Community Shootaround: Buyout Candidates

As we noted earlier this afternoon, we could see a second wave of buyouts completed across the NBA this week, with a March 1 deadline looming. Players waived after Thursday won’t be playoff-eligible if they sign with another NBA team before the end of the season.

In our earlier story, we identified Jarrett Jack, Arron Afflalo, Shabazz Muhammad, Trevor Booker, and Joakim Noah as buyout candidates, but they’re not the only ones out there. Corey Brewer, Vince Carter, Brook Lopez, and Nerlens Noel are among the veterans on expiring contracts who may not fit into their respective teams’ future plans.

Players on expiring contracts make the strongest buyout candidates, since it’s much easier for a non-playoff team to eat some or all of a salary that doesn’t extend into 2018/19. A multiyear contract complicates matters — teams are sometimes willing to turn future cap hits into dead money by cutting a player with a long-term salary, but most clubs would prefer to wait to see if that player can eventually be traded.

As such, we shouldn’t necessarily expect to see veterans like Tyson Chandler, Jared Dudley, Zach Randolph, Garrett Temple, or Justin Holiday released this week. Even though they may see their roles reduced in the final weeks of the 2017/18 season, ceding minutes to younger players, they’re all under contract through next year, so there’s no urgency for their teams to part ways with them yet.

With Ersan Ilyasova‘s release today kicking off this potential second wave of buyouts, we want to hear your thoughts on which players should follow Ilyasova to the free agent market. Which players should be pushing the hardest for buyouts, and which teams should be most willing to accommodate them? Which playoff teams do you think could use a specific player or two to provide a boost to their roster down the stretch?

Jump into the comment section below to weigh in!