Projections I have seen don't have us with quite that much. If your calculations are correct that would be good.
I believe the deadline with Bledsoe is the 11th. Bledsoe move needs another team to agree to a trade. Other teams are going to prioritize agreements with free agents today/tomorrow/etc. Sure I could see us agreeing to a trade with Bledsoe today. But if not I bet the Blazers will look at offers until his guarantee, and the other team on a trade might be waiting to confirm their other moves first. Often the final trades keep being modified up until the 6th when signings start to become official.
Were those you were seeing before using the updated cap/ tax figures that came out this week? The apron estimate has been raised to 157M, which makes a huge difference.
Batum started 54 of 59 games he played for them last year. Their owner doesn't give a shit about luxury tax. Nic likely view himself as the starter or key bench player, so I don't think he's concerned at all about the backups of Roco, Coffey, Mann, Kennard, or Powell. Kawhi and George have played what 25% of the teams games together? Again I don't think Nico is concerned with them taking his minutes or touches, he's more a complimentary piece anyways. I'd be shocked if he doesn't resign there.
did not know that. i thought we could cut a mil or so from the NT MLE and still stay below hard cap. Interesting.
Could be. Yeah I saw the estimates went up. I don't follow this or track it like I use to so I'm sure yourself or others have a way more precise idea.
If we have a deal lined up with Bledsoe then why not use both? At the least use the MLE on a player that might have trade value at the deadline, potential to improve, etc. I don't see any reason to avoid using the MLE. Well besides Vulcan/Jody pocketing the cash. I hope that is not the case. Now if you are saying use the tax MLE instead of non-tax full MLE yes I'm all for that. I'd only use the full MLE if its a much better player.
If it's done right, you can still make a lot of moves beforehand. Many teams were hard-capped last year. (11)
We might be saying 2 different things. I haven't run any numbers, it's very likely we could use the full mle and stay below the hard cap. It's just that we would have to stay below it is all. I thought TB was asking, if we don't use all of the full, does it not trigger the hard cap.
I don't see a scenario where moves beforehand of hard cap matter. The Blazers are either hard capped or their not. There is no way to beneficially spend money now, go over the anticipated hard cap, and then get under that in a few days time. Maybe you think the cap holds impact the hard cap? They don't. Regardless, all the agreements we hear reported the next few days are just tentative nonbinding verbal agreements. The team will do the official transactions in whatever order makes sense starting July 6th.
I disagree with your assertion that backup C isn't the most glaring need. Yes it would go a long way to have a better starting SF than we do right now and that could definitely be where all of our MLE goes or we should definitely look at that being the big splash we make in the trade market. What I will say again is we have no backup C right now, I don't think we can expect to win if the best we have behind Nurk (who's best seasons have left twenty or more minutes to be played behind him) is someone that you think you can get off the waiver wire on some ten days and we do have multiple quality guys that have started at SF.
ah ok. So as long as we are below the apron after using it, we can use the full MLE and not trigger the hard cap?
No, if you use the Full MLE (which is any amount over the TPMLE) or receive a player via sign and trade, your team is hard capped. That's just the hard cap rule. I also think it's triggered by use of the BAE.
Yeah I followed the same thinking as you but perhaps others were thinking of a different scenario. In fact with your scenario, I'd argue if we do get hard capped it makes sense to avoid the tax. Since the team can only go a couple million into the tax, it seems dumb to waste a nonrepeater tax year for that tiny benefit. If we are going to go in the tax then there should be the flexibility to go way into it.
