Players on ending contracts or who have options that could result in it being an ending contract can’t be traded right now.
Taking in a sign and trade hard caps you. You need to avoid a sign and trade. hard cap is around 140. Do the math, we can’t fill out the roster with Kawhi and Dame making almost 90 million.
If only the Blazers could get Kawhi to come to Portland on a discounted 1 year deal to see how he likes playing with Dame. If we could get Kawhi here somehow the ring chasers would follow. Alas pipedreams
Im trying to find a team with cap space to absorb CJ and maybe get a back up PG or Center back. Then just sign Leonard outright. Dame/backup PG/Simons Powell/Simons Leonard/Little/Roco Roco/Melo/Little Nurk/Kanter/Filler Obviously we may not be able to keep some guys I have in there, but thats damn good and if we lose a Little or Simons we fill the gaps. Prefer to lose Melo/Kanter and fill in the gaps, but those guys wont cut it.
Here are the numbers: Salary cap: 112 Tax Line: 140 Hard Cap: 145 Dame: 40M Kawhi: 40M Current Blazer salary: 131 Assume no Collins and Powell: 115 In order to sign Kawhi outright we need to move about 45M in salary. CJ + Jones + Ant gets us there. Or CJ + Jones + RoCo or Nurk. But then you're looking at filling out a roster around: Dame/Kawhi/RoCo and Nurk hopefully/Nas? You have 10M in MLE and the rest will be vet mins. Good luck with that. If you trade to hardcap yourself with CJ and Jones (lets just assume best case scenario): Dame 40 Kawhi 40 Powell 20 (Let's assume) Roco 13 Nurk 12 Ant 4 Nas 2 Elleby 2 That is 133 for 8 spots. Need to fill at least 6 more with vet mins. Assume an average of 2 million per vet min and that gets us just at the tax line of 145. I suppose it's physically possible, but what is the likeliness of that? That is a pretty crazy starting 5 though: Dame Powell Kawhi RoCo Nurk All of this is a pipe dream though, because Kawhi would have to demand Portland and Portland only for us to even have a chance at this.
Six vet's minimum contracts is exactly the number that the Clippers had going this season, including guys who played pretty big roles (Batum, Jackson, Boogie, & Mann). Clearly it's possible to find guys who are willing to take the minimum for a shot at a ring. But, yeah, not holding my breath on this idea. What an amazing starting five that would be though.
It's a pipedream sure But, if we can get Kawhi we will have no problem filling out the roster. Lots of ring chasers will head here and gladly take the min to win the championship
Wasn't following then, but either way, don't see how this hurts small markets. If anything it hurts bigger markets that are theoretically richer. Since those teams could take in larger salaries in S&Ts.
Example - you have a super rich owner like Paul but you're not a city that can attract marquee free agents. So instead we piled up players through trades because we were willing to take on overpaid players. Well, now we can't do that and we still can't sign marquee free agents. I'm pretty sure they actually created the hard cap to stop Paul.
It stops rich owners, not small markets. We just happen to be a small market with a rich owner. Most small markets are not rolling in cash. Bigger markets usually have the advantage of richer owners/sponsorship deals/cash flow, etc.
We can still take in overpaid players and continue to up to infinity. We just can't do it in a sign and trade deal. Look at GS. They aren't hard capped, they have a super high salary by swapping Durant for Russell, then Russel for Wiggins., and whatever they movedfor oubre, etc.
One thing about the Clippers moving to Inglewood in 2024........it is close to Manhattan Beach (8 miles) That is too far off to help Kawhi though. But there are a lot more star athletes that live on the beach than in downtown LA. Kawai actually just bought a new home 2 miles from me in Pacific Palisades. 11,815 square-foot house for only 17 million dollars.
