As we detailed on Friday, NBA teams have until August 31 to waive players and stretch their 2018/19 cap hits over multiple years. If a player is released after August 31, his current cap hit will remain unchanged, and only the subsequent years of his contract can be stretched.
With just a few more days for teams to stretch 2018/19 salaries, Thunder swingman Kyle Singler looks like the top candidate to be waived this week, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks notes (via Twitter).
Three factors are working against Singler and making him a prime release candidate. For one, he fell out of Oklahoma City’s rotation entirely in 2017/18, appearing in just 12 games and playing only 59 total minutes for the season. Secondly, he’s essentially on an expiring contract, since his $5.3MM+ salary for 2019/20 is non-guaranteed. And finally, the Thunder currently have the largest projected tax bill in the NBA, meaning waiving Singler could create substantial immediate savings for the franchise.
Currently, the Thunder have a total team salary of $149.58MM, with a projected tax bill of $93.19MM. If they were to waive Singler, who has a $4,996,000 salary, they could stretch his cap hit across five seasons due to his non-guaranteed second year, reducing this season’s cap charge to just $999,200. That would bring the Thunder’s team salary down to $145.58MM and their projected tax bill to about $73.79MM, creating $23MM+ in total savings.
Outside of Singler, there aren’t many obvious stretch candidates around the NBA. Other projected taxpayers could consider similar moves to save some money, but many of those clubs don’t have players on expiring contracts that they’d want to release. The Wizards, with Jason Smith and his expiring $5.45MM salary, may be one team to watch.
Another motive for a team to stretch a player’s 2018/19 salary would be to open up more cap room. However, there aren’t many clubs that can create meaningful cap space at this point in the offseason, and there’s little incentive to do so anyway, given the lack of players worth spending it on. The Kings (Iman Shumpert or others) and Suns (Darrell Arthur or Tyson Chandler) could open up a chunk of cap room by stretching well-paid veterans, but I’d be surprised if they cut into their projected space for 2019 and/or 2020 by doing so.
2 serious questions: why did Singler get this extension years and assuming he was once decent, how did he become so unplayable so quickly ?
Years ago not years
One of the worst Presti moves along w trading Harden. Otherwise he’s made pretty savvy moves.
To answer your other question at one time, very briefly, he was a solid 3 pt shooter.
He was getting better every year in the NBA, shooting 41% from 3 after the trade, so 5/25 was not excessive. But that did not sustain.
At the time, OKC was happy to get useful players (Singler, Kanter, Augustin, & Steve Novak) all for a 2018 r1, disruptive Reggie Jackson & 3 nobodies.
I’m honestly shocked he hasn’t been stretched yet as it is. I can’t fathom any team wanting to trade for him. Stupid signing from the start. Thought that the day it happened. Will be glad when manbun is gone.