Can Pelicans Navigate the Salary Cap MINEFIELD and Build a Contender Around Zion Williamson?

Can Pelicans Navigate the Salary Cap MINEFIELD and Build a Contender Around Zion Williamson?

The salary cap situation for the Pelicans, it’s going to impact or limit every move they make going forward. We’re going to break it all down in the Thursday episode of Locked On Pelicans. Let’s [Music] go. You are Locked On Pelicans, your daily New Orleans Pelicans podcast, part of the Locked On Network. your team every day. Welcome to another edition of Locked On Pelicans, the daily podcast covering your favorite team, the New Orleans Pelicans and NBA. Part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day, available wherever you get your podcast and available on YouTube. I’m your host, Pelicans Insider, credential member of the media, Jake Madison at Nola Jake on Twitter. here with you on this Thursday and we are getting deep into the numbers here with the Pelican salary cap. If you’re a newer fan, maybe you don’t know what the collective bargaining agreement is, what all the levels of the salary cap is. We’ve got the show for you and we’re going to relate everything to New Orleans and how it can help them make moves or limit them, prevent them from making moves and being active in free agency. Do they have the ability to build a contending team? You’re going to get some answers to that question in today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans. Today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can get $200 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. And of course, thank you for making Locked On Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We’re here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast, covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. So, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and join over 11,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well. and become an everydayer. That means you listen Monday through Friday to the Locked on Pelicans podcast. Okay, let’s get into this. I’ve got a lot of notes on this one. I’ve got a couple of Excel spreadsheets up. We’re getting a little nerdy with the numbers today. So, let’s go over the most important salary cap, CBA, collective bargaining agreement things and how they relate to the Pelicans. And this is going to be a pretty highle overview. We’re not going to get too deep into the weeds on this. There’s going to be some minor things regarding everything that you’re going to hear in this, but all this is going to matter to the Pelicans, and those minor things probably won’t matter that much. So, let’s get into this one here. Game base salary cap is a set amount of money that’s designed to limit what teams can spend on player payroll. And the number is determined each season based on a percentage of projected basketball related income for the upcoming year. That is called BRRI. In the upcoming season, the salary cap is $154.6 million. Now, there is no hard cap in the NBA like I believe there is in the NFL that just can’t be exceeded under any scenario. The NBA has a soft cap is what they call it. So, teams are allowed to go over that soft salary cap using a variety of other methods. They’re usually called exceptions. We’ll get into those a little bit later. So, this leads to the first decision teams need to make when you’re in the offseason in terms of how you operate. The first decision teams need to make is are you a cap space team or are you an overthe cap team? Most teams operate as an over-the-cap team nowadays and the Pelicans are going to be an over-thecap team as well this year. When you are an overthe cap team, you don’t use cap space, salary cap space to sign players. You need to use exceptions to sign players. The Pelicans are going to be an over-the cap team. So, we said that 154.6 is the soft cap number. The Pelicans total salary as of now, they can cut some of this. When you add the seventh pick into it, is $183.5 million, $183.6, six, let’s call it. That gives them a total amount of cap space of just under negative $29 million. They’re over the soft cap by about $29 million. They have negative cap space technically here. So, they to sign players don’t have cap space to use. So, you need to use exceptions. We’ll get into the exceptions in the next segment here. So, let’s go into a couple more thresholds. That first one is the soft tap. The next threshold is the luxury tax. Basically, if a team’s payroll is greater than a certain amount, that team must pay a tax. So, the t the way the tax works is a little bit complicated and there’s kind of two forms of this, right? Franchises teams start by paying a $1.50 to the league for every dollar they go over that luxury tax threshold. And that rate gets it increases the further you go over. So say your first 5 million over it’s 150 per dollar. When you get into the next 5 million f you know so it would be like 501 to 10 million that might jump up to 1.75 per dollar. So the deeper into the tax you go essentially the higher your payroll is the more money you actually pay. So it’s on a scale that goes up like that. The luxury tax. Oh, additionally the league also has something called a repeater tax penalty. That’s an additional dollar for-dollar tax over the payroll threshold. If you’ve paid the tax in three of the previous four seasons when we talk about ducking the tax, it’s often a team has been in the tax two years. They don’t want to be in that third year. So, you duck it. So, it resets essentially in a sense that’s rolling that repeater tax penalty. The luxury tax threshold this year, we’ll