NBA Lockout: Rashard Lewis, The Amnesty Clause And The New Salary Floor (UPDATED)

might as well keep him and use him in a trade if we can.

We have two very valuable chips here in Lewis’ partially guaranteed deal and the amnesty clause. It doesn’t make sense to not maximize the opportunity by just opting not to use amnesty.

Our cap space and Lewis’ contract allow us to help a team essentially use the amnesty twice. The timing of when to use the amnesty clause will be interesting. Will they make it for one season or one year or two years? Even if it is the shortest of those and only lasts a season, we would still be able to use amnesty as late as the draft.

I’d like to see us hold Lewis, trade him at the deadline or draft for a bad deal and another player or maybe high pick. We need a situation where we can be at 85% of the cap, acquire a couple of players that get us near the 100% mark and then amnesty the bad deal to drop back near the 85%.

We also have to be smart about which contract we take back because we want to preserve the summer cap room. So maybe we make a trade deadline deal that includes an expiring contract. The other option is to just add a quality player that eats up some cap space, but can help attract a big time FA since any move should still leave us with plenty of cash to spend.

Not saying this is what makes sense for us, but an example would be Rashard for Iggy and Elton Brand. Then you amnesty Brand, but still added the other large salary to be around the floor. There may be more details and considerations to that specific deal, but that gives the gist of how we can maximize our flexibility. And Ernie has shown that he can execute these types of strategies in the last couple of seasons.

I think there’s still opportunities available. Having a washed up player eating over 40% of your cap doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.

The idea that Lewis is some kind of ideal veteran leader for the kiddies is the same argument I heard for years with Antawn Jamison. Simply put, labeling someone a veteran leadersimply because they’re old, make a ton of money and give a pleasant interview is incorrect IMO. Just because someone is a veteran doesn’t make them a leader.

Mix in his lack of tangible leadership or accountability along with an unwillingness to pass the ball. and to me we are just better off letting him go.

Not to mention they just gave teams more flexibility to sign a few mega-stars and still have cash left over to fill out their roster. The Heat were held back by having to go after vet minimum players, so the owners instituted a rule that would allow them to sign more spendy players without exceeding the CAP. Why’d they do that? Because more than half the owners (at least) want the ability to create their own Heatles somewhere down the road!

I don’t like any of the unrestricted for the Wizards all have issues. But I’d love to have Thaddeus Young here as a restricted free agent he fits this teams personality run and gun put him on the wing with Wall and he could live off his dimes. Him with Javale and others running the floor we could really create tempo on teams. Solid defender as well. He’s on the come as a young player would be an ideal fit.

If Booker gets the minutes Yi was getting, that would boost our rebounding a whole lot. Factor in an improved Seraphin, and that could also help.

At SG, on the one hand we got one of the worst rebounding sgs in the league, and on the other we got one of the worst shooting (percentage wise) SGs in the league… one of them is gonna have to improve their weakness, or both of them need to go.

At SF you got Vesely and Singleton, who we can hope will allow Blatche and McGee to stay at the rim instead of coming out to meet players who blew by their man.

At PF you got Blatche, who at the end of seasons rebounds extremely well, but throughout the rest of it is either good or horrible… Let’s hope he can sustain this end of the season ability he tends to tease us with.

At Center you got a great rebounding Center, who changes shots, but unfortunately is bad at defensive positioning. If he can improve that, our rebounding numbers rise tremendously. That’s a big if, even for a young guy since its McGee though.

Our shooting will improve if John improves his jumper, Jordan improves his shot selection, Vesely doesn’t shoot the ball too much, and Andray regains his confidence. McGee, Booker, Singleton, Lewis, and hopefully Vesely (if the chemistry develops) should be getting shots created for them, in which case they won’t shoot much, but shouldn’t shoot poorly. That’s on Flip and John though, but I have faith in both to do that.