Let's see, Paul Allen owns an NFL franchise, The Blazers, A ship with it's own submarine and a nice Fender strat...I think we'll be ok
We have the bird rights on all these guys. We can go over the cap. It would just cost Paul a lot of cash.
What's the cap have to do with it? We hold the Bird Rights to all our expiring contracts. We can pay them whatever we want regardless of the salary cap. Can? Yes. Will? Depends. BNM
Out of all our core guys, the only one I could see leaving would be Wes. Especially if Afflalo turns out to be as good as he was in Orlando. I don't see any way we let Rolo leave, and I think he likes it here. LA will get a max deal. I'm hoping Afflalo doesn't opt out and we can just hold onto him.
It could be the perfect year to have all our players hit the market as free agents. Sign LaMarcus to a max 5 year deal before the cap, and max contracts, jump up 30+%. We might have to pay a little bit of tax for one season but then the cap will hit $80-$90+ million and the luxury tax limit will be way over $100 million. So we'll have Rolo,LMA, Dame, Wes locked up for 5 years with $40 million of space under the luxury tax.
It really doesn't matter what the salary cap does, if this team loses in the 1st round tough choices have to be made. If the team loses in the 2nd round choices still have to be made just not as drastic. If this team makes the WCFs or NBA finals you bring everyone back. Only worry about the salary cap until after the playoffs are over because we don't know what direction(s) we have to go in during the offseason.
The ONLY time this can happen to Gee again... is in practice! Yeah, that's right, we're talkin' practice!
If someone throws him a huge contract, and either Afflalo doesn't opt out or is willing to sign for less, I could see us not bringing him back. I just can't see us maxing him.
if we do well in the playoffs he might pay the tax for one year as we will have a huge increase in the cap the following tear when the big TV new TV contract kicks in
Okay so I've had a little time to think about how Afflalo will effect this team. I think the biggest impact he will have is defensively, and rest of Wesley. Wesley did a great job in making Harden in the playoffs take tough shots.. Being physical with him. However Wesley suffered offensively. He shot sub 32% from 3 in 11 playoff games. 22 makes 68 shots. In the regular season he shot his consistent 39%. That's a pretty big drop off for someone who is the #3 option on the Blazers. Wesley will never admit it but chasing Harden for 3 1/2 quarters then letting Batum do the last 6 minutes of the game.. Tired him out. Wesley is a beast but Afflalo will help him the most because it won't all be on Wesley to chase guys like Harden. Wes + Batum are excellent on ball defenders. If Afflalo can add to that.... Then that's three excellent perimeter defenders. Lillard has improved his defense... Won't say he's excellent yet.. But he's not playing matador defense anymore. If Afflalo can bring Wes' workload down a little. Wes is surely going to shoot better than 32% from 3 in the playoffs this year. High hopes for Afflalo.