round up to make it easy, is $188 million. With the Pelgans being at $183.6, they essentially are at around the exact number I have is $4,319,00016 uh 116 as well. So, you’re about $4.3 million away from the luxury tax and those harsh penalties. Keep in mind, the Pelicans are one of two franchises that has never paid the luxury tax at all. You want to do that when you have a contender, especially in a small market team like this. The Indiana Pacers aren’t in the luxury tax this year, by the way. You know, you want to do that when you’re like, “Oh, we’re going for it and we got to have a high payroll to do it to keep our players.” You look at the Boston Celtics, they are actually paying more in tax penalties this year than their actual payroll is, which is, I believe, the first time in league history that has ever happened. They have their salary is about like $215 million. They’re paying like $270 basically in luxury tax payments. Their payroll is coming close to when you factor in the player salaries and all the luxury tax payments. $500 million. Pelicans right now are at 183. There’s a massive disparity right there. So the tax number is 188. The Pelicans have about are about 4.3 million from it. They can also clear some more room by waving a player or two. Worth noting here, and this is one of the reasons why the Pelicans haven’t paid the luxury tax, is half the money collected from the NBA from the taxpaying teams gets distributed to other teams in equal shares. So, when you hear them trading away multiple second round picks or a second round pick with Kyro Lewis Jr. or Daniel Ty to deduct the tax, it’s going to save them the salary of the player, the tax payments that you would essentially need to make, which let’s call it 150 per dollar there. So, if a guy’s $2 million, you’re looking at him being a $5 million player if you’re in the luxury tax because of it. And then if it’s 2 million over, let’s say, and then you don’t get the money that’s the payout from the league, which is anywhere from 15 to $20 million. That becomes like a $25 million swing all of a sudden just for being $2 million into the luxury tax. There’s two more levels you need to know about. The first, these are both called aprons. The first is the well, I guess the first apron. It’s basically a number above the salary cap and luxury tax that when exceeded triggers restrictions on teams ability to make certain player transactions. It’s essentially designed to limit financial flexibility of teams with high payrolls and make you not competitive and thus break up your team. So, it’s designed to increase parody around the league. The first apron is 196 million this year. here. So, the Pelicans are about $11 million from it. The first Apron can be triggered not just by going over a certain payroll threshold, but by also doing other things using certain exceptions. We’ll get into those a little bit later. You don’t really need to worry about that. The Pelgans aren’t getting anywhere close to the First Apron. But if you are a First Apron team, you have no by-anual exception. You have no non-taxpayer mid-level exception. You are not allowed to acquire players via signin trade. you’re not allowed to claim players off waiverss if their salary was greater than the non- taxpayer mid-level exception and you basically don’t get to use um it you don’t get to use traded player exceptions so it limits what you can do and thus your team stagnates so you break it up look at the Boston Celtics this year as an example but there’s also a second apron the the Celtics are also in the second apron here and that is even higher the second apron is about, let’s round up again, $28 million. So, the Pelicans have about 22 $23 million to that. They’re not getting close to the first or second apron anyway. When you’re in that, all of the rules and restrictions for the first apron apply, but now you’re not allowed to aggregate contracts together. So, when we get into trades in the third segment, and the salaries often need to match, you can’t take a $15 million player and a $10 million player and trade for a $25 million player. it becomes very very restricted. You’re not allowed to use catch uh cash to match salaries in a trade. You don’t have any mid-level exception at all. And draft picks seven years ahead are frozen and you can’t trade them. So, it limits basically what you’re allowed to do. So, given where the Pelicans are with negative cap space, say you want them to acquire someone like Nas Reed from the Minnesota Timberwolves who’s going to be potentially could be a free agent. He’s a player option. The Pelicans can’t just go and outright sign Nas Reed for a $20 million per year contract. You know, you’re negative cap space $29 million. You can’t just go out and sign Nas Reed to whatever contract you and him agree to and then he just plays for you, which makes it kind of feel when you’re $29 million over the cap that you can’t do anything, right? Like what how do you acquire new players? What do you what do you do here? That’s where the exceptions come in. Let’s get into that coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans. Today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans is brought to you by FanDuel. The playoffs are in full swing and every night has incredible performances, especially if you’re Tyrese Hallebertton here. So whether it’s a game-winning shot or a breakout player, there’s never been a better time to get in on the action. And in FanDuel makes it easy to stay in the game before tip off and live with player props, performance trends, and same game parlays. Fans have more ways than ever to play smart and win big. 