The FO's plan has been to remain as competetive as we can this year and then use the 2012 offseason to reload/retool through free agency. All of their moves have been made with this summer's free agent market in mind.

We are going to have a pretty ridiculous amount of cap space going into the offseason(~$30 million I think), enough to sign two max FAs.

This sounds like an excellent plan:

1. Nail this year's draft

2. Add 2 max cats through free agency to play next to Steve and Gortat

3. Championship baby!

There's only one (big) problem with that plan. Jump it brosephs.

As this season wears on, the free agent market is beginning to dry up quickly. Let's look at who will be available:

http://www.sbnation.com/2011-nba-free-agency/2011/12/20/2641521/nba-free-agents-2012-ranking-dwight-howard-deron-williams

Tier 1 has all the guys we've been salivating over for a year. Dwight, Deron, Love(RFA), Westbrook(RFA). The problem is that it doesn't appear like any of those guys will be available.

Dwight has given his list of teams he'd like to play for : LAL, LAC, DAL, NJ.

Deron Williams has given his list too : LAL, NYK, DAL, and he's okay with reupping in NJ if Dwight signs there.

So scratch both of those guys off the list. We can offer them both max contracts and the opportunity to play together, but it appears as though they're set on bigger, flashier markets. We don't have a chance.

That leaves Westbrook, who signed an extension worth 80 million, and Love, who said he wants to sign an extension with 'Sota.

If Love is off the market, we should go after Eric Gordon(RFA). He's a young, dynamic scorer who would be a perfect fit here. He is injury prone, which makes me hesitant to offer him max money, but his potential makes him worth it, IMO. There's only one problem. He says he's open to reupping in NO .

Even if they don't sign extensions with their respective teams, they are still restricted, which means that their team can match any offer we put on the table. Does this worry anybody else? Who exactly are we going to bring in to turn our team around? Who's left? Going down that list, almost every young player that could possibly help us (Bropez, Batum, Gallo, McGee, Hibbert, Asik, Augustin, Mayo, Anderson, Hill, Arthur, Hickson, Randolph, Thompson, Fernandez, Speights, Bayless, Fields) is a restricted free agent, which means we are going to have to overpay in order to snag them away from their teams.

That's a really bad scenario. Going into this offseason with a huge war chest and pretty much nobody to spend it on almost ensures that we're going to be offering A-level contracts to B-level players, and that is a recipe for disaster(just ask Detroit!).

Sure, there are some youngish UFAs we could pursue(Oden, Dragic, Miles, Hawes, Green, Bellinelli), and a lot of UFA vets(Diaw, LB, Ray Ray, KG, Duncan, Kidd, Billups, Felton, Landry, Hinrich, Terry, Delfino, Ilyasova, Camby, Kaman, etc.), but none of them are franchise cornerstones, at least not anymore.

So what is the plan exactly? Hope that Nash signs another 2 year extension, write off the 2012-2013 season as another "bridge year", and then try this plan again when Nash is 39 years old?

I really don't have a coherent way to end this, because I actually am confused about what the FO is trying to do. They have infinitely more resources than we do, and if we're aware of this slight potential snafu in their plan, then they obviously are as well. I just don't know what their Plan B, break glass in case of emergency scenario is.

Any thoughts?