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Message: [QUOTE="Melancer46, post: 3519555, member: 1674"] Sort of. Even with bird rights, each player has a cap hold that limits their ability to sign free agents. So for example, let's say Jerami Grant opts out of the $9 million he's currently scheduled to make next season. If Denver wants to bring him back, he would have a cap hold of $17 million counting against their cap until they sign him to whatever new contract they wish to give him. The cap is expected to be around $109 million next season (same as it was this year). With all of the cap holds they'll have at the beginning of the offseason, they'll technically be like $85 million OVER the cap already. Having said that, there are ways for them to bring that number down (and in the most extreme case, they could carve out roughly $3 million in cap space if they wanted, but there's really no point in doing that). [LIST] [*]Waiving Keita Bates-Diop before his contract becomes guaranteed would free up roughly $800k. [*]Same goes for PJ Dozier [*]Same goes for Monte Morris (though he's a huge bargain on his contract, so they'd be fools to do that) [*]Letting Torrey Craig walk would free up about $1.5 million (but they'll probably at least offer him the qualifying offer to have the option to bring him back) [*]Relinquish the cap holds of Troy Daniels, Mason Plumlee, and Noah Vonleh, clearing about $23 million [*]Either relinquish Paul Millsap's cap hold, clearing $40 million, or sign him to a new contract in which case his new salary would replace the cap hold. [/LIST] As I mentioned though, even if they go to the extreme, they won't be able to carve out any meaningful cap space. If they clear enough space to get below the luxury tax, that would allow them to sign a free agent with the Mid-Level Exception (roughly $9 million per year). So that's probably the ideal path forward for them at this point; they can theoretically re-sign Grant, maybe re-sign Millsap, and sign a player with the MLE (someone like Jae Crowder or DJ Augustin for example would probably be around that dollar amount). Or they could always pursue trades. [B]TLDR: [/B]The path forwards for them (without involving trades) is re-signing Grant and Millsap and maybe Torrey Craig and then signing a player with the mid-level exception (worth around $9 million per year for up to 4 years). They can't get actual cap space to sign one of the bigger name free agents this year. [/QUOTE]

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