I'm not sure if the rules let you sign and trade away a player who's only been with your team for one season. If a team over the cap wants to give us a small asset and Mo is happy with a $3million per year contract that could work out for all parties. edit: See post #13 below, yes we can sign and trade him.
Mo is opting out so I don't think he'll agree to a sign and trade. We don't have bird rights on him and he wants a 3 year deal and to end up somewhere he's comfortable. Check out his exit interview.
I wonder if he'll get any more than he got last year. Maybe he'll come back for our smaller exception. I wouldn't want him back for the full MLE.
Mo wants a long contract and wants to be here. 3 years is what he said. If he signs here he'll want more money probably.
I think he's delusional if he thinks he's getting a 3 year deal from any title contender. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that winning may not matter as much to him as job security.
It will be interesting to see if Neil try's to make a big splash this year to improve the team. Or will it be more like it was last off season where there wasn't really a transaction earth shaking. It's been interesting to watch him work each year he has been here.
I highly doubt any team gives him more than the $3 million we can offer without using our MLE. Last year Mo didn't have any offers that high; now he is a year older, coming off an 11 PER season while playing below average defense. His stats were even worse in the playoffs of which he had another major injury. It does sound like he's a really good guy in the locker room, and he does have an ability to create offense when nothing else is working. But I'm not certain thats the ideal veteran backup for our squad. He was basically our 6th starter and played major minutes every game he was available. I wonder what his attitude will be like if another player outplays him and starts taking some of his minutes next season? These could be some difficult decisions for Neil because on the one hand he has a great relationship with Mo but he needs to first do what is in the best interest of the team.
I can't forget the unhappy look on Mo's face on two separate times the cameras zoomed in on him while Barton was doing well against the Spurs. Obviously I have no idea what he was actually thinking about, but it didn't look good. We were winning the game, and Mr. Great Locker Room Guy was doing the opposite of cheering his team and his teammate.
I admit I did ask myself the same question, I quickly came to the conclusion that it was just Mo's personality. You are right .....we don't know what he was thinking or what he said to Will after the game.
It sounds like we can sign and trade Mo. We can pay him up to $3.3 million and we could combine players like Clavier or Wright in a trade to match salary. That could give us some good trade options if a team is interested in signing Mo, is not a tax paying team, but doesn't have or want to use the salary cap space to sign him outright. http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q90
I'd see if Washington is interested in a sign and trade of Mo & Clavier for Martell Webster? They really liked having the veteran backup PG precense of Andre Miller last year. But Andre is getting close to 40 years old. Mo gives them good 3 point spacing and a proven veteran prescense. Getting out of Webster's contract would give them the salary room to resign Ariza long term. They already have Otto Potter as a backup and don't need all three SF's. Portland would get back a familiar 3+D player off the bench while retaining their full MLE to pursue a defensive big man or other roster needs. Its hard to believe but Martell is still only 27!
Since we don't have room under the CAP to sign him outright, to S&T Mo we would need to use an exception. We'll have the BAE ($2.1M) & MLE ($5.3M), but doubt we would want to use one of those for a S&T. According to http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q25 it looks like we have non-bird rights allowing us to sign Mo up to 120% of his previous salary - $2,652,000 x 1.2 = $3,182,400 first year salary of new contract.
http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q90 I don't see that you cannot do a sign and trade with cap exemptions. That's probably how most are done, using some type of Bird rights. Reading a bit more about the non-Bird rights, we shouldn't have to touch the MLE or BAE no matter what we do with Mo.
Look at the last bullet point: "The player cannot be signed using the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level exception, the Taxpayer Mid-Level exception, or any exception" They are normally done using Bird rights. But in our case we don't have Bird rights. As a non-Bird free agent a player can always sign for a raise on his previous season salary so we CAN sign and trade Mo in that manner and retain all of our exceptions.
We're pretty much in agreement, but into the details now... That last bullet actually goes on to say "... or any exception that cannot be used to offer a three-year contract (see question number 25)." Section 25 lists the following exceptions: - Larry Bird Exception - Early Bird Exception - Non-Bird Exception - Non-tax MLE (*Specifically calls out can't be used*) - Tax MLE (*Specifically calls out can't be used*) - Room MLE (*Max years=2, can't be used*) - BAE (*Max years=2, can't be used*) - Rookie Exception - Min Salary Exception (*Max years=2, can't be used*) - Disabled Player Exception (*Max years=1, can't be used*) - Reinstatement In this case, since Mo has only been with the Blazers 1 year, we own the "non-Bird Exception" to allow us to exceed the Cap and sign him to 120% of his previous salary. Same conclusion - S&T works. With only 2 roster spots open, the Blazers have to be selective on who they bring back in a S&T. I wouldn't mind seeing the Blazers use this option to pick up an asset like a future draft choice.
Yes the roster spots are scarce. It could be a trade similar to the Felton deal where we get a crappy player back but the team that trades him to us gives us cash to cover the entire salary. Then we could cut the crappy player to free up that roster spot. We'd also receive a second round pick or some other type of asset for our troubles. Another idea is to package Mo with Meyers, Crabbe, Victor or whomever to get a player back. For example, if we agree on an MLE level contract with a free agent, then we should try to see if their previous team would be interested instead of signing and trading him to us for that deal. This would effectively give us two full MLE to use this summer.
