Phoenix Suns president Lon Babby hints that the franchise may not use salary cap this summer: NBA
Lon Babby, president of basketball operations at Phoenix Suns, has said that although the franchise will have salary cap flexibility in the offseason, they won’t be using it. Speaking during a press conference
with Phoenix area reporters, he revealed that the club will hold off their option till the right situation arrives.
"We worked hard to put ourselves in this position, to have this kind of flexibility, to have a range of opportunities," Babby said, "but I am absolutely determined that we are going to be disciplined in how we
approach this because we cannot get ourselves right back in the same spot that we were in by doing bad contracts, not assessing value properly, not making the right choices in terms of personnel."
Suns will be dealing with a major situation in the next season as their talisman Steve Nash will become a free agent. The franchise faced a media storm after not trading Nash during the mid season trade window,
even when the star player had indicated that he will look to find the right team to win a championship. Instead, the franchise will be using all resources to persuade Nash to either retire with Suns’ or go for another run with the club, his ninth consecutive
season with the Desert City club.
That possibility is subjected to a lot of ifs and buts, such as the amount and length of the contract and mutual acceptability of player and franchise.
If Nash decides to leave the franchise then it will have an extra $ 10 million in terms of salary cap and they can make some serious offers. The president however refrained from drawing any conclusions about
the Nash situation.
“What I would say about it at this very early stage is that every indication we've gotten from Steve is not only is our spirit willing to make this happen but his spirit is willing as well.”
The other situation at hand for Lon Babby is that of Grant Hill. Hill is also in the twilight of his career, but is more than a decent scorer. He, like Nash, however is also without a NBA championship and will
look to explore the market once free agency starts. However, Hill at 39, has been injury prone and Babby did indicate that as a factor, come the time to re-sign Hill.
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