The thing is, if you do that, and it doesn’t work, they’ll be pissed off and salary dump Saric, who will be healed and playable, to Orlando or the other team that has caproom. If you play it right, you can play both ends on this one:: save PHO cap room for a FRP, then spiff up Saric, and flip him again at next year’s deadline. Ayton isn’t going to put us over the top, but ac ulating enough picks eventually will. OKC has been pulling this for 3-4 years, renting capspace for picks, and then leveraging the player into more picks later. They just did it two years ago, and then last summer with Horford.
We could probably even get away with signing Smith, and then trading for Saric, because the Smith thing was just stupid on their part. Signing an offer sheet on Ayton is pretty much a declaration of war, though.