Lebron already knows portland. He spends time there in the offseason (because of Nike) and has mentioned before how he always has good games when he visits because it’s a “home away from home.” That’s a literal quote. Someone with more care can go fact check that one if they want.
I am comparing Portland to Brentwood CA, not Cleveland OH. He just bought a brand new 23 million dollar home there and he has one other right by it. I am sure Portland would be great for 2 years, but 4 years? I just don't see it. And yes I have been to Cleveland for work numerous times. It might suck for us, but it is home to he and his family.
If LeBron wanted to force his way to Portland (and I cannot imagine that he would), we would not have to give up Dame, CJ, Nurk, or Collins. And maybe not Ed. Because if we did, he would no longer want to come here. I'd protect those 5, and put everyone else and every available draft pick on the table.
Lebron can go literally anywhere he wants...the Cavs didn't trade him at the deadline and he's a free agent so you don't have to give Cleveland anything if he walks...there would be no reason to gut the roster..he wants to come to a team with talent...it would mean Paul Allen was willing to go Cleveland deep into the luxury tax to sign him and keep enough talent around him to make him want to stay...if he's nice, he'll help the Cavs with a sign and trade deal but he doesn't have to. He could do a Lamarcus on them....I read somewhere there was bad blood between him and ET...not sure how that plays out.
This. I don't know why Lebron would stay after this year but he might. He can do anything he wants. If he wanted to go to a certain team, they would make it work no matter what. I highly doubt he comes to Portland. There are just so many other options on the table.
Bones: You are misunderstanding what I am trying to say. Sign and trades no matter who the player is are not a realistic option this off season. Being hard capped with only half the roster filled is practically an impossible situation.
I’d like to know if that $129m hard cap is actually true. Warriors and Cavs both have payrolls of $130m+ If we’re hard capped at $129m, how the fuck are we going to even re-sign our FAs, nevermind Lebron?
Scalma: The hard cap is only triggered with a sign-and-trade OR using the full-MLE and Bi-Annual Exception when over the cap. You can go as far over the "hard cap" if you aren't hard capped. For example, the Blazers could in theory have a payroll over $175 million next year (keep everyone guaranteed, sign Davis to $10m, Napier to $10m, Nurk to $20m, PC to $5m, use both trade exceptions, and the tax-MLE). I know those numbers probably/hopefully aren't accurate for what those guys would sign for just showing that they could if they wanted to. Just for the sake of showing how the hard cap works, lets say that the Cavs and LeBron agreed to a sign-and-trade max deal for Turner, Aminu, Leonard, and a 1st. Max deal for his level of service is estimated at about $35 million per year which is almost exactly what those three we'd be trading them equal. So real rough estimate this is what we'd be left with since that would trigger the hard cap (estimated at $129 but could be more or less depending on what the final tax number is): Roughly $110 million guaranteed with just Dame, CJ, LeBron, Collins, Swanigan, and Harkless on the roster. That means they'd have 8 roster spots that they'd have to fill and cannot go over the $129 million at any point during the 2018-19 season under for any reason. So this means all of our own free agents would have to sign for pennies or we could let them all walk and use the full-MLE and the BAE with minimum contracts to round out the remaining 6 spots. I guess that might be worth getting LeBron but it would put us in a very tough position. In brighter news, LeBron's contract increases combined with an expected minimal jump in the salary cap this summer makes his contract one of the extremely rare cases where his max salary for opting into his contract is actually a few hundred thousand more than opting out and signing a new one. So if we made that exact same trade above (once again just an example, I know the Cavs wouldn't do that) with him opting into his contract it wouldn't be a sign-and-trade and then we would be in prime position to keep everyone and add talent with the TPE and tax-MLE since the hard cap wouldn't apply.
