's almost a sure thing that the Kings and 76ers take one of those guys, with the Knicks and Mavs also projected to take one if they're still on the board. And the Lakers and Suns are projected to take one as well, which means Russell or Bledsoe could be on the move, and may eliminate a couple more teams from this list.
And of course you have to consider other free agents, like Noel for the Mavs... If we max him out at $20m, then we'd have to move Powell and convince Dirk to take damn-near minimum to squeeze Hill onto our roster. It's doable, but not likely. I'm sure more than a few teams have higher FA priorities than Hill.
Oh, and CP3 could opt out of his contract, knocking Hill down the pecking order this summer.
So, yeah, I agree that Hill probably has less leverage than he thinks. The free agent class is kinda weak, but the draft class is full of guys who could be as good as, if not better, than Hill -- and they're all going to be a lot cheaper.
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