Originally Posted by roscoe36

Here is a sample scenario.

Detroit makes a qualifying offer to Amir, this makes him a restricted free agent (we get last right of refusal now).

Amir can take the 1 year qualifying offer and become unrestricted the next season, or he can negotiate a longer/better contract right now with either Detroit or another team.

Let's say his agent gets an offer from Memphis. The offer cannot be for more than the Mid-level Exception (which is set at the average player salary). Because Amir is an Early Bird Free Agent, we can offer him the average salary as well. So it is no problem to match any incoming offer because they are capped to an amount we can match regardless of our own salary cap position.

That's the quick dirty and simple.

If Amir was worth a 5 year $55 million contract (say like a Mehmet Okur), then we could still match, but take a big cap hit in the later years as the year 3~5 salaries get HUGE.

hth