2028-2029 PRE SEASON REPORT This off season has been far busier than I anticipated. We drafted small forward Enric Obrégon with the sixth overall pick in the draft, extended D'Angelo Russell's contract, signed four free agents and exercised the rookie options on Marcus Bosl, Ryan Jefferson and Gregory Hawkins. D'Angelo Russell is 32 years-old, but he is currently playing better than ever. Extending his contract through the 2032-2033 may be risky, but he will save us approximately $30 million over the length of his contract and that makes him a bargain.
I didn't plan on signing four free agents, but I'm happy that I did. We brought back center Steven Adams at the minimum and signed former Bulls players, shooting guard Markelle Fultz and power forward Luke Kornet on low-level exceptions. I also signed center Tony Bradley on a mid-level exception to be McCuthison's backup. Now, this is where things get weird. Last year, Midway through the season, I traded Markelle Fultz to Milwaukee for Jaylen Nowell. Now that Fultz is back on the team, coach Starks has decided to go with Fultz as the starting shooting guard, with Hawkins as the sixth man and Nowell relegated to the bench.
Nowell makes way too much money to ride the pine, so I decided to seek out a trade. I wasn't looking to cut payroll, but rather find a suitable backup for Russell. I eventually struck a deal with the Portland Trailblazers for PG Trevon Duval and SF Dan Keith. Keith is only 23 years-old and could develop into a decent small forward, but truthfully, he was packaged in the deal to reached the leagues' cap requirements. The 30 year-old Duval was brought in to be a backup, but once again coach Starks has thrown me another curve ball and placed Duval, a point guard, in the starting lineup as the starting shooting guard??? This subsequently relegates Fultz to the bench behind Hawkins. Look, I get it. Hawkins is a good young player, but his basketball IQ is preventing him from getting a starting role.
So we enter the season just under $42 million under the cap, but we have what I would consider an even better, albeit older, team than last year. Can we repeat a 76 win season, unlikely, but we are the defending NBA Champions and there is no reason we can't repeat. We better, because the owner is going to **** himself when he sees how much money I've spent. The funny thing is that once again Atlanta has been picked to finish ahead of us in the Eastern Conference. No respect I tell ya!
Lastly, I didn't think the salary cap was keeping up with the current player salary demands, so I found a site that had the projected cap through the 2028 season and adjusted accordingly. I also like nice round numbers, so I rounded the cap off at $180 million with $215 million luxury tax cap. I will manually increase both by $10 million each year from here on out. So, next years cap will be $190 and the luxury tax cap at $225.
STAFFThe entire staff was in the final year of their contracts and now seemed like the prudent time to negotiate new deals. So, I basically gave them all what they wanted and next year's staff budget is going to be through the roof...I don't care.
Now this is an area that I really take issue with. First, there is no mechanism to negotiate an increase in staff payroll and that makes it literally impossible to re-sign or sign good coaches as salaries increase. Plus, every team seems to have a different staff budget. I think ours is $12,800,000 for four coaches and the training staff, which is a joke. There are coaches in the league that demand and get paid more than that per season. In the real world, the highest paid coaches earn around $11 mil a year, but in the game a coach like Steve Kerr makes $19.8 million a year, Doc Rivers $17.9, Stan Van Gundy $15.1, Erik Spoelstra $14.8, Tom Thibodeau $13.5, Quinn Snyder $13.9, Brad Stevens $13.4 and Scott Brooks $13.9. Everyone of those teams is over their staff budgets. Cleveland (Doc Rivers) is actually $-26.9 million over their staff budget and Cleveland's owner has no desire to win or spend money, so why are they that far over budget???
Regardless, I see this area of the game as a detriment. Coaches salaries are out of control, as evident by my current staffs new renegotiated deals. All my coaches wanted four year deals and I tried to negotiate their requests down a bit, they all pretty much got what they asked for. Head Coach $17,425,000 per year, 1st Assistant $10,025,000 per year, 2nd Assistant $2,850,000 per year and third assistant $1,610,000 per year. Should I have resigned all four coaches, of course not, but I just had to see how much it was going to cost. The only way I could have even remotely stayed within the staff budget was to let both the head coach and first assistant go. My head coach record is 208-38, three playoffs and two championships and I'm just supposed to let him go?!? Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Anyway, this is just my pet peeve and I don't like how staffing and staff budget works.DRAFTWe had the sixth overall pick in the NBA Draft, but the draft was very weak this year and there weren't a lot of great players available outside of the top three. So, we selected Small forward Enric Obrégon from Spain. Obrégon is 6'8", 233 lbs and only 19 years old. He is a very raw talent and despite J.P.'s incessant bitching about my picks, the staff really liked him, so I selected him. I think he has some upside, but I don't see him lasting very long if he doesn't develop quickly and he'll probably spend his first year, maybe two, in the D-League.
