III. Future Considerations After this summer’s flurry of trades, the cupboard is a bit more bare than it was in May, but GM Olshey did a pretty masterful job of going shopping at the Value Village and creating a bench from nothing. Armed with only a slew of future second-round picks, the rights to a promising young European player (Kostas Papanikolou) and 8 digits of not-enough-for-a-max-offer cap space, he brought in Thomas Robinson, Robin Lopez, Dorell Wright, Former Eastern Conference All-Star ™ Mo Williams, and Proven Veteran and Mentor ™ Earl Watson. But even at Value Village, very little of value is truly free. In terms of first-round picks, Charlotte will still receive (as a result of the Gerald Wallace trade, or as I refer to it, the Steal That Paved the Way for the Damian Lillard Steal) via Imgflip Meme Maker the next draft pick we have that is lower than the 12th pick--unless 2016 rolls around before receiving it, in which case they’ll get the Blazers’ 2016 pick unconditionally. They don’t own their own second-round pick until 2018 (or 2019, depending on how the 2016-17 season plays out for NYK and whether or not their 2nd-round pick falls between 31-37). But Uncle Paul Allen can still use a little over $3M a year ($3.2M, this year) to pay cheapskate and/or financially-hurting owners (**CoughDonaldSterlingandAubreyMcClendonCough**) for late first- or second-round picks. So it’s by no means a dire situation there. On the trade front, however, without some tricky machinations we can’t trade another first rounder until a) we get one back in a trade first or b) 2018. So they’re below-league average in the draft pick department. (For more on the upcoming draft pick situation, check out RealGM’s Future Picks Owing page.) On the cap space front, that’s where Olshey helped the team the most. Armed with about $12M in salary space, he chose to spend it on a multitude of players that’ll slot at 5-9 in the rotation, rather than attempting to blow the wad bringing in a restricted free agent center like Nicola Pekovic or Tiago Splitter. (Buy American!) Starting center, a lotto-talent big man on the front line, veteran PG depth and two potential 6th-Man-of-the-Year vote-getters (after losing our only recipient from last year to Nizhny Novgorod in free agency). via Imgflip Meme Maker The Blazers are current at just over a $63.2M cap number, with the cap set this year at $58.679M. We’ve already used the “Room Exception”, and have no other trade exceptions or cap exceptions to use. If we sign a player, it can only be for the veteran’s minimum. However, the team is still about $8M below the tax line of $71.748M. This becomes significant if Olshey wants to swing some trades to take on salary (they can trade for 125% + $100k on a deal coming back) in order to get assets from a team close to the line who wants to be under at the end of the year (which in reality means at the Trade Deadline in 95% of cases). From Storyteller's Contracts website, it looks like teams in this are are CHI, LAL and LAC, with TOR, BOS and OKC being within $1M of the line. Irrespective of just about any trade we make, we're still in line for having only the Non-Taxpayer (a.k.a. Full) Mid-Level Exception to go shopping with next summer. This summer the MLE started at 5.2M per year with 4.5% raises. Random Notes: The Trade Deadline is Thursday, February 20, 2014 First day to trade for FA’s signed this summer: December 15th. Feb. 14-16 All Star Weekend Any questions about this blurb?
Nice, Brian, very nice. Repped (awww for fucks sake, "you must spread some around") Would some one be so kind as to rep this gent for me?
Very good series! One thing, I don’t think the pick we owe CHA becomes unprotected in 2016. I believe at the news conference when we acquired Gerald Rich Cho said it would turn into multiple second round picks. I don’t trust sites like Real GM, they are a fun guide but not perfect. Hopefully it doesn’t matter because I would hate to think we finish in the bottom 12 the next 3 years.
that's the first I've heard of it, but I'll definitely look that up. One of the reasons I don't think that's the case is that none of our 2nd have that kind of protection (usually it's written something like "2016 2nd goes to XXX unless it already goes to CHA as a result of POR's 1st being protected, in which case Team XXX gets POR's 2017 2nd"). We burned through all of our 2nds without that kind of protection being mentioned. But I'll see what I can dig up, because you're right, that's a big deal to have an unprotected 2016 vs. a couple of seconds post-2016.
Don't forget that the trade matching rule changed at the last CBA. The 125% rule is still in effect for taxpaying teams, but as long as we're under the tax, we can take back 150% if we're sending out <$9.8M, or outgoing + $5M if we're sending out between $9.8M and $19.6M.
Our roster will be quite full through next off season. I like the fact that there should be a minimal amount of roster turnover between this year and next.
