There are plenty of things Oklahoma City Thunder did right this summer. They have managed to convince Paul George to stay, signed Jerami Grant to an extension and brought back their backup point guard Raymond Felton. They also signed free agent Nerlens Noel to a two-year deal as a bonus. But, all of this will come with a price.
After Felton inked the one-year, $2.4 million deal, Thunder was set on course to make history with their payroll. They became the first franchise in the NBA history to have $300 million in salary and luxury taxes combined. OKC is bound to pay around $150 million in salaries and $150 million in luxury taxes if their roster stays constituted like this.
This, however, doesn’t mean that Oklahoma City Thunder will end up paying this amount of money. Since the luxury tax kicks in at the end of the year, the team still has an opportunity to trim down their payroll by tweaking their roster.
One of the possibilities is to waive Carmelo Anthony and stretch his $27.9 million salary, which would cut down almost third of that $300 million figure. Other candidates for the waive-and-stretch option are Patrick Paterson and his $5.3 million contracts and Kyle Singler who is set to receive $4.3 million. If they would manage to take off each of these salaries off their books, Thunder would save an additional $20 million.
