FIRST TRADE IDEA OF THE NEW SEASON!

There have been talks of teams like the Bulls, Raptors and Wizards possibly blowing it up soon. Once this happens I think a lot of dominoes will fall quickly. Portland will definitely be a buyer but it will be interesting to see where.

 

problem for the Blazers is they are under the tax line by only 70K and hard-capped

another is about the only tradable contracts on disposable players are Winslow and Payton. I do not think Portland can afford to trade Hart, not for what they could get in return

 

I don’t pretend to know much about cap issues/CBA so I solely rely on others who are more familiar with the rules. I recently saw Bobby Marks say that although Portland is hard-capped, they can get creative and still make some moves. Obviously their biggest tradeable asset right now is Josh Hart. And although I absolutely love Hart, if we can upgrade in any way (OG Anunoby for instance), I would move Hart. However with Portland’s current situation, a realistic trade for OG would be probably be complex and would have to involve multiple teams.

 

I think it is very debatable that OG is an upgrade over Hart. Even though Hart's stats are better than OG's, I would not even go by that to determine his value to this team. The only advantage I see for OG is his wing span.

 

The short version is:

+ Portland can take back no more than ~$6M in salary than they send out due to the hard-cap. Portland has an open roster spot & the Ro-Co TPE, so in theory they don't have to send anyone out.

+ Portland sits ~$70k under the Lux-Tax. That is close enough that they can't even sign anyone to a 10-day contract without going into the tax. The biggest factor is that if Portland goes into the tax, then they loose out on the distribution from all the lux-tax teams. This will likely be ~$12M-$15M.

So the primary question in evaluating most deals this year will be 'Is (player) worth paying an extra $12M to obtain?' For a star, the answer is yes. For a mid-tier player (like OG) - I'm not sure what the answer is.

 

Yeah I don't see us making any trades this season.

 

reading about the possibility of jody prioritizing a luxury tax payment from other teams instead of incrementally improving a playoff team makes my blood boil. there is no line for me. for a guy like OG, it's obvious. Hell, I would probably even go into the tax for a low-tier backup who would improve our team like Otto Porter or Zach Collins.

this is a league where you have to pay to win. we wouldn't even be a "repeater" next year if we get in the tax this year. this would not even hinder our ability to add to the team this offseason. the only hit is on Jody's pocket and i can't give one damn about a person about to make billions of profit on a sale losing 12-15 mil.

 

Doesn't it all just come out of the estate anyway? I don't know why she cares.

 

This is a penny-pinching franchise when it doesn't need to be. The profit they will make from the sale will be astronomical.

I mean the preseason decision to not travel the broadcast team for road games said enough about their priorities.

 

when i say "jody," i mean bert/estate/vulcan/etc for all intents and purposes.

 

Come February, if we still are in shot of a HCA spot in the wide open west, we better get in the tax. I'm least bit bothered about that. More concerned with giving up draft picks.

 

I just wish they'd sell the fucking team. I'm so tired of Bert pretending to be the owner.

 

Yet they have no problem overpaying the players they have. Is that really penny-pinching? I doubt Jody is worried about the money. If they can get a difference maker I doubt they will turn it down.

 

This is one of the most petulant and whiny comments that I have read in a long time.

 

lol happy to help i guess.

But clarify this for me: you're OK with prioritizing the bottom line if it comes at the cost of winning? 2.5 games separate the 1 seed with the 6 seed at this moment. Extrapolating this over the season, this difference might be ~7 games at the end. Essentially seeds 1-6 being a game or two apart from each other. If the Vulcan estate losing out on 15 mil means we are a 4 seed with HCA instead of 5 seed, this is NOT worth it for you? How much revenue do you think a Game 7 at home will bring Jody to make it worth her while then? You mentioned that even OG might not be worth crossing this hypothetical threshold, which just baffles my mind.

Please save me your patronizing over my feelings of this bullshit. I've continually maintained that I will not care one bit about a billionaire losing a few million here and there.

 

It makes the most sense IMO to push off the repeater clock. Don't see us being contenders this year no matter what.

 

a "repeater" is considered as such if a team is above the tax for at least three of its previous four seasons. Getting into the tax this year has no bearing on this clock for next year. It only begins to matter in 2026-27 essentially, since we have already reset the clock.

Given the contract extensions for Dame/Ant/Jerami, this is all going to be moot as is since we have no way to reset the clock moving forward. It's just a question of do you want it to start being punitive in 26-27 or 27-28?

Someone please correct me if I have not understood this...

 

At a cost of winning what? I don't see Portland as realistic title contender this season.

It really depends upon the scenario. Put out a realistic trade scenario and we can evaluate it. In 90+% of the cases, I'd argue that the win differential would be 1-2 regular season games at most.


The issue I have is the notion that "more salary <=> better team". They are not synonymous.

It's always easy to spend someone else's money...

 

I don't see a deal to be made that makes this team a contender anyways. What is the hypothetical deal? OG does not make this team a contender. It could benefit from a second superstar.

 

OG plays like dpoy this year, I can't see Toronto moving him