Melo has zero interest in helping the team he's playing on have competitive flexibility.
Phil asked him primarily to do what Lebron did for Cleveland. Opt in for this season and be a free agent next year so we would have true flexibility.
Nope what he decided to do was give 2-3yrs worth of 7.5% raises back to our team but as you pointed out only allowed $1.5-2mil cap relief for next year. That is not going to make a difference as whether we can sign additional help or not. It's disingenuous of he and Phil to suggest he did anything remotely close to helping us financially hence the phrase "wiggle room"....<---------that has the connotation things are still extremely too close for comfort.
Here's what's even more pathetic about it. Our Tax Rate this yr is.....
http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q21 $3.50 for every dollar over and we're slotted in the $10-15mil range of being over.
Before we resigned Melo our Cap was approximately $65mil. The Tax thresh is $76.8mil. Add Melo's first yr starting salary of approximately $22mil that puts us at $87mil.
$12mil multiplied by $3.50 = $42mil.
So $122mil + $42mil is how much Melo is costing us. I know some fans will flip it and say Amar'e and Bargnani are the ones costing the Tax but Melo was the last player signed for significant pay and essentially took all the money off the table and then some. The reason we can adequately say this, because this is the same reasoning Dolan used when it got personal with Houston as to why he didn't resign Lin. He didn't think Lin was worth the Tax. No way is Melo worth $165mil. Had he opted in would we have had to pay the same Tax? Yes! slightly more by a couple mil but the difference is being able to capitalize on savings the next year with him taking considerably less(like $17mil/yr for 5yrs). He's locked in now all guaranteed, can't change the figures.