We will only be able to resign Lee as an unrestricted free agent. We will be in the mix with everybody else and can't exceed our cap space with an offer. We can forget about resigning Nate though. With best case projections having us with approx $28 mil in cap space, 1 max at $17 mil leaves us with $11 mil to resign both Nate and Lee. That's not enough.
Yes, had we given Lee and Nate the qualifying offer, we could have afforded to retained their Bird Rights and signed a max player and then signed Lee and Nate regardless of our cap situation.
In all honesty, I think Donnie has no intentions of resigning Lee and Nate next year. If we get Lebron he would most likely play PF in D'Antoni's system. Donnie knows Lee is not meant to play C. Therefore he will let him walk.
I think Donnie will sign Lebron for the max and then use the remaining $11 mil to get a Center (would Amare take $11 mil to play with Lebron and D'Antoni?). Then he'll probably re-offer Duhon the mid-level exception because there are no other PGs available. Then try and trade Curry's and Jeffries' expiring contracts for a SG. I see this as being a highly probable and very logical approach to the 2010 offseason.
See my above post.
IT would cost us the same amount and would had the same impact on our cap cuz to retain a player sign for QQ it takes 3 times that amount.