with just duncan, parker, and manu that puts the spurs at ~42 mil. add in ~3 mil for bonner, ~3.5 mil with oberto, and ~1 mil for vaughn, that puts the spurs at just a shade under 50 mil, with at least 7 roster spots to fill. the cap figure this year is 55.6 mil, and if it goes up ~3 mil, we are looking at a 2008 cap of somewhere around 58 mil. and that doesnt even factor in the minimum cap holds for those 7 open roster spots. this also doesnt include any future signings (udoka or mahinmi?) or splitter. so a much more realistic number would probably be between 5-6 mil, which is more or less what the MLE is worth anyway.
so unless guys like brand are willing to take a massive pay cut (more than 50%), and the spurs are willing to fill out the rest of the roster with vet mins and rookie contracts, its never going to happen. i just pray we can put together a quality roster; heres to hoping finely and/or bowen re-up on the cheap.