I'm just going to pretend Neil is working on this OT and figuring out a way to get this done that also moves out one of our bad contracts. If that happens to go with Dame/CJ/Nurk and whichever of Vonleh/Collins/Swanigan wins the PF battle. That would move the needle IMO.
Yah were under the cap, we can maybe absorb a decent player but we would have to give up at least a pick. That is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better then having Leonard/Crabbe/Turner especially when it doesn't happen and we end up spending that money on a player who won't provide quality minutes off the bench since no one coming for 6.5m is going to provide a quality 15-20m a night.
This doesnt take into account the two first round picks, and the cap holds for a full 15 man roster, so virtually 0 cap space
Those figures do take into account the 2 first round picks, and Varejeo's 2 mil and Ezeli's 1 mil. The Blazers have no other "holds", nor is there a "cap hold for a full 15 man roster". The cap hold you might be thinking of is for 12 players, and the blazers would have 12 players on their roster sans those 3. Even if the Blazers were under the 12 person mark, that "hold" would be intended to sign other players, so you can use the hold for it's intended purpose. So wow, your post was like a triple fail. Thanks for wasting my time in making me correct you.
Jae Crowder would...you know...the player that this thread is about. You also blithely ignore how we'd be in position to have a lot of cap space next year with all our expirings. Now we are simply in a bad position, where we're trying to get rid of contracts to avoid the luxury tax.
With the Bradley/Morris trade, that created $3.8M in Cap Space so now the Celtics can sign Hayward. They don't need to move Crowder anymore AND they got their PF. Basically /thread. Damn, is Neil on vacation?
One other point (and not to start any nastiness), but EVERY GM in the league would fill out a full roster of players each year. N.O., even if he hadn't matched on Crabbe and re-signed both Leonard and Harkless....would have signed another couple of players FOR DEPTH. So the idea that we would have had "X" cap space is bogus. We would have been just over the cap and stuck ONLY signing minimum level players instead of the production we got from Crabbe, Harkless (Starter for many games), and Leonard. I just think its too much to overlook and second guess this. That's all.
Ptofuction we got from Leonard??? We could've signed one yesr deals, then traded away Davis and Aminu and had $20M in cap space.
If we had "punted", we'd have filled out the roster with 1 year deals though...maybe some with 2nd year team options. Not lucrative multi-year contracts.
Who could we have gotten on a one year deal last year? Just Leonard and Harkless? How many roster spots are you planning to fill with 20 million in cap space?
Seems to me that this was also the pivotal point where PA and NO said....no more relying on Free Agents to maybe sign here....instead lets do everything possible to gain the best player we can through the draft (either taking at our given number or making trades to get better pick and also through buying picks), and by making trades we can control. BUT...relying less on free agency. That's what I hear him saying at nearly every press conference when he says "the process".
but guaranteed the first word of his conference is.."look, we're not making a move just to make a move".....it's an old magician's trick
How do we know this? I hate this assumption that if we didn't get what we want that NO's not doing his job. We all know his work doesn't get leaked.