A Slight Glitch in the 2008 Master Plan

[Tigole Bitties]

Shaun Livingston can be had for pennies on the dollar

[timvp]

The 08 plan is quite BS.
Spurs will have at best $12M in capspace (if they trade all theri first round picks, Mahinmi and renounce to all their FAs) with only 3 players.

I don't see how you can fill a roster with only $12M when you have to get 7 good players to have a 10 men rotation.

Exactly. The 2008 Master Plan is a horribly stupid idea. Basketball wise, it makes zero sense. The only sense it makes at all would be if Peter Holt is going to sell the team sometime in the next couple years and he wants the franchise value to be at its highest. That's the only way it makes sense.

For the Spurs to open $10-12M in capspace, they'd have to do the following:

Trade Mahinmi, waive Butler, never sign Scola, never sign Javtokas, never sign Sanikidze, don't re-sign Bonner, don't re-sign Ely, don't re-sign Vaughn, renounce Elson, renounce Oberto, renounce Finley, renounce Barry, renounce White, renounce Bowen, renounce Udrih and trade away all draft picks this summer (one first rounder and two or three second rounders). And then this upcoming summer, the Spurs couldn't sign anyone to more than a one-year contract.

If they do all that, then they'll have Duncan, Parker and Ginobili plus $10-12M to play with to fill 13 roster spots. The Spurs won't be able to offer maximum money. What they'll basically have is two MLE's to work with instead of one. So for an extra $4-6M, the Spurs would have to basically blow up everything and not try to improve the team for two years. How in the name of all that is holy does that make sense?

What makes it an even worse idea is the fact that the new CBA makes it almost impossible to sign a player coming off of a rookie deal. Even second round draft picks are protected more than ever before.

If someone like Emeka Okafor or Dwight Howard were available and this gave the Spurs a chance, then I can see reason for the 2008 plan. But the Spurs don't have the money to offer a max contract AND the teams have the ability to match any contract the Spurs offer.

The last couple times the Spurs opened up cap room to use in a summer, it was still pretty dumb and always blew up in their face ... but at least it made a little sense. You could steal a second round draft pick and there weren't as many restrictions on signing other players. Nowadays, unless you are willing to massively overpay for a player coming off a rookie contract (see: Jeffries, Jared), you just can't get anything done.

This front office loves the supposed "roster flexibility" but now it has just gotten to the point of stupidity. The window won't be open forever. Getting two MLE players in 2008 while having to fill the other 10 spots on the roster with players making the league minimum makes zero sense.

A much better idea would be to *gasp* spend the money to keep the decent players on this team and go out and use the MLE, LLE and draft picks on players that can help. Go out and get a swingman with a pulse, bring in some young pieces and build the team with the number one objective of winning now and down the line.

[Bruno]

My problem with the 08 plan is that I don't see at all how Spurs can have a good team in 08-09 by going under the cap during the 08 summer and signing FAs.

If someone has at least a semi realistic scenario that do that, I will be curious to see it.

[Supergirl]

This team has what it takes to win it all. Whether they will, we will see. I think there are 4 teams with a legitimate chance to win it all, who have the talent to do so: San Antonio, Dallas, Detroit, Miami. Miami is eliminated for this year due to Wade's injury, and it remains to be seen how much more Shaq has left in him. That's down to 2.

I left off Phoenix because they won't be able to commit to defense in a 7 game series, so they won't ever win it all.

Chicago isn't quite mature yet, and Cleveland doesn't have quite enough talent and isn't mature enough yet.

That means, our best chances to win it all are NOW - this year, and the next 2-3 years while Duncan is still in his prime. We've got Manu and Tony locked up, we can put togther enough role players to complement the three of them just fine.

The real question is, what happens post TD? Manu will likely retire shortly therafter, but we will still have Parker. What kind of talent will be available then, what can we get to rebuild another championship team? Is Parker a franchise player by himself? I think he's capable of being one - if Chris Paul and Allen Iverson are. But he'll need some help. But we won't know what that looks like because it's so far off. I know a high school kid out here who might be PHENOMONAL someday if he gets drafted - but anything could happen between now and then. Let's focus on the here and now.