Cap Considerations

Carter will be a restricted free agent with a $1.8 million cap hold and Qualifying Offer, and Early Bird rights. If the Suns operate under the cap, they could keep Carter's cap hold on the books, use their remaining cap space to sign free agents, and then bring Carter back using his Early Bird rights.

 

The Suns will have an interesting decision regarding whether to tender the $1.8 million QO and make Carter a restricted free agent. On one hand, it is a very low cap hold, and not giving him the offer would not free up very much cap space. However, if the Suns believe Carter might sign the $1.8 million QO, and that he's not worth keeping at that price, then it is not worth it to make him a restricted free agent.

 

The Suns can maintain Carter's Early Bird rights without offering him the QO, as long as the QO is not offered initially or pulled before the end of October. If Carter is brought back using Early Bird rights rather than cap space, the Suns will be limited to paying him a starting salary of up to 105% of the average salary this past season (roughly $10 million), which should be more than enough. If Carter is brought back by the Suns on a multi-year contract above the minimum, they should frontload his contract as much as possible. 

 

For other teams, the ability to get Carter will likely depend on if he is a restricted or unrestricted free agent. If he is unrestricted, he'll be available to almost any team, especially considering his salary will likely fit within any of the Mid-Level Exceptions, the Bi-Annual Exception, or possibly even the minimum. If he is restricted, teams will likely hesitate to give Carter an offer sheet, since anything too far above his market value will be an overpay, and anything near his market value or below will just get matched by Phoenix.

 

In addition, since Carter will only have two years of service, he will be subject to the Gilbert Arenas provision. This means that any offer sheet he signs with a team besides Phoenix can have a starting maximum salary of $9.3 million, but the third, and potentially fourth, years of that contract can have a large jump (up to the max). His cap hit would then be the average salary over the life of the contract. If the Suns match, they could choose for his cap hit to either be his actual salary per season or the average over the life of the contract, provided the average fits within the Early Bird Exception. I do not expect this to come into play for Carter, as he is unlikely to demand a high enough salary for this to occur.