Let’s run through the Nets starting five and their salaries for next season:
Point guard Deron Williams, $17.2 million; shooting guard Joe Johnson $19.8 million; Gerald Wallace $9 million; Kris Humphries $12 million; Brook Lopez $13.7 million.
That is $71.7 million, not counting incentives some players may hit. That is with a salary cap of $58 million and a luxury tax threshold of $70.3 million. That’s not counting Mirza Teletovic at $3 million, Reggie Evans at $1.6 million, MarShon Brooks at $1.2 million or any salary from the other six or so guys needed to fill out the roster.
And every one of those starters will make more next season.
There is a new luxury tax looming in a couple years, a punitive one that has teams scared. The more over the tax line you are, the higher the tax rate. If you’re over the tax line three years in a row, you pay fines on top of the tax. Look at it this way, the Lakers $16 million dollar-for-dollar tax this season would have cost them $52 million in 2015.
Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov doesn’t care. The Russian billionaire made more money in interest since you started reading this article than you will all year. Plus for him, owning the Nets is part of a larger real estate deal around the arena — the Brooklyn Yards project — that will make him a lot more money. If the Nets are a draw but a loss-leader in that equation, so what?
Prokhorov knew he needed a better team to open the Barclay’s center and told GM Billy King to go out and buy one.
You can justify each an every one of these signings individually. Williams is one of the best point guards in the league and the team’s franchise player. Johnson is still an All-Star point guard and his level of talent was needed to make sure Williams didn’t bolt for Dallas. Gerald Wallace is pretty good at both ends of the floor. The Nets needed a big man and Lopez had other teams ready to step in and give him a max deal, so to keep him that was the price.
As for Humphries, yes he is overpaid at $12 million a year but with a short two-year deal he is still a trade chip the Nets can try to use to get Dwight Howard after Jan. 15 (the soonest they can move any of the players they re-signed this summer).
But man, together that is one healthy tax bill coming due. That new, harsher CBA and luxury tax really only matter if an owner is concerned about the bottom line of that team by itself. Prokhorov is in it for a bigger picture.