Another free agent who could help is Jared Jeffries. Washington already has Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler so maybe we could get him. That would be a nice pickup. Right now I'm just fantasizing because I'm hoping for a very good move this offseason.

I get to see a lot of Jared Jeffries here in DC and his game has improved over the last couple of years. He is one of the few Wizards who actually put forth an effort on the defensive end.

His rebounding is solid, and at 6-11, could play the SF or PF position.
Also, his asking price might fit the Pistons budget.

Do you know what the cap is set at for next season? Because I knows we're already at about 47 million without Ben, Delk, Lindsey, Amir, and Acker re-signed. The cap was at 49.5M this year, so I really doubt we're going to have spending money regardless.

Amir is on a two year deal. Delk has a player option based upon some recent hearsay.

The cap should be around $51 million.

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

Yea, Amir should technically be a 2 year deal (team option at least). But either way, the 47M figure doesn't include him. Same with Delk. That's why I think we'd have to do quite a bit of sign-and-trading to get some value back. We're gonna have a hard time shopping for a big in the 3-5 million area. Do you know if you can combine cap-space and the MLE? I was pretty sure you couldn't, but not 100%.

You don't get the MLE if you have cap space. Hope that makes sense. It's basically one or the other.

EDIT: I am wrong. Here is the real breakdown

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#20

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

We don't really need a sg-sf because Tay and Rip are very well conditioned and young. We need a pg and a big man to help CB, Sheed, and Ben if he stays. Chauncey played so many minutes after Arroyo was traded it might have caught up with him. We've learned that we shouldn't pick up a shooter, we need to get a guy who can score in another way. Prefferably a guy who can weave his way into the paint because players like these now get a lot of calls.

Another question to the capologists among us: My understanding is that Ben qualifies for the Bird exception. In that scenario can Cato's salary (full or part) be used in signing an additional FA if Ben is re-signed?

I just lost my long winded response.

Cato is a free agent. I believe we have his Bird Rights. We can re-sign him, but the money freed up by his leaving is strictly a cost savings for the Pistons as we are at the salary cap limit when you factor in our minor exceptions.

What we have to spend (on players other than Wallace and Cato) are the small salary exceptions and the Mid-Level which starts at around $5.5 million and lasts 4 years (with raises).

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

I think the answer you're looking for is we would have to do a S&T for Bonzi (Harrington will cost too much for what we want to give up)... we could offer slightly more than the MLE in a S&T (without gutting team)...

example: Dale Davis 3.5M (expiring), Mo Evans 1.5M and our own 1st round pick next year for Bonzi (keep Orlando pick).
Then we could use some of our MLE to find a replacement for D.D.