Exclusive Ayton is agreeing to buyout

Three years in a row, we ended seasons by playing players like Bouyea and John Butler Jr (in one game at PG down the stretch!) at the end of seasons to secure Sharpe, Scoot, and Clingan, all 3 of whom have All Star potential. Last year, the team naturally developed and won more games. Not enough though. 4 more wins and we would’ve gotten the #1 pick.

Deni, Camara, and Yang all have star potential too.

 

Can someone please succinctly explain, how is our cap space affected by DA's buyout?

 

This buyout will open one roster spot and the ability to spend the full non-tax payer MLE without being in the tax. We weren't before.

 

I explained it before, no one can bat 1000, especially in a non exact science like team building. I judge on the product as a whole, not individual parts.

My lovely old 1993 Mazda Miata is a lousy highway car, mostly because of the short wheelbase. I understand however why the short wheelbase was chosen and love the car overall. Same thing here.

 

Just incredible how far this #1 pick has fallen. I remember when he was drafted most were calling him a can't miss player. This is the same thing that was being said about Williamson.
Think about Risacher and Cunningham as well.
Ayton, Fultz, Ben Simmons.

Crazy look at the last ten#1 picks.

 

perused the laker reddit, they are salivating for ayton

 

With your list of players we have with allstar potential, everyone in the league has allstar potential then.

Clingan can’t make a layup,

Yang hasn’t even played a damn summer league game yet

Scoot hasn’t shown anything near allstar potential

Sharpe has talent, but is super inconsistent

Camara is a great defender, but all star?

Deni, yes

 

His buyout allows us the opportunity to give the full MLE and stay under the tax apron….I think

 

is full MLE the same name for "non-taxpayer" MLE or ~$14.1 mil and the not full MLE the same as taxpayer MLE or ~$5.7 mil?

 

I shouldn’t have tried. I’m way too stupid with this stuff

 

We could spend up to $14.1mil as a starting salary, yes (assuming that the buyout does in fact cut enough from the Blazers books).

 

Not a bad situation for a team that is for sale, keep that in mind

 

All this tells me that Milwaukee is unlikely. Marks is awful when tried to act like an insider.

 

I read this as Ayton knew he wasn't the Blazers long term option and wanted a spot he could claim the main franchise center role.

He's never going to say "I want to go somewhere else for a bigger role" It sounds selfish and shows the Blazers didn't want him.

Saying it's to go to a winning team is agent speak - but easily justified with Blazers being in the lottery 4 straight years.

I don't understand why posters here try to literally analyze what GMs or agents say. They never speak straightforward.

 

Again, thats all great and dandy, but the whole flexibility and cap stuff for Ayton was not handled the same way for Ant. We took on an aging PG who is owed 105 million through his age 37 season.

If everyone waited until the end of the offseason to judge any moves, this place would be a ghost town.

Completely normal for fans to direct moves and state their like or dislike for the moves one by one.

Someone can love the trade down in the draft to accumulate more assets and still scratch their heads on the Ant deal, but end up loving the overall offseason the team has.

 

I would submit not every move. Moves like Tou and Deni have been very good. But in the case of Ant, Grant and Ayton, didn't Joe re-sign Ant, re-sign Grant and trade for Ayton? So it seems reasonable to question why he did that for quite a bit of money only to let 2 of them go so far for even a more expensive contract, or to let them walk for nothing but some unknown cap space, yes? And yes, Tou came with Ayton but no one had any idea Camara would turn into what he has, which is a very good defensive player and a still somewhat limited offensive player. Schmitz may have liked him as a Draft prospect, but it's fair to say he has completely outperformed his Draft slot.

 

Watching all these Lakers fans convince themselves that all Ayton needs is the right context to bust out is making me all moist-eyed with nostalgia.