TRADESTrailblazers trade PG Trevon Duval and SF Dan Keith to the Bulls for SG Jaylen Nowell, PG Andrew Miller, 2029 1st round pick, 2029 2nd round pick and 2029 2nd round pick (via WAS).
CONTRACTSExtended the contract of D'Angelo Russell ($85,546,515 over 3 years)
Exercised rookie option for Marcus Bosl.
Exercised rookie option for Ryan Jefferson
Exercised rookie option for Gregory Hawkins
FREE AGENCY- Code: Select all
C Tony Bradley |$16,000,000/2y
SG Markelle Fultz | $6,745,568/2y
PF Luke Kornet | $6,745,568/2y
C Steven Adams | $3,372,784/1y
TEAM ROSTER- Code: Select all
STARTERS | PS | GM | GS | MPG | PPG | APG | RPG |
D'Angelo Russell | PG | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Trevon Duval | PG | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Jayson Tatum | SF | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Giannis Antetokounmpo | PF | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Justin McCuthison | C | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
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BENCH | PS | GM | GS | MPG | PPG | APG | RPG |
Gregory Hawkins | SG | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Ryan Jefferson | PF | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Markelle Fultz | SG | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Toney Bradley | C | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Steven Adams | C | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Marcus Bosl | PG | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
KZ Okpala | SF | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Luke Kornet | PF | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Dan Keith | SF | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Enric Obrégon | SF | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
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D-LEAGUE | PS | GM | GS | MPG | PPG | APG | RPG |
Dan Keith | SF | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Enric Obrégon | SF | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
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SALARY CAPCAP: $180,000,000
TAX: $215,000,000
CONTRACTS (TEAM SALARY $221,950,140 / CAP STATUS $-41,950,140)- Code: Select all
Player | PS | CUR | POT | HGT | LBS | AG | EX | SALARY | CONTRACT
Giannis Antetokounmpo | PF | 4.5 | 4.5 | 6-11| 242 | 34 | 15 | $49,390,625 | $100,820,312/2y
D'Angelo Russell | PG | 3.5 | 3.5 | 6-4 | 193 | 32 | 13 | $37,382,085 | $122,928,600/4y
Jayson Tatum | SF | 4.0 | 4.0 | 6-8 | 204 | 30 | 11 | $37,220,754 | $76,720,329/2y
Justin McCuthison | C | 3.5 | 4.0 | 6-11| 280 | 24 | 4 | $32,900,000 | $104,622,000/3y
Trevon Duval | PG | 2.5 | 2.5 | 6-2 | 194 | 30 | 10 | $14,344,128 | $29,589,009/2y (PO)
Gregory Hawkins | SG | 3.5 | 4.0 | 6-4 | 198 | 23 | 1 | $10,379,600 | $21,485,772/2y (RO)
Tony Bradley | C | 2.5 | 2.5 | 6-10| 248 | 31 | 11 | $8,300,000 | $16,600,000/2y
Enric Obrégon | SF | 1.0 | 3.0 | 6-8 | 233 | 19 | 0 | $6,654,853 | $13,808,753/2y (RO)
Ryan Jefferson | PF | 3.5 | 3.5 | 6-8 | 222 | 25 | 2 | $5,218,497 | $11,872,080/2y
Dan Keith | SF | 2.0 | 2.5 | 6-9 | 234 | 23 | 1 | $4,111,800 | $8,511,426/2y (RO)
KZ Okpala | SF | 2.0 | 2.0 | 6-8 | 215 | 29 | 9 | $3,549,338 | $3,549,338/1y
Markelle Fultz | SG | 2.5 | 2.5 | 6-3 | 200 | 30 | 11 | $3,372,784 | $6,745,568/2y
Luke Kornet | PF | 2.0 | 2.0 | 7-2 | 240 | 33 | 11 | $3,372,784 | $6,745,568/2y
Steven Adams | C | 2.0 | 2.0 | 6-11| 265 | 35 | 15 | $3,372,784 | $3,372,784/1y
Marcus Bosl | PG | 2.5 | 2.5 | 6-0 | 189 | 25 | 2 | $2,380,180 | $6,676,202/2y
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