Great price
When I first saw this deal, I thought the Sixers were overpaying for Bayless. Nearly $30 million over the course of three seasons for a basketball player who is good but not great seemed like a lot, especially since Bayless has never made much more than $3 million in any given season.
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And now the Sixers were going to give him nearly $10 million a season? No thank you.
But the more I think about it, and the more my mind adjusts to this new salary cap, the more I realize that getting Bayless for this contract is not bad in any way. Bayless, if he makes an exact three-year split of his total contract, will be making less than 10 percent of the team’s total salary cap per season, which isn’t bad for what he offers, in my opinion.
Even if he doesn’t end up being the starter, the Sixers could sign 10 players to similar deal and still just meet the salary cap. They can always pay the luxury tax and go over, if they feel like they need to.
The point is that this contract, although it looks huge in terms of real money, doesn’t have that much bearing on the current salary cap structure, especially since the Sixers were bound to overpay everyone that they bring in over the next few seasons.
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