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We’re here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this Pelican Steam. So please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and join over 11,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well. Become an everydayer. That means you listen Monday through Friday. And if you are an everydayer, let me know in the comments down below. Let me know if the show’s helpful for just understanding kind of the rules that govern transactions and how the NBA works. We’re breaking down the salary cap here, what the Pelicans can do, what they can’t do, what limitations are on them, because this rules all of this stuff, and you need to know it because the Pelicans, based on what we just said, don’t sound like they’ll be big players in free agency, right? You are well over the soft cap. You don’t have cap space to spend. You’re only $4 million away from the luxury tax. Basically, right now, what can the Pelicans do? And that’s a very valid question, right? They can’t just go out and sign Nas Reed for $20 million. I’m using him as an example because he’s someone who’ll get about that. Pelicans can’t just be like, “Hey, Nas Reed, we’ll offer you 20 million. We’ll give you a threeear $60 million deal. Come to New Orleans.” Not allowed to do it. So, how are they going to find impactful players to turn this roster from where it is to be in a championship contender other than just health with Zion Williamson? They’re going to need some stuff. So, that’s where exceptions come into play. When you are an overthe cap team, remember I said that first distinction you need to make, that first decision you need to make. Are we a cap space team or are we an over-the cap team? Almost every team this summer, I think probably 29 out of 30 is going to be an over-the-cap team. So, that’s where exceptions come in. Exceptions let you exceed that soft cap that let you get above that $154.6 million to spend more. And there are a variety of except of exceptions that let you do that. The most common one that you’ve probably heard in terms of free agency, though it can be used in other ways, too, is the midlevel exception. But here’s the thing. There’s three mid-level exceptions. Did you know that one? So, let’s go through those and kind of what they mean, what the amounts are. The one that you don’t see used a ton, but it’s medium, is called the room mid-level exception. This exception is available to teams that are significantly below the salary cap and have tap room. You can sign a guy for two-year contracts that starts at $8.78 million. The next one is for teams that are in the luxury tax but below the second apron and that is called the where did it just go? The taxpayer mid-level exception. Contracts can start for up to four years and they start at 5.685 million of the first year salary. That’s it. And all of these contracts have 5% raises. It can’t be 5.68 68 million the first year and then like $15 million the next year. It doesn’t work like that. The most common one is called the non- taxpayer mid-level exception. This is the biggest one. You can sign players with first year salaries up to a little over $14 million. And these contracts can be up for um four seasons. So that’s putting you it’s 28 million over the first two years. So you’re looking at right around like $58 million contract for four years is some general what that would kind of come down to. Maybe it’s 60 if we’re rounding up. You can use that whole amount. Let’s Let’s focus on the non-axpayer mid-level exception because that’s kind of where the Pelgans are. They’re not in the luxury tax. So, you can use the non- taxpayer mid-level exception, $14 million. Let’s say you can use all of it. You can use part of it. You could sign someone for a two $2 million deal and break this up with multiple players if you wanted. You can also use it for the full calendar year. So, you don’t need to do it necessarily during this part of the off season. You could do it during the season to sign somebody something like that. Here’s the thing though. We just went over the Pelicans have never paid the luxury tax. We don’t think they’re going to pay the luxury tax this year either. Maybe we’ll be surprised and be incorrect. So, while they have $14 million to spend with the non-T taxpayer mid-level exception, they’re realistically only going to use as of now $4 million of that. They have one open roster spot after the seventh pick. They’ll maybe look to sign a guy for $4 million. Now, you could wave Alfred Payeyton and clear up another three. You could wave Brandon Boston Jr., save about two and a half. I don’t think you’re going to get a better player than Brandon Boston Jr. at 2 and a.5 million, so they probably keep him, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they wave him. So, you can maybe wave Alfred Payton and now all of a sudden you’re working with about $7.5 million to spend on a player as their first year salary. It’s not going to get you someone great, but it can get you somebody. That’s kind of what the Pelicans have this off season. You know, their salary is pretty big. It’s top half of the league right now and it’s really topheavy with the players. They have three players making more than $30 million this year and a fourth and Trey Murphy making 25. This is why when I did the Zion trade, I was really trying to kind of fix and create flexibility for the Pelicans in terms of their salary cap because I don’t view this as particularly great. There’s now this is not an impactful free agent class so you it’s not like you need money to spend here but