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Yesterday we laid out the details on potential maximum contracts for the 2010-11 season. We also gave you six players – LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Joe Johnson, Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer, and Amar’e Stoudemire – who could receive max contracts this summer. We also detailed the teams that will have maximum contract slots available to offer: Chicago Bulls, L.A. Clippers, New Jersey Nets, Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves (probably), Washington Wizards (probably), Miami HEAT (2), New York Knicks (2).

Anything jump out from looking at those two lists? There could be 10 maximum salary slots available, but only six players generally considered possible max players. And if any of the group – sans Wade – re-signs with their current team, that’s another slot available to the rest of the league.

This could play out in a couple different ways. First, players who may not be max-contract talent could still end up with a boatload of dollars, just because the money is there and teams always feel they have to spend it; very rarely will they roll it over to the next season. The second way it could play out is teams could behave responsibly and offer less than max contracts to players from the next tier of free agents, instead of overpaying.

Given past history, it’s probably more likely option one happens, but never before has there been this amount of free agent money to throw around. The thinking here is if a team is able to exercise some restraint they may be able to add two, three, or even four players with their cap space who could really make the team successful in the long-term.

The question was asked before – who is in this next group of free agents? (Check out the full list of free agents here.)

First off there are the restricted free agents, the first-round picks from 2006 that played out the first four years of their rookie scale contracts and didn’t sign an early extension last summer. That list includes:

Rudy Gay, Memphis Grizzlies
Tyrus Thomas, Charlotte Bobcats
Randy Foye, Washington Wizards
J.J. Redick, Orlando Magic
Ronnie Brewer, Memphis Grizzlies

These players will be restricted should their teams make them Qualifying Offers by June 30th. If they are not offered, they become unrestricted free agents. Each of these players has shown improvement during their time in the league and could be in line for a decent raise, though of the group Gay is the one most likely to find himself offered big money. And again, each of these players could re-sign with their current team and – save for Foye – not impact any of those aforementioned salary slots.

The next group consists of just three players:

Nate Robinson, Boston Celtics
David Lee, New York Knicks
Raymond Felton, Charlotte Bobcats

These three, all members of the draft class of 2005, signed their Qualifying Offers last year and will be unrestricted free agents. Robinson lost his Bird Rights when he approved the trade last week to Boston, and Lee could lose his if the Knicks choose to renounce his rights if the sign other free agents.

Then there is a nice group of middle-tier free agents who could be rewarded handsomely with all that money available. These are players who may have, in any other season, been considered candidates for the Mid-Level Exception. This is a group of veterans, players who have been in the league awhile and proven they are key contributors on good teams, and also veterans who were once superstars and may be facing their final big payday.

Ray Allen, Boston Celtics
Brad Miller, Chicago Bulls
Shaquille O’Neal, Cleveland Cavaliers
Brendan Haywood, Dallas Mavericks
Luis Scola, Houston Rockets
Travis Outlaw, L.A. Clippers
Jermaine O’Neal, Miami HEAT
Udonis Haslem, Miami HEAT
Tracy McGrady, New York Knicks
Al Harrington, New York Knicks
Marcus Camby, Portland Trail Blazers
Manu Ginobili, San Antonio Spurs
Kyle Korver, Utah Jazz
Mike Miller, Washington Wizards
Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Washington Wizards
Josh Howard, Washington Wizards (team option, unlikely)

As with the previous groups, many of these players could re-sign with their current teams via Bird Rights without impacting the amount of money we talked about in the beginning.

I should also note a couple highly paid veterans who could become free agents if they wanted to (because of a Player Option or an Early Termination Option) and would be in the talk for max money:

Yao Ming, Houston Rockets
Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Mavericks
Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers
Paul Pierce, Boston Celtics

It should be noted that because of the rule we talked about yesterday where any player can sign for 105% of his previous contract, the amount that would entail for some of these players – most notably Bryant and Nowitzki – makes it highly unlikely they would sign with a different team, unless they were willing to sacrifice a lot of money or the team wanted to put all of their faith in one veteran player – neither is particularly likely.

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View Jason Fleming Archive Then you have some players with options who would not be in the mix for max money, but could still command decent contracts:

Tyson Chandler, Charlotte Bobcats
Kenyon Martin, Denver Nuggets
Richard Jefferson, San Antonio Spurs
Joel Przybilla, Portland Trail Blazers
Michael Redd, Milwaukee Bucks

All of these players in the unlikely category when it comes to whether or not they choose free agency.

After that you have all sorts of players, including other young players who could be restricted free agents like Houston’s Luis Scola, who could see a big payday.

Given all the space available across the league, it’s probably time for many of these teams to not only start thinking about a Plan B (not one of the big six), but also Plans C, D, and E. When you get right down to it, there simply may be more money available than deserving players to sign for it. And we all know what that means.

Read more: http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=15404#ixzz0gPsr618g

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