With free-agency negotiations with players starting Monday (teams have been talking with agents for a few days) — and signings likely to commence Friday — the Grizzlies can resume putting together next season’s roster. Barring trades — which could emerge, but have not been even hinted at at this point — let’s walk through how the roster for this season could be built, starting with the current players under guaranteed contracts (using best estimates on salaries based on media sources and other info):
Current Roster:
Zach Randolph $15,200,000
Rudy Gay $15,032,144
Mike Conley $6,611,571
O.J. Mayo $5,632,637
Tony Allen $3,150,000
Xavier Henry $2,171,640
Darrell Arthur $2,027,119
Sam Young $1,184,750
Greivis Vasquez $1,113,600
Total: $52,123,461 for 9 players
This is the foundation of the Grizzlies roster. As a matter of bookkeeping, note that while that salary figure is below the expected salary cap of $58 million, qualifying offers for Marc Gasol ($4.5 million) and Hamed Haddadi ($2 million) push the team over the cap even without factoring in cap holds on other players. The only way the Grizzlies would get under the cap is to renounce — or lose — Gasol. The former is out of the question and the latter is highly unlikely, so, effectively, the Grizzlies will be operating as a team over the cap but under the luxury tax line (expected to be around $70 million), giving them a full mid-level exception to potentially use for outside free agents (a maximum four-year deal starting at a maximum $5 million). The team will be adding 4-6 players to the list above while likely trying to stay below the tax line. (I’m of the opinion that the team should be open to going above the tax line this season and will make that case in a coming post, but I don’t believe Michael Heisley is willing to do that, so for now I’m operating under the notion of a $70 million ceiling.)
