Eric Pincus claims the Clippers still have Cap-Room

The short answer is I don’t know. I can get out my calculator and add up the numbers I can find and see how close it comes to the $58.68M cap number. And indeed, ShamSports has some pretty complete looking numbers and it would seem that the Clippers have maybe a tic over $2M under the cap. (We don’t know Skinner’s deal, but we can pretty much assume it’s for the minimum. For veteran minimum contracts, the cap number is a little under $800K, even though the player gets paid more than that. So you have to add that $880K to ShamSports total, since the Fazekas QO was not included in the total at any rate.)

Interestingly, since the Clippers are at 12 contracts, there are no more roster charges. Even though the league requires you to enter the season with a minimum of 13 contracts, roster charges only apply when you’re below 12 in the off-season. Go figure.

So, me, left to my own devices, armed with my knowledge of the CBA and a calculator – I say the Clippers still have a little over $2M in cap space.

But this is fraught with peril. For one thing, we may not have the real salary figures. (Although I do trust ShamSports more than any other site.)

There’s also the simple fact that the Clippers have BEHAVED like they were out of money a couple of times, and the beat reporters have reported that they are out of money. The Azubuike offer sheet of $3M was supposedly all they could do under the cap – at least that’s how it was reported. Then they traded Knight for Hart, which cost them some cap space, and lo and behold RD’s offer was for $2.3M, again reported as all of the team’s remaining cap space.

So it’s a good question, and I wish I could give you a definitive answer. John R, looking at the ShamSports numbers, can you see (a) any problems with them or (b) why we could not conclude that the Clippers still have $2M to spend?