Is there anyway we save up for 2010 instead?

After we give Roy and Aldridge contracts this year, this is possibly what our salary books would look like next summer. As a hypothetical, let Blake and Outlaw expire, trade away our first round pick for 2010, and renounce Koponen and Freeland

Roy - $14,000,000 (assumed)
Aldridge - $12,000,000 (assumed)
Przybilla - $7,405,300
Oden - $6,760,524
Webster - $4,773,218
Bayless - $2,292,600
Rudy - $1,246,680
Batum - $1,196,760
Claver - $1,088,800

That comes out to about: $50.71 million total. Rumors are that the cap will be around the $57 million range for next season, so if can let go of Claver and find a suitor for Webster who would be willing to give us an expiring contract, we could potentially open up almost $12 million of cap room. Even if I'm not so hot about blindly opening up space in hopes of landing an impact player, the FA market for next summer is gonna be off the charts good.

Here's a list of unrestricted free agents:

Dang. And that's just the UFAs. What do you guys think? Should we just go with the roster we have and hope to land a FA again next season?

 

I wouldn't count on it...but with our management I wouldn't say it's impossible either. I like Joe Johnson (thinking realistically).

 

So we'd have to fill out our 4-5 roster spots this year with 1-year contract, renounce the rights to Freeland, Claver, Petteri, and trade our next years 1st round pick. That's a lot to give up for a "chance" at 5-6th dibs at the big names.

 

I hadn't considered that. And if we are under the cap, then we would have to relinquish the MLE and LLE as well. Are there any loopholes here?

 

Not saying that we should do it, but 5-6th dibs at that list is still probably better than first dibs from this year's.

 

Why trade Webster, when we can just have our *doctor* declare him medically retired. Trust me, it will work!

 

Sadly, I am sure this is the spin our management team will use if they can't get anything done this summer.

"Our plan all along was to have cap space in 2010. Forget what we told you all for the last 2 years"

 

I feel your pain, MM. I too felt this chasing capspace thing was futile and we should have traded RLEC, but what can we do about it now? I convinced myself that Hedo was the right fit, but again, was shot down. I understand your nonstop bitching, but what's your solution now?

 

The same as it was last week.

Trade our 2010 #1 to Chicago for Hinrich

Then trade Blake, Outlaw and cash to Charlotte for Wallace

 

Do you think either of these deals are realistic?

 

how aout we wait till 2013 instead? This is such a joke and an epic fail bye KP! And anyone who thinks any other way is just blinded bye your love for the blazers

 

Waiting until next year and having roughly the same amount of cap room with more teams than this year with cap space (and more than we are likely to have) just sounds like a bad bad idea. Nobody really wants to mention it IMO, but Portland is not a high priority destination for free agents, never has been, probably never will be.

KP needs to get something done in a trade or a sign and trade this year, waiting until 2010 would only happen if he utterly failed to accomplish anything; and there's no good way to spin that.

 

Don't you think Charlotte would want more then that?

 

Most definitely.

I'm fairly certain something will happen but I don't even want to speculate at this point, in fact I'm trying really hard to make myself completely indifferent to any outcomes, because frankly at this point I'm expecting that whatever happens is going to be less than optimal ... if KP can somehow swing for the fences and do more than fly-out then great, but I'm not exactly holding my breath at this point.

 

After this whole debacle, do you really think it's even a good idea?

 

Why would we want Joe Johnson when we have Roy and (currently anyways) Rudy?

 

He's 6'8", he could play SF. He did in Phoenix. Not that we could get a star free agent next year.

 

Wait, Joe Johnson is 6'8?

NBA.com lists him as 6'7. (Although that isn't much of a difference)

 

Depends on the website, I guess. But if he's listed at a shorter height, he probably is that height.

 

Does 2010 end in August? Seems like we will still be in position to use that cap space until the trade deadline. Do we really know what was offered for the RLEC? You guys all seemed to know what they all wanted back for Vince (16 million) Jefferson (15 million) and Wallace. (and you guys were bitching about spending 10 million on Turk)

Only Wallace makes sense to me for the Blazers and guess what we can still make that trade since we have cap space. The Blazer management does not have to spin anything to me. I can figure it out on my own.