Except for a handful of die-hard Clippers and Suns fans, few NBA observers truly believe that the winner of the second-round series between Phoenix and Los Angeles will go much further in the playoffs, but most are agreed that the series will have a major impact on the off-season.

Three of the key players in the series – Suns forward Tim Thomas, Clippers forward Vladimir Radmanovic, and Clippers point guard Sam Cassell – will be free agents after July 1, and their new contracts may set a high benchmark for the NBA market.

The NBA’s salary structure is a monument to bad judgment; almost every team has a contract or two – or 10 in the case of the Knicks – that is out of whack with the player’s value, and those pacts severely limit roster construction.

It’s not hard to see the bind that most general managers and team presidents find themselves in.The salary cap is typically around $44 million, and the luxury tax kicks in on payrolls roughly over $65 million. That budget must be spent on 13 or 14 players, and only first-round draft picks in their first four years of service have their salaries set by a scale with an upper limit of about $2 million per year. Thus, eight to 10 players on every roster are paid anywhere from twice to 10 times that much.

Unlike baseball, where every GM has a large pool of moderately talented players to draw from at the end of his roster or from the minor leagues, the talent development in the NBA is limited to the relatively new development league and some less-than-attractive semi-pro leagues.This leads team presidents to compete tooth and nail for what should be readily replaceable talent, and the “winner” winds up paying marginal players major money. (“Cap hell,” wherein a team is saddled with too many overly generous long-term deals, describes better than half the teams in the league.)

That’s why, with each 3-pointer Radmanovic swishes during the Clippers’ dramatic playoff run, the dollar signs in his agent’s pupils grow brighter. Radmanovic, much to the disbelief of observers,turned down a six-year,$42 million offer from the Sonics last summer so that he could test the free-agent market.The fifth-year forward has few oth er skills beyond his marksmanship from behind the arc – he’s poor rebounder and rarely drives the ball. If his agent is crafty, he’ll seek out bids from teams in dire need of outside shooting (Denver and the Lakers come immediately to mind) to drive up his price tag.The Clippers, who will be under pressure to duplicate their franchise’s most successful season since the Ford Administration, will probably feel compelled to match any offer.

Similarly, Tim Thomas has upped his value immensely this postseason. His play with Milwaukee and the Knicks from 1999-2005 would have had him labeled as a European softy except for the fact that he’s from Paterson, N.J. But he has found a home in the wide open offense of the Phoenix Suns, and his value skyrocketed when he nailed the gamesaving 3-pointer in Game 6 of the Suns’ first-round win over the Lakers.

Like Radmanovic, Thomas, who has continued his fine play against the Clippers, has benefited from a good fit, but that won’t stop some GM from taking a flyer on Thomas, seduced by the athleticism he’s displayed in the postseason. But unlike the Clippers, the Suns have shown themselves willing to take risks with personnel. They overhauled their rotation after winning 62 games last season. I suspect that team president/head coach Mike D’Antoni will have little reluctance to pass on a high offer to Thomas.

Cassell,who may be getting a bit more credit than he deserves for the Clippers’ stunning success, fits into the middle of this spectrum. He averaged 17.2 points (on 44.3% shooting) and 6.3 assists per game during the regular season, and has hit several big shots in the playoffs, proving that he still has game.

But the 36-year- old guard is in the deep twilight of his fine career. If he wants to segue into coaching, he’s with a team with which he already functions as an assistant coach. Or, if he wants to take a broadcasting job, L.A. is a good place to begin. The Clippers’ bargaining position is reinforced by the fact that they have Cassell’s replacement, second-year guard Shaun Livingston,already playing crunch time minutes. Livingston only needs to demonstrate that he can stay healthy for a full season before taking the reins from Cassell.

Cassell will probably sign for a reasonable amount, but the playoff performances by Radmanovic and Thomas will garner them mid-level exception money or more, which is way more than either player deserves.Their deals will then set the benchmark for other free agents like Sacramemto’s Bonzi Wells (who also played over his head the postseason), Peja Stojakovic, and San Antonio’s Nazr Mohhamed to get more than they’re worth, thus perpetuating a terrible financial situation for most teams.

People like to point to maximum deals like those of Allen Iverson and Kevin Garnett as an example of the NBA’s fiscal irresponsibility, but those players have few peers on the court. It’s really the overspending on replaceable players like Thomas and Radmanovic that drives teams deep into cap hell. Just ask the Knicks, who dropped an insane $30 million on Jerome James last summer on the basis of a handful of decent playoff games with Seattle. James proceeded to average more fouls than rebounds when he managed to get on the court this season.

Nevertheless, nothing gooses a player’s free-agent value like a strong playoff performance, which is why some agents are loving the playoffs even more than the fans.

mjohnson@nysun.com