Winslow and Bledsoe are the two worthless contracts taking up dead space if we can clear those either now or in the summer that would help. So ridiculous these were both acquired giving up starters. It doesn't makes sense to keep Nurk at $18 million. Either we trade him now, sign him to a lesser deal, or let him walk in the summer. So if we could get rid of all of three of these we are at $80.5 million, closer to $35 million in cap space, maybe even enough for a max type free agent offer. I just don't see how we build a contending starting 5 around Lillard with the assets this team has. Joe would need to trade for a RoLo type starter with second rounders, hit on a lottery pick, sign a Wes Matthews level amazing value free agent, and have Nas/Ant continue to improve. Sure its technically possible, but it seems beyond unlikely all of these breaks go our way. Probably was way more likely to just keep the old roster we had, trade CJ, and have one lucky break mentioned above to contend. Now we need 4 lucky breaks to contend. I'm expecting a long term rebuild with lots of losing seasons ahead. Only question is do we trade Dame or let him ride out his years here as Kobe did in LA.
Can't do NTMLE if you use cap space. There is the room exception but its I think less than the tax MLE. Although lets say we traded Nurk for Grant now... we'd still have the $20 million trade exception in the summer, and could sign Nurk for the NTMLE. Though that would hard cap us.
Two things: 1. This free agency class is garbage 2. No good free agent comes to Portland, unless they overpay him I can’t imagine that Cronin is that dumb to ignore those two factors
What starters are acquired primarily from an unbalanced trade? Its worth about the same as the golden ticket RLEC. Maybe if we take on some huge contracts we can get first round picks as OKC has done. In that case we are certainly doing a long term rebuild though, not winning with Dame.
Tying up $ for a RFA while letting Nurk/Ant dangle does not seem like a prudent move. I don't think we even bother with FAs this summer outside of MLE dudes.
Yeah I agree there might be a chance we go after someone big but more then likely were using the remaining space on good solid role players to fill in around Dame
Is Ant really good or is he putting up good numbers on a very bad team? That, to me, is the big question. Personally, I don't want to invest in Nurk. He's too injury prone and he's too emo. It's a bad combination. I still think the right move is to just blow it up. Finish what Cronin started. Dump Dame/Nurk and see what the market is for Simons this summer.
Yeah the most realistic uses I see for cap space are two possibilities 1 Middling free agents we could snag just above the MLE offers of other teams 2 Taking on dead salary from teams trying to win with picks attached Ultimately, I think its most likely we stay above the cap and keep all the trade exceptions.
Dumb question, but is there any way we can trade Nicholson for an expiring? He's no longer on our roster, but there must be a dead money clause somewhere in the CBA.
Yeah I am kind of with Nate B on this one I like Nurk but I feel like we are always waiting on the REAL Nurk to arrive and while he shows up maybe 5 to 10 games a season a lot of the times he is average to under whelming when I believe he could be a legit Top 5 Bigman in the league IF he commited to it but he does not. This is why the Nuggets bet on the Joker over Nurk way back then cause they saw the writing on the wall that even IF he became a good player he would never be a great one.
