Perhaps. The team was way below mediocre before Nurkic. They had a well above-par record with him, but against a soft stretch in the schedule. I don't think the team is likely to win at that rate for a full year. And if we assume Nurkic will miss some games to injury, you'd adjust the wins down a bit. My main point is that even with Nurkic, this isn't particularly close to a contender as constructed. If it were, the expense wouldn't be a big deal. And Nurkic's contract status is a hidden time bomb--at some point, the team will have to pay him way more, but that won't add any talent, it'll just keep Nurkic. So future flexibility to add pieces around this core seems like a pipe dream right now.
Under your plan, assuming we're able to deal Davis/Leonard for nothing, and counting the 3 draft picks, we'd only be about 1.5M under the tax with the 12 players that would be on the roster. Use of those exceptions would put us back over the tax again, and actually would hard cap us at the apron.
You do when those cap holds become guaranteed contracts and all 1st round picks automatically get guaranteed contracts. Even if you cut a first rounder, you still pay his guaranteed rookie scale contract and it still counts against the luxury tax. BNM
That $1.5 million would allow us to retain Connaughton and be just a hair under the tax threshold with 13 players under contract. But, of course that assume we dump Davis and Meyers and take $0 salary in return. Far from a given. I still think moving Crabbe and/or Turner is our best option to postpone being a tax payer for another year. Too bad Crabbe is injured right now. We could always wait and try to move one of those two at the trade deadline, but every other team will know we are desperate to unload them. So, we might not get the kind of offer we need. If we wait until the deadline we might only get offers that require us to take back an undesirable contract in return. BNM
That assumes we keep/use the draft picks and not trade them, or not draft and eurostash them. Like I said, there's $5-6M under the LT for NO to deal.
I hate this news. Wanted to get rid of him. So over rated by some people on here. I had hopes for him last season but this season he never made the jump, now he is expected back in time for training camp, great wont be improving on any aspect of his game. Spends more time on his hair than his actual game. That contract...
And if we don't use them, them we have even more roster spots to fill. Not likely that they'll be able to do it much cheaper than worth rookie contracts.
We will just turn into what most veteran NBA playoff teams do after there good players get paid and thats a team with 2 or 3 large contracts that just seems to rotate role players around every year. Pretty much what the Spurs have done for years, what OKC did before Durant left, what the Clippers have been doing for years, what Dallas did for a long time as well. I'm sure the East did it as well but I havent' had any caffeine yet so I can't think of anyone besides the Heat that did it.
Those teams were contenders with just their core players and only needed to replace their cheap players, when they got expensive and left, with new cheap players. The Blazers aren't contenders with their existing core players and they massively overpaid for production they should be getting from cheap players putting them in a cap and tax vice that makes roster adjustment extremely hard. To put it another way, if Lillard/McCollum/Nurkic alone made the team a title contender and then the rest of their players were cheap, but they were prepared to let those currently cheap players go when they got expensive to get "new, cheap Crabbe," "new, cheap Turner," etc, I could see the comparison. Instead, they're paying Crabbe and Turner like core pieces (and Leonard like a really good reserve) and that kills their ability to retool like those teams you mentioned. And even if they did manage to retool, they're retooling a team that isn't all that close to championship-caliber.
Yes, I understand that minimum contracts exist. Also, I realized that Spotrac didn't include Napier on the 2017-18 roster, so that's another guaranteed spot that I missed. But, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that Olshey deals Davis/Leonard for nothing, cuts the NGC's, trades/stashes all 3 first round picks, and fills a spot with a player on a rookie minimum deal. How much space is left under the luxury tax line at that point for the 12th roster spot (the minimum required)? $4.27M. And there's no way any free agents of any quality come to Portland for that. But sure, if we can find a taker for some of our dreck, cut another 20% of the roster, and don't use any picks--Neil has $4M under the tax line to deal with. But when was the last time a team went through an entire season with only 12 players on the roster--especially considering rosters are actually being expanded to 17 this season? It's a completely unrealistic scenario you've created.
You can have 11 on the roster and sign 10-day contracts to fill the 12th. The Bulls did it for the whole season a few years ago. If I were NO, I'd be looking to add a backup C who can start in a pinch. Like I posted earlier, he's done an amazing job of filling the C position for us at really low salaries. All this doesn't preclude even bigger kinds of deals. Like we trade 2 guys for 3 with much less incoming salary, or the two going out make plenty of room under the LT. NO isn't stupid or blind and neither is PA. I also don't think that Crabbe is untradeable. Chandler Parsons scored a MAX/$22M contract in spite of missing 20-25 games in each of the previous two seasons, unable to play in all but 1 playoff game, and after having microfracture surgery and then surgery for a torn meniscus.
Aminu's contract could easily be moved for cap space, too. I was suggesting the least that NO might have to do to get us under the LT. Losing Aminu's contract would be a way to free up even more room to deal.
Bingo. Great post. I often time the Blazers are playing chess with checkers pieces. The other teams are moving to check mate in the time we are just looking straight ahead. You point this out to other Blazer fans and they are like, "How dare you! How dare you! Winning a championship is entirely possible here." And other teams fans say, "You guys are so stupid. How could you give so much money to that guy. You screwed yourselves." All you can do is enjoy the pleasant things that happen like Nurkic from time to time. Draft day is always fun too. But you have to pick your battles as a Blazer fan during the off-season.
I'm not sure if relying on other GMs being stupid is a solid strategy. You're entire scenario relies on other GMs taking our bad contracts and not forcing us to take on any of their bad contracts in return. Even in the Parsons case, prior to injury, he was much better than Crabbe. In his two years in DAL, he averaged 17 ppg and had a PER > 16. Crabbe has not come close to either of those numbers. Obviously, MEM was counting on Parsons to return to his pre-injury form, or at least play as well as he did the previous season in DAL. It was a risk that certainly didn't pay off in year one of his contract. His production fell off a cliff. With Crabbe, any GM that takes on that contract has to hope that Crabbe suddenly becomes a MUCH better player. He didn't improve on any of his weaknesses last summer and after foot surgery, probably won't make in progress in those areas this summer either. So, do you take on the $19 million a year salary of a PER = 11 one-dimensional specialist and hope he magically becomes something significantly better? If we can find a GM that dumb, we should offer them a package that also includes Meyers Leonard and Evan Turner, and do it quick before they get fired. Man, if only David Kahn was still the GM in MIN. He used to love collecting our cast offs. BNM
So relived they didn't have to amputate. When was the last time a team announced that a player's surgery was unsuccessful? BNM
"Prior to injury." So ignore the injuries? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The guy misses good parts of two seasons, the most recent playoffs, and has had serious red flag injury/surgery issues, yet multiple GMs went after him. Past performance isn't a predictor of future performance, especially if Crabbe were to become a starter elsewhere. Elsewhere without two uber high usage players on the team. Neither of us has a crystal ball, but I do read a lot of GMs' quotes and sports articles about teams saying the big need is shooting. Shooting is something Crabbe is one of the elite at, and Meyers, for a 7'er is also.
Cuban gave Harrison Barnes a MAX contract. Barnes had a 12.3 PER, and 11.7 PPG, missed 16 games, and had a 107 DRtg (111 with the Mavs as full time starter). Crabbe's career DRtg is 111. Barnes was 23, Crabbe is 24, but was 23 when he was offered a MAX contract by a GM other than NO.
