Phoenix Suns: Inside the 2020 salary cap numbers

There has been a lot of talk about who the Phoenix Suns should or should not sign during free agency, but how much will they have to spend?

The Phoenix Suns‘ offseason might get extended, as the NBA is looking at moving the 2020 NBA Draft, scheduled for October 16th and the start of free agency which is scheduled to start two days later.

They are doing this because of a possible later restart to the new season.

Even though team officials will have more time, James Jones and company are working daily to decide what the 2020-2021 Phoenix Suns will look like.

The Phoenix Suns will have the 7th most cap space of any team in the NBA.

Looking at the makeup of the team, I see 9-players under contract with guaranteed spots. They are Ricky Rubio, Cameron Payne, Ty Jerome, Jalen Lecque, Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton, Mikal Bridges, Cameron Johnson, and the 2020 Phoenix Suns draft pick (#10).

These players’ salaries combined, come out to be $70,882,890 on a cap that is projected to be $115,000,000 (as of now).

The #10 pick has not been assigned a value yet. However, Cam Reddish was the 10th pick in last year’s draft, and his first-year salary is at $4,458,000. The cap is projected to go up 5.4 percent, so using that same math the #10 pick this year, I project will have a value of $4,698,732 which I have included in the total.

This will leave the Phoenix Suns with a little over $44 million of cap space for free agency.

But wait, someone important isn’t on that list, why? Missing from that list with a guaranteed contract obviously is Kelly Oubre. You may know in another article I proposed trading Oubre as he is a free agent at the end of next season and I haven’t changed my mind.

I did not include Oubre here so that you can play along by adding and subtracting contracts to the above total. If you want Oubre on your Suns team, add his salary of $14,375,000 to the above total (to save you the math, you get $85.3 million total and roughly $29 million in cap space).

Another player that is a team option contract is Frank Kaminsky. They can keep him, trade him, or renounce him. His contract is valued at $5,005,350.

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It’s a fair price for Kaminsky because he fills two needs, which are backup center and backup power forward. However, he may serve a more valuable piece with his potential trade value.

There is one more piece to consider and that is Dario Saric. Dario is under a qualifying offer of $5,087,871 which he will not sign. Saric had a pretty good season this year and other teams will look to sign him.  The Suns won’t keep him at that price, but they can match any offer that he receives.

The remaining players Aron Baynes (unrestricted free agent) who will get about $10 million per season if not more in free agency, Elie Okobo $1,663,861 (non-guaranteed, team option), Cheick Diallo $1,824.003 (team option), and Jevon Carter $1,820,564 (qualifying offer) should all be renounced, traded, or waived during or after the draft.

All things considered, the Phoenix Suns have a very good foundation going forward, now it’s up to James Jones to keep it going in the right direction.