The Future of Jrue Holiday: A FanSided Expert Roundtable
Talk about your team’s cap flexibility, and how you would manage the space to sign him?
Nuggets
Matthew Huff
Denver has quite a bit of cap space, especially with Gallo opting out. I would let him walk and cut Nelson and possibly trade Faried to make space for Holliday.
Pacers
Ian Levy
If my math is correct, letting Teague and Aaron Brooks walk, and declining the team option on Lavoy Allen would give them enough room to chase Holiday.
Bulls
Daniel Coughlin
Kind of touched on this already in my other answer, but there are two ways this goes for Chicago. Either it blows up or it remains as is. It’s more likely that things remain as is. In that case, Wade exercises his player option at $23.8 million and Gar Forman takes Rondo on the team’s $13.4 million option. That’s $37.2 million, one of them at the same position as Holiday. That leaves them $15.6 and they have RFA options on Nikola Mirotic, Cristiano Felicio and Michael Carter-Williams. Matching on two of these would put them over. So, they’d basically have to let Rondo go, let MCW walk, let Mirotic walk and maybe even let Felicio walk in order to guarantee themselves enough room to chase Holiday and then get a replacement at power forward. Or, Reinsdorf could commit to going way over the cap, which almost never happens, to bankroll a team with upside of the Nos. 5 or 6 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Lakers
Clayton Fawcette
If LA was able to sign Jrue to a contract in my preferred range, it could happen, but the cap would be tighter than I would prefer. With that said, unless the Lakers are able to dump the salaries of Timofey Mozgov, Luol Deng, and even Corey Brewer, I think the Lakers will either look to dump salaries or target Paul George in a trade rather than strongly pursue Holiday.
Kings
Rafe Wong
According to Basketball RealGM (Real GM Link) the Kings could possibly have a cap space north of $61 million, so if they are interested in Holiday, they could afford him. With that being said, I don’t know how interested I would be in signing Holiday. In my opinion, I would rather try to re-sign Darren Collison instead, because I think Collison is a better scorer and a player that has already developed chemistry with the rookie talent that the Kings are trying build around for their future.
Knicks
Maxwell Ogden
The New York Knicks would need to renounce every cap hold on the roster in order to clear as much as $19 million in cap space. Approximately $5 million more could be cleared via a potential Carmelo Anthony trade. Unfortunately, trading Anthony and renouncing Justin Holiday’s cap hold would likely mean convincing Jrue Holiday to sign elsewhere. The Knicks are in a tough situation that will require trades and financial creativity.
Pelicans
Rick Stone
If the New Orleans Pelicans want to keep Jrue, they will need to spent most of their space. Jrue’s relationship with New Orleans is strong, especially after how the Pelicans let Jrue handle his real life troubles at the beginning of the season. Holiday will likely give New Orleans top priority, if they are willing to hand over the big pay check. However, the cap is a scary situation, for a team set in “Playoffs or Bust” mode. Still, they might not have a better option at point guard realistically available.