Dropping 1.8 million on a player in this stage of the rebuild is not necessarily the best decision -- savings are the means to keeping options open, an important goal. If money has been spent, it better fit the long-term plan.
The planned roster that takes this team to the NBBA is becomingly increasingly clear. All players will be American; draftees will be kept and developed; home--grown players will provide the bottom 3 places on the roster; ideally, there will be five players with 115 TSP plus or minus; ideally, three of them are training right now, and two have been purchased. It is anticipated the real stars of the team -- over 130 TSP -- will be bought; this is the purpose of the savings, to be able to afford 3 NT players in their prime. This season may well be the last one to draft for a number of seasons.
And the plan is to do all this on a budget. This brings us back to Markham. He's one of the five players mentioned above, spot starter, bench strength, flexibility, ...