Youth and Financial Freedom: Raps current roster beyond 2012-13

[Matt52]

Ibaka signs 4 year, $40M deal with OKC. OKC's payroll now up to around $73M and that does not include Harden's extension or even qualifying offer.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--se...homa-city.html


Now that OKC is in to luxury tax territory, next season if OKC were to resign Harden to a $12M deal that would actually be $33.25M per season (salary plus $1.50 tax on first $5M, $1.75 on second $5M, $2.50 tax on final $2M = $21.25 in tax).

Harden is a great player but is he worth $33.25M per season?


**Not saying he is coming to Toronto but the odds seem greater he'd be in Toronto in 2013-14 versus OKC**


EDIT

In the above I forgot to take in to account the contracts that were NOT guaranteed. They have about $80M in contracts but only $59M in unguaranteed contracts (including Ibaka's new deal) for 7 players.

This is probably not the big deal I initially thought it was as they could resign Harden for close to max or max, round out the roster with minimum contracts and be looking at a tax bill around $9-10M versus the scenario I gave above.


EDIT 2.0:

Adrian Wojnarowski ‏@WojYahooNBA
Serge Ibaka deal is 4 years, $48 million, league source tells Y! Sports.

That seems more realistic. The $10M would have been a bargain based on the contracts given out to bigs of late.