Tap here to view theScore's NBA offseason tracker, which includes the 2015 draft order, and latest transactions and rumors.
The San Antonio Spurs are facing a rare offseason of potential turnover, with eight players bound for some form of free agency, including Tim Duncan, Kawhi Leonard, Manu Ginobili, and Danny Green.
There are some tricky scenarios, however, in which the Spurs can keep their contending core in place while retaining the cap space necessary to add a star free agent.
One such trick may involve what one Eastern Conference scout referred to as a potential "'wink-wink' deal" with Duncan, according to the Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News.
Here's how Monroe explains it:
There are several NBA player personnel executives who believe the Spurs will offer Duncan a two-year contract that begins between $6 million and $7 million, with a partial guarantee and a player option in the second season.
If Duncan doesn’t exercise the option, he gets, say, 50 percent of that season’s salary. In effect, his salary for next season would remain over $10 million, the partially guaranteed portion of the second season’s salary remaining on the Spurs team salary after the cap explodes with the NBA’s new TV money kicking in for 2016-17.
Duncan earned more than $10.3 million this season in the final year of a three-year, $30 million pact, and his cap-hold for next season comes in at more than $15.5 million. That's the cap-hit the Spurs would be temporarily pegged for if they want to retain Duncan's Bird rights – the right to go over the salary cap to re-sign their own player – before they agree to an extension, so locking the future Hall of Famer up at a discounted cap-hit of $6 million or $7 million would certainly aide their pursuit of flexibility this summer.
Duncan's numbers have decreased with his regular-season minutes over time, but he still managed 13.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, three assists, and two blocks per game in his 18th season with the Spurs this year, and he remains one of the NBA's best two-way big men, even at 39 years old.
The Spurs have been linked to All-Star big men Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge in season-long free agency rumors, although Gasol is largely expected to stay put in Memphis, while recent reports have the rival Dallas Mavericks ahead of the Spurs on Aldridge's wish list.
In addition to the Duncan news, Monroe also reports that "there is a league-wide presumption" the Spurs are willing to trade center Tiago Splitter to a team with the requisite cap space to absorb Splitter's $8.5 million for 2015-16.
