Although White has been trying to persuade Butler to stay with the Timberwolves, Butler still listened to Tang Tian's words and chose to follow his heart.

"Welcome back, Jimmy." Tang Tian was also a little excited on the phone.

He knows the role of Butler, which is to strengthen PJ Tucker in the second gear, who integrates offense and defense, will be the spiritual leader of the Nets on the court, and will also share a lot of offensive pressure for Delon.

The four-year contract with a maximum salary of $72.56 million, because he has not played in the NBA for a long time, and the "Rose clause" has not been triggered, the salary of this maximum salary in the first year is only $15.26 million, which is really cheap.

Even after signing Butler and before renewing Yi Jianlian, the Nets still have room to eat a similar max contract, such as Millsap.

However, that would also mean the Nets would have to pay the luxury tax again in the future, and given the extension of Jokic and Devin Booker, it would be unwise to sign that contract.

And most importantly, player development requires ball possession, and blindly signing All-Star level players will hurt both.

However, the Nets' road to reinforcement did not stop there.

After reaching a contract with Butler, the Nets then signed a three-year, $12 million contract with Barton with a team option for the final year.

After this series of signing operations, the Nets' roster has also become much more fleshed out.

Tang Tian also began to calculate the salary space of the Nets.

The team's existing contract: Deron (21 million) + Butler (15.26 million) + Livingston (5 million) + Bojan Bogdanovic ($3.43 million) + Maddie (2.5 million) = 47.19 million.

If you add Taylor Johnson, Jonathan Simmons, Pralim, Devin Booker and Jefferson, the rookie contracts are about 7 million, which is about 54 million.

(Note: Yi Jianlian and Barton are contract renewals and can be operated on the cap, so they can be temporarily disregarded here.) ）

Prior to that, the league announced a salary cap of $70 million for the new season and a luxury tax trigger of $84.7 million.

So there are two options left for the Nets.

The first is to directly sign 3 base-salary players, counting Yi Jianlian and Barton (the total salary of the two is about 16 million) to make up the starting lineup of 15 people, then the salary is just above the salary cap.

The second is to sign another high-quality multi-million-level player or split a multi-million-dollar contract to keep the total salary below the luxury tax.

Last year, the Nets' record was much better than expected, which made fans expect a lot from them for the new season, so Tang Tian actually chose the second way without much thought.

At the level of 10 million, according to the salary calculation, the maximum salary that can be given is 16 million (7000-5400), and if the line of luxury tax is 10 million (8470-7100-2 base salaries).

In other words, this will probably be a contract with a starting salary of 1000~16 million.

Because Jokic's rookie contract can be used for 3 years, a 3-year or 4-year contract with a team option is the most suitable.

A contract with a clear scope, there aren't many players in the free agent market that are worth that price.

Thaddeus Young of the 76ers, Iman Shambaugh of the Cavaliers, Tyson Chandler and Monta Ellis and Rajon Rondo of the Mavericks, Monroe of the Pistons, Middleton of the Thunder, Belinelli and Danny Green of the Spurs, Amir Johnson of the Raptors.

Of course, there are some that can be jumped out without exercising the player option, such as Jeff Green of the Grizzlies, Ruel Deng of the Bulls, and Eric Gordon of the Pelicans.

Considering the Nets' lineup, the options are really not very big.

Signing Jeff Glenn, Thaddeus Young or Ruhr Deng gives the team depth at the power forward position, and they are all swinging at the 3/4 position and have a lot of mobility.

If you sign Belinelli or Eric Gordon, you can consider starting Booker directly, so that the bench firepower will be very ferocious.

"We have other options, Louis Williams used to play under you, he's only about seven or eight million a year, and we still have room to take other power forwards." Jones gave Tang Tian more advice.

It's really an option as well.

After thinking about it, Tang Tian finally chose Eric Gordon.

Gordon went from an All-Star to a second-tier player due to injury, and his strength and talent have also been reproven by the Rockets in his previous life.

At this time, it should be the time when his market price is at its lowest, and low-cost income has always been Tang Tian's favorite thing to do.

And the system is ready to move, and if Gordon recovers from injury, the Nets will pick up an All-Star player for nothing.

Jones was instructed to quickly negotiate with Gordon's team.

Gordon's market isn't doing well because of injuries, and he and his team are leaning toward completing their contracts and seeking a new deal next summer, as his final year is worth more than $15 million.

But Jones is an old fritter after all, and he has strong negotiation skills.

After some contact, the two sides quickly reached a starting salary of 12.39 million and a four-year contract extension of 53 million, of which the fourth year is a player option.

Considering that both Livingston and Maddie are out of contract next summer, this contract won't be too much of a burden on the Nets.

And after winning the teams, the strength of the Nets has obviously increased by more than one notch.

Point guards: Delon, Livingston, Tyler Johnson, T.J. McConaughey

Quarterbacks: Devin Booker, Eric Gordon, Will Barton

Small forwards: Jimmy Butler, Maddy, Bojan Bogdanovic, Jonathan Simmons, Jefferson

Power forward: Yi Jianlian

Centers: Jokic, Pralim

This lineup is a bit top-heavy, and subsequent deals will have to be followed.

After weighing it, Tang Tian put Bojan Bogdanovic on the shelf again.

Unlike Bogdan, Bojan was largely squeezed out of the squad in the playoffs last season, and his defense was a problem at the top of the game.

Still, his excellent three-point shooting ability has been proven, and there is no shortage of players like him in the small-ball era.

The Bojan deal has not yet taken place, and the signings of other teams have already been made.

Brook Lopez and the Suns agreed to a three-year, $60 million contract extension.

The Nuggets and Millsap agreed to a three-year, $58 million contract extension, with a player option for the third year.

Love signed a five-year, $110 million contract with the Cavaliers.

James signed a two-year max contract with a player option with the Cavaliers, and his economic team, as before, is looking to maximize his benefits.

……

Marc Gasol, Jordan Jr., Draymond Green, Danny Green, Middleton and others have also reached contract extensions with their parent teams.

In this year's free agent market, most of them chose to stay with their parent team.

However, some people did the opposite, and David West of the Pacers announced that he jumped out of his final year of 12.6 million contract.

After jumping out, he said directly, not chasing a higher salary, but just hoping to join a championship team and satisfy his championship dream.