Orlando Magic’s cap room dependent on upcoming free agents

The Orlando Magic will have a lot of cap room, but likely not enough for a max player this summer without some further maneuvering.

With the trade deadline coming up in two weeks, there is a lot of focus on the future with every team in the league.

Do teams make a move to solidify their current roster for a Playoff run? Do they sacrifice part of their future for a shot at glory? Do they clear cap room to make a run at a free agent? Do they remake the roster in the middle of the season and disrupt chemistry either good or bad?

These are the difficult decisions that are coming down the pike for every NBA team.

The Magic themselves are in a tricky situation too. They are still focused on building in the long term, but this year that has seen a small measure of success but still plenty of problems has revealed the core is not quite coalescing the way the Magic would like. There will be some tough decisions to come for the franchise.

But with those tough decisions — picking which players to cash in and for what and picking which players are truly part of the long-term future of the team — comes the regular planning for free agency.

The trade deadline will reveal a bit of what the Magic are planning this summer — such as what the team intends to do with Evan Fournier.

This year, in an effort to become more competitive, the Magic re-signed Tobias Harris to a long-term deal and started Nikola Vucevic‘s long-term extension. Those two salaries plus a few other free agent signings brought the Magic’s payroll right up to the salary cap line.

This summer, the salary cap is expected to rise from about $70 million to around $90 million. So how much cap room the Magic have to play with for free agents will depend on what they do with a slew of young free agents — including that big Evan Fournier decision.

Basketball Insiders salary cap guru Eric Pincus projects the Magic to have a best-case scenario of $26.4 million in cap room and a worst-case scenario of $17.6 million in cap room. How much depends on what the Magic do with their own free agents. Aside from Evan Fournier, Andrew Nicholson, Jason Smith and Dewayne Dedmon also are free agents.

To reach $26.4 million in cap room, the Magic would have to renounce all their rights to these players as free agents. That does not seem very likely.

It all would point to the Magic not having enough cap room for a max salary for a player with more than six years of experience.

That does not mean the Magic will not have significant cap room to add a complementary player or bench player to the roster. They do need to improve their depth. It also does not mean the Magic would not have enough cap room to sign Fournier outright and use their space that way — although it is more likely they try to time his signing to take advantage of his Bird Rights and go over the cap to keep him if that is the direction they go.

But it would take some maneuvering to get far enough under the cap for a max salary — $21.1 million for a max salary to a player with six years or less of experience, $25.3 million for a player with seven to nine years of experience and $29.5 million for a player with 10 or more years of experience according to Pincus.

What the Magic do at the trade deadline could signal their seriousness to go after a big fish in free agency. If they look to cut salary in some significant way by taking on expiring deals or trading away some of their players with big contracts — such as Vucevic or Harris — that would signal an effort to go after a big fish.

In all likelihood though, if the Magic want to make a major trade for a big-name player, it will come in the summer using one of the players already on the roster. It could come in February or it could come later.

Next: Where can the Orlando Magic find reliability?

What is apparent is the Magic are not planning on going after a max free agent this summer. Not as things are currently constructed.