these exceptions can be used in a variety of other ways but this is essentially what they have. They also have access to another exception called the byianual exception and the bannual exception is exception that can be used by each team in non-consecutive years. So basically every other year minimum, right? Uh to sign one or more players even if you’re already over the salary cap. It’s a different version of the mid-level exception if you want to think about it that way. It can be um I believe you can sign place for two years and that goes starts at 1 point uh sorry $5.135 million. They’ll use that or they’ll use the non- taxpayer minle exception to sign somebody maybe and that’s about it. They might not sign anybody in free agency right now and they certainly don’t have the money to go after a $20 million guy or someone like that. So, they’re a little bit limited here. Truthfully, I’ve been concerned about the salary cap for a little while. This is kind of what happens when you have three players making 30 plus million dollars, right? This hurts your depth and things like that too by being that topheavy. And if those guys don’t play, Zion missing tons of games or Dejonte Murray not being ready to start the season, it really puts you at a disadvantage and it’s going to make this upcoming season challenging for New Orleans. Nola Starbar, I saw you in the comments when you said I think it’s easy for them to become a contender. I don’t based on their salary cap right now because they’re not going to be able to do much in free agency to go and get the type of players that they’re going to want to get. Again, free agency is not the best example because this is not a good free agent class overall, but there are players to be had that would really help this team and the Pelicans probably aren’t going to be able to financially get those type of players. So, how are they going to do that then, right? Well, this comes into trades, signin trades, and something called bird rights that you might have heard but don’t know what those are. Let’s explore that and how that’s also still potentially going to limit the New Orleans Pelicans. That’s coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans. And thank you for making Locked on Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We are here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. So please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and join over 11,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well and become an everydayer. That means you listen Monday through Friday to locked on Pelicans. And if you’re an everydayer, let me know in the comments down below. Again, let me know if this is helpful. We can do a show like this for like the advanced analytics, some of the statistics that I like to use and kind of give you like a primer for that sort of thing because this is important for knowing what moves the Pelicans can make or maybe why they didn’t make a move in the first place. And they are somewhat limited here, at least in terms of spending in free agency. But look, basically every team’s limited when it comes to spending in free agency, which will thus drive down those players numbers, uh, salaries and all that. maybe means someone that you wouldn’t normally be able to get on that non-t taxpayer middle level exception. One of the three is someone that you would be able to get. By the way, on that you can only use one of those three. You don’t have like three mid-level exceptions available. You have like you have one of them to use and it kind of depends on where you are in terms of salary and all of that. And even some of the limitations that you have if you’re in those second or you know that first or second apron which the Pelicans will not be in any capacity. Don’t worry about that. So, they’re not going to be big players in free agency, but we want to try and upgrade the I’m pointing to like my spreadsheet here. What can they do? And that’s where this gets a little bit more interesting because you still have to kind of play within limitations of the salary cap and the collective bargaining agreement. So, we’re going to go back to something called exceptions. Bird rights is an exception. It’s technically called the bird exception. A team can exceed the salary cap to resign its own free agent own free agent at an amount up to the maximum salary. A qualifying player must play three seasons for the same team continuously to obtain bird rights which are named after the Boston Celtics wanted to resign Larry Bird and were allowed to seed this they were the first team to be allowed to exceed the salary cap to be able to resign him. This is so teams can retain their good players. If you draft really well and all these guys blossom and get big contracts, bird rights allows you to keep all those guys and you shouldn’t punish teams because you drafted well essentially, right? There’s also something called an early bird exception. This is not something we’re going to need to worry about as much though factored in with Herb Jones um and his extension a couple of years ago. Teams can resign their own free agents if the if they if they played for the team for some or all of the previous two seasons. You can then basically give them 105% of the average player’s salary for the prior season or 175% raise on that player’s previous salary. It’s not always used, but it’s there. You don’t need to worry about it too much. So, this matters when it comes to Bruce Brown and really Jeremiah Robinson Earl. Those are only the those are really only the two guys kind of on expiring deals that are free agents. So, the