No big signings this offseason; how will next year look for Phoenix?
By Adam Maynes
How do the salary’s break down as they stand now?
The 2018-19 salary cap is currently estimated at $108 million, according to a memo from the league to it’s teams – although it will likely fluctuate about a million dollars one way or the other. Either way, it will still be a pretty decent leap over this season’s $101,869,000.
At the moment the Suns will have nine players expected to be under contract for 2018-19 (although with at least one expected trade yet to come this offseason, there is the potential for the acquisition of at least one additional contract that at this point can be projected to be on the books).
Of those nine players, at this moment we currently only know exactly what will be paid to five of them:
Brandon Knight: $15,643,750
T.J. Warren: $10,810,000
Josh Jackson: $7,059,480
Dragan Bender: $5,896,519
Marquese Chriss: $4,078,236
Those five amount to $43,487,985.
Devin Booker is going to sign a max contract extension (he hasn’t yet by the time of this posting), that will begin at about 25% of the 2019-20 salary cap, or approximately $27,000,000. Booker’s leap in salary will be the largest in franchise history from one year to the next, as this coming season he will be earning $3,314,365.
Phoenix Suns
That $23,65,635 jump will eat up the savings from both Ariza and Chandler’s contracts alone.
Include Booker’s contract and Phoenix is spending $70,487,985 of their projected $108 million cap.
The Suns will also have at least three of their four rookies from the 2018 draft still on the books (I do not expect George King to be retained beyond this season), none of whom have signed contracts as of yet so I will have to make educated guesses on their future salaries.
To come up with their numbers, I took the contracts of the first, 10th, and 31st overall picks from 2017, looked at what they will be making this season (their second in the league) and with the jump in cap, added about a million to each deal. I can safely say these salaries will be close to what they will be actually earning.
I can project that in 2018-19, they will be making around:
Deandre Ayton: $9,300,000
Mikal Bridges: $4,600,000
Elie Okobo: $1,200,000
Totaling: $15,100,000
Therefore, with the five contracts we know for sure will be on the books, plus the four who can assume and guestimate their salaries, the 2018-19 Phoenix Suns will have about $85,587,985 allocated in salaries for nine players.