Here's a list of FAs this summer, and who many have signed with already. http://www.nba.com/freeagents/2015/ Who are you going to use the cap space on? The obvious, and I approve, is LMA. If not, then what?
We posted at the same time. I'm not seeing much that's available that makes sense to commit cap space to beyond this season. That's where the idea of Johnson comes in. David Lee can be had. Unlike Johnson, the guy wasn't able to play more than 49 games. Hibbert? Huge mistake. Olshey probably could have had him already and hasn't made the Blazers into the third team in the Lee for Hibbert for cap space deal. Tobias Harris is a RFA, and I think Orlando will match offers for him. I don't see much in the way of rumors about him, other than teams (Boston) dropping out of the bidding for him. What exactly don't you like about renting Joe Johnson for a season? Mythical "better" options isn't an answer unless you can be specific.
If LMA signs we should pay him the max and structure the contract like Davis' contract, not Ed Davis then we should sign Mathews for 13M per year and ROLO for 8Mper year and with the young talent we should be able to compete with anyone. If LMA does not sign I still think signing Mathews, Rolo, and Dorell wright would be a positive move. We would still have the MLE and about 8M of cap space to acquire another player. Thanks for posting this.
I don't like the idea of sticking a 34 year old starter on the team regardless of salary. We are going young and if we bring in an old guy he needs to be a Chris Kaman type that is happy to watch younger players play. We aren't trying to win games so Joe Johnson makes no sense. These are free agents I'd see if we could get on reasonable contracts: Sergio Rodriguez - Europe age29 Wesley Johnson - LAL age27 John Jenkins - ATL age24 Wayne Ellington - LAL age27 Kosta Koufos - MEM age26 Kevin Seraphin - WSH age25 Bismack Biyombo - CHA age22 Cole Aldrich - NYK age26 Joel Freeland - POR age28 Except for Koufos those are all borderline rotational players. We could overpay them on a one year deal with team options. If they shock us and improve then they have trade value or value to us. If they don't then we're just as good off as Joe Johnson. PG Cory Joseph - SAS age23 (restricted) SG KJ McDaniels - HOU age22 (restricted) Cory Joseph will probably be unrestricted if the Spurs as expected get Aldridge. I'd definitely look at signing him. These are players I'd rather target in a trade: Mario Chalmers - MIA age29 $4.3 Jeff Green - MEM age28 $9.2 David Lee - GS age32 $15.5 Taj Gibson - CHI age30 $8.5/9.0 Joakim Noah - CHI age30 $13.4 Roy Hibbert - IND age28 $15.5 We might not be able to get any of them so if not do one of the options above. If none of those options are available just wait. Some team might give up a prospect to get out of the luxury tax as the season goes on. Thats a better plan than Joe Johnsons extremely negative value contract.
I updated the main post to include: - Signing of Al-Farouq Aminu to 4 yr/$30M. I assumed 4.5% raises, although it could be structured differently. - Signing of Ed Davis to 3 yr/$20M. I assumed 4.5% raises, although it could be structured differently. - Updated salary cap estimate to $69.1M. Actual number to come out at the end of the moratorium period. - Removal of CAP holds for those players that have received offers from other teams. - I moved Allen Crabbe and Tim Frazer to the signed section until we hear if their team options are picked up. Assuming the CAP is at $69.1M, that gives the Blazers $28,488,218 of CAP space. Our roster is top heavy at the moment with quite a few Bigs. With no big time free agents left to use the CAP space on, my guess is we're going to be looking at a lopsided trade to pick up a wing player. They may also get involved with a multi-team trade and pick up future draft choices to absorb contracts. In this 'reloading' period, the Blazers will probably be looking to grab as many future draft choices as possible along with young talent with trade-able contracts.
Theres been a few signings since he posted this. So teams with more than the MLE in cap room are the following: POR 24.3 ORL 17.4 PHI 15.7 UTH 9.4 DEN 6.5 IND 6.1 Actual cap space could be a couple million higher if cap is $69 million instead of $67. The exact cap will be finalized Jul 8th.
Since we have so much extra cap space I suspect Aminu and Davis contracts will be finalized with maximum declining amounts of 4.5% so they start at about $8.05 million and $7.0 million.
With the cap taking huge jumps over the next few years (Most teams will have money to sped), I wonder if the Blazers have any advantage structuring the contracts that way. As we've shown this year, the Blazers are not at a competitive advantage when everyone else also has cap space. I think the Blazer Cap space is most effective this year as other teams try to dump salary trying to free up room for next year.
So $3 million more than some teams planned for. Interesting if this will change any teams plans that were very close to the limit.
Assuming the CAP is at $70.0M, that gives the Blazers $29,388,218 of CAP space. (depending upon the structure of the new FA signings.)