Pelicans, should they want to resign Bruce Brown and his $20 million from last year, can exceed the salary cap to go and do it. You don’t need to use a mid-level exception or anything like that. You simply use bird rights to go and do that. And essentially, that’s what the Pelicans could do if you wanted to bring Bruce Brown Jr. back. Those bird rights transfer with the players. So, as long as they have them, they have them. And the team that controls the player has them, too. You can lose them, too. But, um, Bruce Brown Jr. would Oh, wait. No, no, no. So, he doesn’t actually have them, thinking about it, cuz he signed as a free agent with the Indiana Pacers who traded him there. It was a two-year deal. So, he actually doesn’t have bird rights. So, they can’t use bird rights on Bruce Brown Jr. to see figuring things out here in the moment. Basically, it’s you know, if you know, Trey Murphy, right, is a good example. You signed with an extension, allowed you to exceed the salary cap for it because he’d played for you for the previous three years, and it’s a rookie scale exception. So, those are kind of how it works a little bit here. You know, bird rights are important for allowing you to exceed the exceed the salary cap. Actually doesn’t really factor in right now for the New Orleans Pelicans. So that’s good. But it is important for something called signing trade. So I’m glad we mentioned it here. I said the key thing of that bird right statement is a team can exceed the salary cap to resign its own free agents. Now let’s talk about what the heck a signin trade is. So, a sign and trade is exactly what it sounds like. Let me pull this up here. Sign and trade allows teams to resign their own free agents for trading purposes. Under this rule, the player is resigned and immediately traded to another team. This is done by we don’t need all of that here, right? So, basically, you sign them and then immediately trade them to another team. They can only trade players that were on the team the previous season. So if you want to get we’ll go back to Nasreed, right? This is how you get him a sign and trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves. So Pelicans and Nause meet. Yeah. Yeah. 3 years 60 million 20 a year. N Reed is like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” Pelicans need to go to Minnesota and go, “We need you or we want you to sign and trade Nasreed to us.” and then the team needs to or doesn’t need to help make that happen. Minnesota could be like, “Yeah, we’re not going to do that.” And the Pelicans thus don’t get Nas Reed. Now, this is where things get a little bit complicated in terms of salary matching when it comes to it in NBA trades for teams operating as over-the cap teams. So, basically, every team this year, salary matching needs to be a thing. So basically when a team trades players incoming salaries must ma generally match the outgoing salaries of the players. It basically is designed to prevent teams from like stacking and saying salary like that right and to not having like a skewed league. So if you send out $20 million in general you need to bring back about $20 million. There’s some quirks to it but we don’t need to go into that right now. But it’s generally in that range. It’s usually you can bring back 125% on players above 30 million. So if you’re trading guys I really dropped things here. Um if you’re trading out a $30 million guy, you can bring back some more money per all of this. It can be a little bit more on players below essentially $29 million. Doesn’t matter here. So you could sign and trade Bruce Brown. May, and we talked about this in yesterday’s show. Maybe he agrees a deal. Whatever the amount is, $15 million, you can trade him to that. sign and trade him to the other team because they’re not going to have the cap space to sign him and thus you get something in return. So, one of the questions you might be asking is like, why would a team do that? Why would the Minnesota Timberwolves help the New Orleans Pelicans sign Nas Reed? We’re just going to keep rolling with that example. And it’s a very valid question here, right? So, the other team can kind of benefit because they get something in return for a player that they would otherwise lose in free agency, you know, potentially. This year is a little bit weird given there is no cap space out there. So I think you might see teams playing hard ball with this. But if you’re trading Nas Reed for $20 million, maybe you can get a first round pick or a second round pick in return for a player that doesn’t want to be there anymore, wants to go play for a different team and was planning on leaving you anyway. That can be useful, right? Just additional draft capital or anything you get back. Something’s better than nothing. But that salary also needs to match. So, it’s not just about the draft picks, and that’s where it can complicate it. You if you sign a trade Bruce Brown Jr. for $15 million, maybe he’s like, “I’m not resigning with you. I’m gonna go elsewhere no matter what. I want to go to this team. Can you make it happen?” They’ll send you two $7.5 million guys or one $15 million player. You know, for the Pelicans who have limited options to be able to fill out their roster, that’s just getting a dude back’s useful, right? This is why one of the things I’ve mentioned in the past is you need kind of like a tiered thing of salary where you have some of these mid tier salary guys to try and create, you know, that you could package together to get a better player. Pelicans haven’t really had that and it’s really created limitations on trying to figure out trades that they