The new CBA and Joe Cronin's secret plan?

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...mpos-rise-from-obscure-prospect-to-nba-great/

When Joe took over the team, we were one of the highest salaries in the league. That would have had major implications with the new CBA.

The second apron in the new CBA would have been extremely punitive. For all of you who want to go for one more shot at glory with Dame, keep in mind that implications of breaking that second apron.

From the CBA -

Free agency
Remember that second "apron" we mentioned earlier? Here's where it comes into play. It places two significant free-agent restrictions on teams that come in above that line:

• Teams above the second apron cannot use the taxpayer mid-level exception to sign free agents. That exception is the only tool tax teams currently have to pay free agents above the minimum salary. Such contracts could last up to three seasons, and this year, they could pay as much as $6,479,000 in starting salary. This rule would have prevented four free-agent signings in the 2022 offseason: Danilo Gallinari to the Boston Celtics, Donte DiVincenzo to the Golden State Warriors, Joe Ingles to the Milwaukee Bucks and John Wall to the Los Angeles Clippers.
• Teams above the second apron cannot sign players on the buyout market. The exact definition of "buyout market" has not yet been revealed, but it will likely apply to any player who is traded and waived during the season or waived while sacrificing a portion of his salary.

Trades
You didn't think that we were done with the second apron, did you? Oh no. Here's where the restrictions get really draconian. Teams above the second apron will face the three following trade limitations:

• They cannot send out cash in trades. Teams are ordinarily allowed to include a certain amount of cash in trades per season, with this season's figuring coming in at around $6 million. Teams frequently use this tool when they make unbalanced trades or need another team to take on a player to clear a roster spot.
• They cannot trade first-round picks that are more than six years into the future. The NBA allows teams to trade draft picks up to seven years into the future, but that last season will be restricted to these teams.
• They cannot make trades in which they take back more salary than they send out.

Also if you break the apron multiple times, your pick goes to the end of the draft.

Here is a link to the actual new CBA (it's 676 pages long) https://ak-static.cms.nba.com/wp-co.../2023-NBA-Collective-Bargaining-Agreement.pdf



Things are only going to get worse over the next couple years as the CBA goes fully active. It would appear that we have two years with Dame before it would be cost prohibitive to have a bunch of major contracts on the roster. It seems like Joe is building this roster to be young, cheap, and athletic. We could be in a very good position to take advantage of the new CBA while Scoot and Shae are coming into their own.

 

The repeater tax rates are bonkers.

 

What has given you the impression that he actually has some foresight and intelligence? Think this forum gives this guy so much credit, while his track record is suspect at best.

He simply fell ass backwards into Scoot and Schmitz contributed heavily towards the Shaedon pick. Every other move has been either obvious or a teardown to tank/shed salary.

Needless to say, I don't agree with this claim. We are a cheap team that rarely enters the tax much less sniff the second apron. The new restrictive rules will hardly ever apply to us. So, no. I dont think Joe has some secret plan. I think he's driven by a cheap ownership group and he's just protecting his ass by making conservative moves that are not risky.

 

We had the second highest salary in 2019-2020. Joe has been said to be our salary cap guy. The team simply wasn't good enough to justify spending that kind of money.

 

We were barely over the tax line. We aren't getting close to the apron. That's why they didn't care about getting hard capped last yr.

 

I get that the last few years we have tanked our salary numbers. I just think it's possible that Joe has been doing this in preparation for the CBA. If you think our ownership is cheap, you can be damn sure they're looking at that repeater tax that kicks in during the 2025-2026 season.

 

if he was anticipating the new CBA he didn't do a very good job giving Ant and Nurk the contracts he did. But it could be the 2nd apron caught everybody by surprise

 

Do we know if Cronin failed to tell his bosses of the cap implications for that team? It's possible they received the proper information and those above him decided to move forward anyway.

 

Man, a lot was made of the Blazers being hard capped a year ago.

Maybe it was an over-reaction after all.

 

I am guilty of it. But really it didnt matter because we were too cheap for it to.

 

Well we were still under the assumption that the team was actually trying to build around Dame

 

Well if the plan is try to keep Dame happy in the short term, letting Simons or Nurk walk would have probably killed that dream.

 

Well if we signed Bruce Brown for the tax MLE last summer and weren't hard capped maybe we would've done a Durant trade and won the title.

Its easy to say now since nothing was done last year that it didn't cost anything. Nothing was done because we didn't have the flexibility to do anything because we were hardcapped. It's a self fulfilling prophecy that can always confirm the Blazers decisions were correct.

We don't know what opportunities for improvements could have been made if the Blazers weren't hard capped.

Now if the Blazers were never going to go into the luxury tax even if a trade would've had the team contend I guess yes; the hard cap didn't matter. Then we just have cheap owners and will likely never win anything.

 

Ant was a RFA. I can't imagine there was a team offering Nurk more than the full MLE. Give Nurk a million more than the MLE and match whatever Ant's deal is and the team would have better assets today. No risk of either player leaving in those scenarios either.

To me it just looks like Cronin got vastly out negotiated by the agents. There seems to be a theme with Cronin and negotiations.

 

Feels a little bit like pissing into both of your cheerios, but one thought I haven't seen come up in this discussion is the impending sale of the franchise.

Usually team valuations are either propped up by star talent or cheap, young potential... Doesn't it kinda feel like Jody + the Vulcans are going for both of those? You'd have to imagine having Damian Lillard, even in the twilight of his career would mean some pretty solid $$$ in a sale, as would a roster filled with young players on rookie deals, hopefully on the come-up.

It's a gross thought, but one that I think needs to be considered.

 

They are... on the cheap!

 

While we're doing what-ifs... If Jabari Walker had turned into Giannis, we migth have won a championship last year.... Now, back to reality.

 

Does Jody get any of the proceeds of the sale price? If not, then she has no real motivation to maximize value.

 

Joe did what he had to do to ensure the tank (Sharpe, Scoot). The only way a player is going to shut himself down in a contract year is if there are assurances already in place.