Roster - Brooklyn Nets

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How Do We Pay For This?

Every team is going on a spending spree this offseason - it's basically league mandated due to salary cap increases. The Nets have gone on their spree earlier than any other team. But did they go overboard?

The team has been incredibly cap-conscious since Wizkid took over. Until signing Khris Middleton to an extension and trading for DeMarcus Cousins they didn't even have a player on the roster making more than about 8 million. If things hold to form, they'll most likely enter the season with a roster similar to what they have now - about half of their roster making near 8 million or more. They turned a rookie scale contract into Tobias Harris's fairly large deal and then flipped Avery Bradley's sweetheart deal for Eric Bledsoe and his sizable contract as well. Neither one of them are bad contracts, but they added a good 20 million to the roster.

The team has effectively disqualified themselves from being a participant in free agency, with 16 players currently incoming or already on guaranteed contracts and already nearly 9 million into the luxury cap. That certainly isn't ideal, but if there is a feeling that the currently constructed team can make the jump into the league's elite, then it is an acceptable fee to pay. However, the more likely scenario is that they're not in the league's elite - at least not yet.

There are several moves they could make to easily get under the luxury cap, especially with nearly every other team in the league having a wealth of cap space. You've got to assume that the projected starting lineup is all safe - Cousins, Harris, Bledsoe, Danilo Gallinari, and Khris Middleton. The only one of those guys that the team doesn't seem to be completely in love with is Gallinari, so Al-Farouq Aminu or whoever comes back via a trade could theoretically slide in at the forward spot opposite Harris.

The more likely possibility is trading one of their 3 key reserves in the backcourt. Dealing Austin Rivers for a smaller contract would get them under the luxury cap all by itself. Trading away Jeremy Lamb or Cory Joseph would get them close enough that they could find a new home for one or two of their deep bench prospects to get there as well. The problem is that they really like all three of those guys and feel like they all bring a different element to the team that could be needed down the stretch. However, they will have nearly 25 million invested in this trio of bench players - and they're all sitting behind two big time starters in the backcourt that will demand high minutes of their own. There is some outside concern that Bledsoe may not bounce back to where he was a year ago, forcing Rivers or Joseph into the starting lineup and then needing every bit of these three guys, but can you really make a plan around that?

All of this could be moot if Gallinari gets a wild hair and turns his back on Brooklyn, a longshot by most accounts. If that were to happen, the team would most likely still stand pat - moving Aminu into the starting lineup and having Lamb play a bigger role off of the bench. If there's one thing this team has no lack of, it's flexibility in the roster - even if they don't have much flexibility on the balance sheet.

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