Wow, crazy first day of free agency and I should say first few hours of free agency because we're recording this at night the wee hours of July 1st a number of science

I think we've seen 18 so far already the speculation that LeBron James might slow things down has not occurred in the slightest in fact because it seems like there's really only three teams you might go to at this point all the teams that are out of the LeBron Derby really felt no reason why they shouldn't go and with caps face

to the premium around the league it seemed like players weren't like all men await and see if the Lakers might be interested if LeBron doesn't go there or something like that so or feel you might be interested if LeBron doesn't go there they are taking the money where it is and a lot of interesting stuff get to a lot of interesting takeaways it did not go I think the way we expected it to but why don't we start Danny with just the cap being set it and all of the associated exception amounts which are now slave to the cap increase as well would we get here for

from the NBA on the Eve of July 1st so we got a couple interesting things so first of all the estimate was 101 million ended up being a little bit higher than that 101 869000 that extra 869000 runs into a lot of of other areas that raises the luxury tax level which is 123 million 733000 and that has all these ripple effects since everything is tied to the cap amount now so the minimums are a little bit higher than we thought they would be the middle level exceptions are a little bit higher than we thought they would be the most common ones we thought they would be in the

country to be in all that kind of stuff but the piece that I want to focus on there partially because that was so close to expectations is actually what happened for future years so I have been openly skeptical of the leaks 108 million dollar estimate for the 2019 20 season well they just upgraded it by a million dollars now that is 109 million and then 2020 21 is now up to 116 and there isn't really anything that I have seen in terms of you know a specific rationale for this that the leak has lots of those

information that they're working from of course but that has big implications for where this is going in the future yeah and it makes more sense because you're like oh man the capital you went up two million last year like how's it going to go up by 8 million and then 7 million the year after that well remember that last year the cap was actually artificially inflated as it was the year before because NBA teams as profligate as they were did not actually spend enough relative to revenue and so when that doesn't happen because there's just such a big

cap increase they spent a lot more than we thought they would they got a lot closer to the amount that they're kind of supposed to spend because of revenue and so the cap has a built in increase for the next year to allow spending to catch up to the cap essentially so if it were based solely on revenue which in most years it is unless teams don't spend enough in the aggregate which rarely happen

unless there's a mass cap increase the cap quote-unquote should have been 94 million last year and so this year's 101 now where teams are spending enough there's no kind of artificial boost because they haven't spending up in previous years and baked into this year's 101 now you think it has okay it actually went up in terms of revenue enough to bump the cap up by 7 million this year from 94 to 101 but because last year's cap already had this artificial increase up to 99 that's why you're not seeing nearly as much of an increase this year but the revenue is just continued

to expand you know around this 7 or 8% per year and that's big news obviously for some of these tax out teams and I think with that news for 2019 and then 2021 all those bad contracts from 2016 come off the book as well

though I'm sure there will be plenty of stretching of that before then to allow teams to access that money earlier happy days should be here again for free agents over the next two years with those healthy increases this year with the smaller cap increase with all the teams in the tax with teams having budgeted for the next year

for a bigger increase this year than actually occurred this is really kind of a one time blip and we've seen some of the deals so far reflect that so I think we should probably start here with just a we can save our overall

themes I guess till the end let's just get right into it I think the biggest news Paul George no drama whatsoever the tea leaves had started to indicate that he was going to return Oklahoma City in the last couple of weeks

but I think the contract type was a massive surprise in OK see a three plus one for Paul George that three plus one will basically cover the rest of Paul George's prime he will that player option will occur after shortly after his 31st birthday so you never know exactly what it's going to be but it does pretty much cover that range and this is a gargantuan decision around the league and also of course for the Oklahoma City Thunder for a bunch of different reasons for the thunder now they have

a remarkable amount of stability in terms of their financial core now we'll talk about the dangers of that stability but Russell Westbrook you know under contract with that super max extension Steve

Adams still has I believe four years left on his contract and three and then Paul George now with three plus one that that is in no way a guarantee that those players will all be there for the entirety of their contracts many things can happen but they are now in a place where they have those those three pieces for the long term and I mean you had I had seen some of that

speculation of like oh if Paul George leaves maybe they're going to have to consider trading where it was for going all that well that's not going to be occurring for a while now this team is going to be together it is going to be ludicrously expensive but they will be together

Yo get to the expense a little bit I just don't understand why it would be a three plus one for Paul George first there'd been talk of a one plus one really probably what made the most sense perhaps if you wanted to maximize future income would have been the two plus one to where he could have gotten on to the market again with 10 years of experience to get that 35%

max these of course ineligible to get that earlier because he was traded away from the Pacers but for George I also thought hey maybe you know what it would be just the fifth year in Oklahoma say that could be the difference and maybe you should lock in there and I think there's something to be said for the idea that you might it might should have done that

because that would have had him making over 40 million in that fifth year would have had him making 43 million in that fifth year not I'm sorry no that's next year he would have made it right at 40 million 40.3 million in that fifth year and Paul George

just the history of guys who are kind of around his range you know your 15th to 20th best player in the league remember he's also coming off a knee surgery here too we don't know how much that's going to affect first surgery of his career in his knee obviously that horrific broke leg but you think okay that 50 years no way anyone's going to pay me 40 million for that year when I'm 32 so I should probably just get the five year get a four plus one and the history of guys who've signed these type of contracts that you know who are at his level in the league at age 28

by the time they get to their early 30s you know they're not really worth these contracts and you know it and so that's why I think you might say Jordan be wise to go for five years if you did the one plus one you could say okay he's going to check it out in Oklahoma city a little bit longer and then maybe you could lock in for the five years after next year still and get another year on the tail end especially with the cap going up more next year you know about 70% that might have been an idea too

or you could say the two plus one because then you get back on the market for the 35% max although I don't know if that he would necessarily command that two years from now so this is the one thing that really doesn't make any particular sense at all frankly you know maybe the thought is okay three years from now I'll still be able to command a big contract I'll still be that good but again I think the history of guys at his level in the league even two years in and certainly three years in you know age 31 we'd be talking about don't see him as a max player at that point in time and it's going to be great for you so I'm sure that you have a great time to go and see him as a max player at that point in time in time and at the time you know you are going to know that you are going to have a lot of time but I hope you can be the best player in the league and you're going to say that you can go on and see that at the moment you're going to go on and see that you

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