The Oklahoma City Thunder want Al Horford…in addition to Kevin Durant.
I bet you thought they were done trying to make a splash. The Serge Ibaka trade caught a bunch of us off-guard. It was enough of a surprise to last the Thunder all summer. They would try to re-sign Durant and that would be that.
Except it’s not, according to ESPN.com’s Brian Windhorst:
As they prepare to make their pitch to Kevin Durant, the Oklahoma City Thunder have been making calls around the league looking to clear a massive amount of salary-cap space in a move rival executives believe is an effort to go after free agent Al Horford in addition to Durant, multiple sources told ESPN.
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Over the past several days, the Thunder have sought out teams with open salary-cap space to possibly absorb Enes Kanter and Kyle Singler, sources said. The Thunder have other methods of opening cap space, including waiving Anthony Morrow, whose contract isn’t guaranteed until July 15.
Oklahoma City doesn’t really have any immovable contracts on its docket, which is good. But trading Enes Kanter’s $17.1 million for next season without taking any money back in return will be extremely difficult. Plenty of teams can absorb that much salary without sending back other contracts, but there are likely few that would be open to such a move before exploring their own free-agency options.
Right now, not including Durant’s inevitable max salary of around $26.6 million, the Thunder’s all-inclusive salary total for 2016-17 is around $78.9 million dollars. They’re going to need the same amount of money for Horford as Durant, so they need to open up roughly $53.2 million in room. Their commitments, then, must fall to $40.8 million.
Declining Dion Waiters’ qualifying offer or simply letting him sign elsewhere opens up another $6.8 million. Trading Kyle Singler and Kanter without taking back any cash creates another $22 million in spending power. Subtract this $28.8 million from the $78.9 million in guaranteed commitments, and Thunder are at $50.1 million—still nearly $10 million shy of being able to offer Horford his max.
The Thunder can then waive the contracts of Ersan Ilyasova and Anthony Morrow, which total around $11.9 million, to creep closer to the necessary cap space. But that bilks them of a lot of their depth. They will also be asking Horford to function as their de facto power forward alongside Steven Adams, which, while intriguing, isn’t necessarily a huge needle-nudger in today’s NBA. Horford is best at the 5.
Whatever the case, it seems the Thunder are doing their part to make this summer hella interesting.
