That article is a reprint of this October article, based on 2010-11 salaries and cap before the new CBA. http://www.sbnation.com/2011/10/17/2495288/nba-superstars-underpaid-rookie-scale-hook
Who do we have that we can trade for a SF? I agree 8 mill is about the max he deserves, but if we don't intend to match then that becomes the 4th position we need to draft for. Sounds like we need to match and move him next year. I see no other option unless our pick ends up 3.
Yes, sign and trade is better than losing him for nothing unless...1) we have to take on another overpaid player just to get rid of Batum or...2) the couple of mill we overpay him is the difference in preventing us from signing somebody we otherwise would have signed this summer. I mean if we come within a small margin of getting someone just because we overpay Batum by that much, THEN we should have let Batum go for nothing.
Portland still can match anything Toronto has to offer because they hold his "Bird Rights". Doesn't mean they will though.
Blazers will match any offer out there. I don't get this OK to sign him for 8-9 but not 10. What is an extra 2 million in luxury (as long as PA doesn't care). Either way Batum will take a big chunk of the salary cap which Portland should be over after all the wheeling and dealing this off season. So who cares if Batum is over paid a couple million a year, how does that hurt a team over the cap?
PA seems pretty hell bent on not going into the luxury tax again, especially since it is worse on those teams in the luxury tax area. It wouldn't surprise me to see some team overpay for Batum and see a sign and trade scenario though
10 mil isn't the problem. I'm talking 12 mil per. That's obviously way too much to sign him for, especially with the new CBA kicking in the season after. If Toronto is stupid enough to offer a contract like that, then we can let them be in cap hell.
If this is true, then we have lost the one huge advantage PA brings to the Blazer organization. I don't beleive Allen can resist spending money if he thinks it will bring a championship, and luckily his passion and rose colored glasses often make their way into his decision making process.
Things change when you start winning. I think Allen doesn't want to go to Luxury cap if we are just one and done in the playoffs, let alone not making the playoffs. If we can make it to the WCFs, then I suspect his pocket book would open up.
Actually they hold right of first refusal in that scenario. Bird rights really on come into play when it comes to max contracts (1 more year and higher year over year raises).
I don't think this team is anywhere near competing for a championship, so if Allen is going to spend his way to one, it probably won't be until they look like they're on the cusp. In the meantime, I expect he's going to be pretty damned frugal (rightfully so) -- and there's the rub, now would be the perfect time for him to sell because of the way the team's financial commitments are structured and the fluidity in the personnel and coaching positions.
This may have been linked somewhere before, but there's a good analysis of the Blazers' cap situation relative to Batum over on Blazersedge: http://www.blazersedge.com/
That is a great write up. It shows the stupidity of not getting him signed earlier, and the stupidity of thinking we have major cap space this summer.
Uhmm, no. They have $5-$7M more in cap space now than if they had signed Nic. The amount of cap space is impacted by what other teams may offer Nic and what he does in response, but it's better to have the cap space. If they work with Nic and his agent behind the scene, they can give him the money he wants and still make use of the greater cap space to sign a better UFA. They need to work quickly, but it should be possible to pull off.
I'm guessing a team does front-load the hell out of an offer to Nic and then dare the Blazers to match. In Dave's scenario Batum could represent a 12 million dollar caphold within a couple of days of the start of free agency ... Not to be a Debbie Downer (Oh what the hell, why stop now) but I'd put the odds of this happening at 99%.
But Batum must accept the offer right? The 3 day offer to match is only when Batum accepts the offer. If Batum wants to still play in Portland, all he has to do is accept offer sheets after we did our major free agent signing. Then we can match regardless.
With no GM in place and god knows who behind the scenes pulling the levers? Ummm ... maybe, but something tells me there are several competing agendas behind the scenes in upper management and being nimble seems a little unlikely.
Why wouldn't Nic accept a huge front-loaded offer? He doesn't owe the Blazers anything especially after they failed to come to terms on an extension last fall. I'm guessing he's going to look out for numero uno (as he should) and take the best offer he can get.