could do. So likely this off season New Orleans is going to be improving their roster or whatever they do through trades. That means the salary is going to need to match though. Or if there is a big name in free agency they want to make a splash, they’re going to have to figure out a signin trade. You know, for players, there aren’t tons of benefits to this, you know, because the contract would in theory be the same as his current team versus the new team. Maybe the new the old team couldn’t really do it. Um, and it’s easier to sign with them directly in free agency, but right now there’s that’s not going to be a thing. at least over $14 million beyond the mid-level exception number. So, a sign and trade’s going to need to be agreed upon, but you know, players might not want to do that because you might be we going to a team that’s weakened by giving up draft picks or players for this, right? Like, that’s a big factor into all of this and it’s going to lead to a really interesting off season. But this is kind of the Pelicans challenge here. Because of their salary, they don’t have a ton of things that they can do. You can trade Kelly Ool Lin at 13.5 million dollars and get a player making close-ish to 20, right? You know, around 19 million. You’re going to need to find that deal in the first place, though, right? Like, it’s easier said than done, but that’s what Kelly Lynn gives you. If you package Kelly Lin and Jordan Hawkins, you can get to near $30 million, let’s say, in a player, but it’s going to kill some of your depth there. and you’re going to have to give up draft picks to be able to make something like that happen. Teams are much more likely to request fewer draft picks and other compensation in a trade if you’re trading expiring salary because that money then falls off their books in a year. So, you do that with rebuilding teams that are like, “Yeah, I don’t want this player on my team long term.” Attach a pick to it and we’ll we’ll be fine. This is why I advocated for clearing salary cap space because with expiring contracts because the Pelicans don’t really have that and there’s not going to be a lot of teams that have that. Well, Pelons don’t have it all, but there’s not going to be a lot of teams that have that. And maybe the Pelicans can take advantage of being one of the few players in the market players teams in the market that can do that. And that’s a great way to build up a war chest of draft picks. That’s what the Oklahoma City Thunder have done. So basically they’re going to have four to 7.5 million to spend in free agency depending on what you do with Alfred P. But then you need to backfill that spot and that luxury tax line we’ve mentioned the first apron the second apron don’t matter. The line that matters for the Pelicans is the luxury tax threshold which they’re $4.3 million away from as of now can get to about seven and a half if you wave Alfred Payeyton. Maybe about $10 million if you wave Brandon Boston Jr. too. Now you can trade out salary and bring back less. That’ll change that as well. That’ll give you more breathing room. That’s a factor. But those are cost cutting moves that aren’t particularly exciting here. So, they’re in a they’re in a spot. I don’t know if it’s good. Don’t know if it’s bad. It’s not good. It’s not bad, per se. They’re they’re kind of there lumped in with a lot of other teams around the league, but probably limited just because they don’t have the full 14 mill. They have the full $14 million of the non-t taxpayer mid-le exception to spend, but probably won’t do that because of the luxury tax line that they’re at. So that’s how this is going to impact the Pelicans this off season and what they’re going to do. So Zion makes I’ll run through the numbers quickly as we wrap up the show. Zion makes basically 39.5 million this year. CJ is 30.666 metal. Um Dejonte Murray is 31 a.5. Tre is 25. Herb Jones is essentially 14. Kelly Ool Lin is 13 and a half. Jordan Hawkins is 4.7. Jose Alvarado is 4.5. Mi is 3.35. Kylo Makovich is 2 million. Antonio Reeves is 2 million. Alfred Payton is 1.153 million or sorry 3.153 million. Braden Boston Jr.2.5 million. The seventh pick will also come in at about $7.5 million. And then you still have one open roster spot. How does it make you feel about the Pelicans off seasonason? Better worse? Joe Dumar is going to need to work some magic. Let me know in the comments down below. What solutions do you have for the team? And also, was the show helpful for explaining these kind of technical things? Let me know in the comments down below. And that’s going to do it for this episode of Locked On Pelicans. As always, I’m your host Jake Madison at Nola Jake on Twitter. This is the Locked On Pelicans podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. Be back with you all tomorrow. See you all next time.

Can the New Orleans Pelicans Navigate the NBA Salary Cap Maze? Discover how the New Orleans Pelicans, led by stars like Zion Williamson and CJ McCollum, are maneuvering through the intricate NBA salary cap rules. With the team over the cap and close to the luxury tax line, every move is crucial. Jake Madison breaks down the complexities of the luxury tax, Bird rights, and trade strategies, offering insights into how the Pelicans can transform their roster into a championship contender. Key figures like Naz Reid and Bruce Brown Jr. are part of the discussion, highlighting potential offseason moves. Don’t miss this chance to understand the financial strategies shaping the Pelicans’ future. Tune in for expert analysis and insider perspectives.

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