This is a good summary, but a few nuances: 1.) Norm can sign a 4/80 but start at 17.8 with the standard 8% raises 2.) Hard cap will be around 143M If we just re-sign Norm, we will be at ~133M with 9 players guaranteed. Need to fill out 5 roster spots to get to the minimum 14 players on the roster. My guess is Kanter won't command more than the vet min, if they do sign him. Same with Collins. At the very least, the QO should be out of the picture for Collins. 7 Million for someone that can't give you any minutes next year should be a non-starter. So that leaves 5 spots for the vet-min + Tax MLE. Vet minimums depend on how many years the player has been in the league, but the average salary is about ~2 million. If we just sign 5 vet minimum guys to fill out the roster that will put us at around ~143M which is the hard cap. The taxpayers MLE is about ~5.7M, so add 3.7 million on top of that if they decide to use the full taxpayer MLE. Brings us to a total of ~146M for 14 players in the scenario where we bring everyone back and use all of the tools available, which is the easiest (and maybe most likely?) route this off-season. 146M is well into the tax, but your tax numbers seem to be a bit off. The tax bill for a 146M roster should be the 10 million over the current 136M luxury tax thresh-hold which is around 7.5M for the first 5 million and 8.75 for the second 5 million, for a total bill of ~17 million. A lot for sure, but not approaching the crazy numbers that the Nets and Warriors hit this year. And certainly, this is the reality going forward with Dame on the super-max and CJ on a large extension. If they aren't planning on spending heavily into the tax they may well think about trading Dame at this point and starting over. Of course all of this assumes moves are made in independently of each other. If we can move Jones into someone else's capspace, or Jones decides to opt out, that changes things significantly. We can even open up the full MLE at that point, which would be interesting. They can also make a move during the season to reduce their salary since the luxury tax is based on your team salary at the end of the season. In the doomsday scenario where we are out of the playoff picture by the trade deadline, we can maybe do some money saving moves by moving larger contracts for smaller ones.
no surprise, but retaining him is the prerequisite to any subsequent CJ trades. i don't like reading or speculating that tax is a concern, though. we all knew we would be in the tax this year. this is the year to go ALL IN. Wonder if this is why dame is making noise? is ownership/management against spending all of a sudden?
All of a sudden? It's been my impression they've prioritized being frugal even in Paul's final years.
they had the highest payroll in the league in 2019-20 and even paid tax. Was the 4th highest in 18-19. i always figured the desperate push this past year to get UNDER the tax was so that we wouldn't be a repeater this year and exacerbate the tax burden in a season when we would inevitably be big spenders ( ie., Dame contract kicking in, etc).
Interesting that they have him ranked #17. For comparison: 8. Danny Green 9. Devonte' Graham 14. Bruce Brown 15. Kelly Olynyk 16. Evan fucking Fournier
Didn't know how they ranked payroll-wise. Staying under to avoid the repeater is how I remember it too. Mission accomplished? So now is the time to spend.
I'd wonder if the uncertainty about Dame's future will make it harder to re-sign Powell. Wouldn't be surprised
think part of this was more about timing than anything. Our absolute $ amount was about the same, but it's hard to retain that #1 spender spot when GS and BK have their supermax guys starting their contracts all in the same year. We had a pretty high concentration of guys signed in 2016 still on the roster (Turner, Leonard, who turned into Baze/Whiteside etc) in 18-19 and 19-20, while other teams that had given out similar contracts had tried to move away from them by attaching assets.
Wouldn’t think too much about that. Hollinger had Whiteside worth like 15m last year lol. Got the min and deserved less.
really don't think it's a financially motivated thing as much as it is just Olshey being risk-averse or guys not wanting to come to portland. Even James Harden last year I think was just a leverage play.
Yes that’s what I meant. He’s conservative in all the wrong ways. Think he’s still haunted by trading an unprotected first that turned into Kyrie.
