On 2017, Otto Porter, and chasing waterfalls

With the Washington Wizards' chances of signing Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant appearing... not great, some fans and commentators are entertaining the idea that the Wizards should hold the cap space reserved for Durant until 2017, when the salary cap will be even higher and the pool of available talent even deeper. Even Durant might be back in the mix.

Keeping the powder dry runs its own risks, though. Core players may lose patience. Teams risk becoming trapped in an underwhelming cycle -- if you don't land a top guy in 2017, why not roll that flexibility over for another year and try to sign Demarcus Cousins or Paul George? And if they say no, what about Klay Thompson or Jimmy Butler or Kawhi Leonard the year after that? Or Anthony Davis or Draymond Green the year after that? All the while, the team's current talent base slowly erodes as concessions are made to maximizing flexibility. It seems far-fetched, but it's happened before and it can happen again.

Let's say the Wizards try it for just one more year, though, and load up mostly on one-year contracts for a 2016-17 interregnum. After that, John Wall, Marcin Gortat, Markieff Morris, Kelly Oubre, and Bradley Beal will be under contract for about $65 million combined. They may or may not have Czech point guard Tomas Satoransky or a 2017 first-round draft pick. That leaves Otto Porter, Jr.., who will be a restricted free agent with a $14.7 million cap hold.

Unlike Beal's cap hold in 2016, Porter's cap hold is an encumbrance -- it's just big enough that the Wizards can't offer a max contract to any outside free agents without getting rid of someone else first or, preferably, re-signing Porter to a deal with a first-year salary smaller than his cap hold. How big can get that first-year salary get? I made a chart with a few possibilities:

[Image: Otto Porter 2017 salary]

The highlighted numbers are first-year salaries less than $7.7 million, which is about what Porter will make if he doesn't like the contracts he's offered in the free agency market and signs his Qualifying Offer instead to become a unrestricted free agent in 2018 (a path Porter's agent, David Falk, chose recently for Greg Monroe). The Qualifying Offer comes with a no-trade clause for a year, which would prevent the Wizards from easily moving on from Porter if he stands in the way of signing a Gordon Hayward or Serge Ibaka. (In other words, Porter has the Wizards by the balls if he wants.)

The remaining scenarios mostly only allow the Wizards to chase after younger max contract candidates, almost all of whom will be restricted free agents themselves. Only one allows the Wizards to go after a Blake Griffin, and that requires Porter to take significantly less than other wings (e.g., Terrence Ross) have signed for recently. In other words, it's pretty unlikely. And, of course, all this presupposes that the Wizards do better in this stopgap season than they did in the one that recently ended.

In other, other words, the cost of just chasing (never mind actually signing) a max free agent is giving up on at least one prospect, as well as being content with not maximizing another year of the Wizards' core's time together. And maybe that's worth it -- Porter's probably not an All-Star player, Satoransky isn't expected to be a starter, that 2017 pick will take time to become a real contributor, and so on. But maybe it's not.

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