This week on The Doctor is In with Phdsteve, we place our draft coverage on hold for a week with the release of our annual big board coming next Friday.
Joined by my brother Mike (who knows college basketball), Greg Mason (the brain from the south), and Blair Miller from The Fifth Quarter Blog we branch out to explore the marketplace and play a game that really can help divert you away from hours of real work! It’s called 6 Degrees of Separation: How to get out of the 1st round and while Raptors Republic builds an iPhone app to play this game, here are the simple rules (listeners and readers are encouraged to post their ideas in the comments section below)
6 Degrees of Separation: How to get out of the 1st round
Assuming the Raptors brass grant Ujiri the chance to spend maximum money in 2015, you have almost 80 million dollars (projected cap $66.5 million and tax threshold $81.0 million) to build a 2015 roster that wins 50+ games in the East and at LEAST 1 round of the playoffs. And because continuity and chemistry are important to team success, you only get to make a MAXIMUM of 6 moves/ changes to the existing roster.
But there are some caveats:
- For arguments sake, we will all use http://hoopshype.com/salaries/toronto.htm as official for $ and years.
- You can go over the salary cap but only within league rules (ie/ using Bird rights) see Larry Coon for any cap related issues, but its simple this season since there are no buyouts, no qualifying offers, and no team or player options to worry about.
- You can sign FAs or RFAs within the CBA form this ESPN list BUT you must pay fair market value + a premium for being a Canadian team
- You have your first round pick #20 that comes with a cap hit of approximately $1.3 million that you must wither use or deal but there are NO second round picks this year.
- You can trade players but all trades must be verified by the espn.com trade machine and must also be verified by logic (just because it works in the trade machine does make it a legitimate trade)
- You have to fill all 13 roster spaces
NOTE:
You start with 49 million already committed to the books and 10 rosters spots already filled (this includes the #20 pick):
Jonas ($4.66)
Lucas ($1.82)
2Pat ($6.27)
James Johnson ($2.5)
Bruno ($1.27)
DeRozan ($9.5)
Lowry ($12)
TRoss ($3.55)
Vasquez ($6.6)
And the #20 pick (cap hold $1.3)
Don’t forget to visit Blair’s site The Fifth Quarter Blog and his download his weekly podcast. Follow him on Twitter @TFQuarter
You can follow Greg on Twitter @votaryofhoops and my brother Mike @michaelgennaro
Grab the iTunes feed or check us out on Stitcher on Android. There is also the plain old feed. You can also download the file (01:09, 58 MB). Or just listen below:
