It's not the only gauge. Clearly the financials are the most important thing to Jody, which would make not using the TPMLE make sense. From Olshey's perspective, it makes no sense not to use it unless you're given a directive that you can't, or you can't use it on someone that isn't considered enough of a difference maker. Also as much as I hate him, he's not getting fired this year. If a GM was going to get canned, it would be after the season.
yeah, probably it wasn't my main point anyway...that being that Olshey not signing a "viable backup PG" wasn't an indicator of trading for Simmons since he hasn't done that since he signed Steve Blake. Olshey believes CJ and Simons are enough
I think they're going to try and skirt the tax again this year. I only anticipate 1 more vet min signing. It's likely someone on our summer league team.
It’s possible they’re not using the MLE yet because they wanna do a sign and trade and can’t use it if so. Maybe there’s a free agent out there they think they’ve still got a shot at.
I saw a tweet from someone (don't remember who) that indicated Portland was still ~$3m below the tax line.
Because Portland is NOT a destination, Neil is waiting to see who gets squeezed out of the market before offering the money. There are still some very good players available.
They are not. The math is impossible. I believe that tweet is just including Powell’s salary and not the minimums.
Yes, but why would it matter in terms of whether or not we’re already in the tax? Contracts are agreed to already.
I could be wrong but I think the Blazers are about 2M below the line. But that may be without factoring Brown's contract...not sure I'm going to put on the tin-foil hat I put on 8 weeks ago and got hammered for: if the Blazers are trying to stay out of the tax and if they don't use the TPMLE or make a big trade that puts them in the tax....well then, if I saw a team that was not so subtly trying for force their star player to demand a trade, and compared that team to Portland....I don't see a difference What Olshey has done since the Denver series and what Seattle is allowing Olshey to do (or instructing) almost seem designed to trigger that Dame trade demand
Spotrac has the numbers already. Even backloading Powell’s contract as much as possible has us at 137 guaranteed.
The problem with this theory is that Dame officially requesting a trade absolutely obliterates his value. Even the whispers of him getting antsy have likely taken a bite out of it. Doesn't make a lot of sense to do that purposely when the could just simply trade him at higher value...
we only have two centers and no real power forward. If this is the roster he wants to go into the season with we may as well fire him now and blow it up. I don’t think that’s the case though, just need to give it a week or so.
Just for fun - I'll run through the calcs: https://www.spotrac.com/nba/portland-trail-blazers/cap/ Dame: 39.3 CJ: 30.8 RoCo: 13.0 Nurk: 12.0 DJJ: 9.7 Ant: 4.0 Little: 2.3 CJ2: 1.5 Norm: 15.5 McLemore: 1.7 Snell: 1.7 Zeller: 1.7 * Brown (rookie): 0.9 * FA Vet from Summer League: 1.7 ** Dead Cap (Nicholson): 2.9 $138.7 m The tax is ~$136.6 - so it looks like Portland will be over the tax to start the season.
For those who don’t wanna do the math. 135.5 now 15.5 Powell 1.6x3 for the mins 800k for brown 136.6 which is right at the tax line. Except this is for 13 players. We incur a roster charge of 800k which puts us over the tax.
