but you're not strictly replacing hart with shaedon. it's shaedon + GP2 +nas, who are now all under long term contracts. josh has become my favorite non-dame blazer, but unfortunately i think the writing is on the wall for his eventual departure. dame stanning hard for him is something consider, though. as far as a contract, i see him being worth 15-20 mil/yr easily.
Sharpe will be a needle-moving SF after he gains another 10 lbs. And he won't be 20 until next June so he will fill out a bit. If you move Ant, you move him for a really good big. Because we have multiple young PFs behind Grant who could turn out to be good like Walker and Watford and hell maybe even Brown with the way he is improving. But why move Ant? He is only one of 2 players on the team who can light it now. (add Sharpe in another year) We need at least 3
I wouldn't move anyone if this team continues on. No reason to. You have to pay to win. No way Chauncey or Dame lets go of Hart without a fight. Ain't gonna happen.
There are no bigs I’d trade Ant for, outside of the ones that wouldn’t be available in trade like Embiid, Jokic, etc. Nowadays, it seems like you just need guys that are ‘big enough’ not necessarily guys that are big. Whatever we can get for Ant now, bet that we’ll be worth considerably MORE in a year or two if we really did need to trade him. Ant will get to a point where he will command multiple 1sts, I just want to see how this team plays when he’s awakened first before ever contemplating Ant trades.
I think we could definitely move on from Winslow. Winslow is $4m worth of salary, he combined with some 2nds can get at least a guy that is like him but taller. Backup C continues to be my only worry for this team, and I’m trading Winslow before any of our young guys.
I’m starting to buy into Hart becoming our Draymond by the game. Honestly, if we could settle on 3 yrs/$65m next summer, I wouldn’t even be mad at that. It would put him at 30-31 with another opportunity to get a big contract in 2026. And with the way he plays, he’s always going to be an attractive expiring contract.
This would require Jody being ok being a longer term tax team. Nothing in her time has shown she's willing to do that.
Not sure a whole bunch of changes could or even should occur at this point. I mean they are UNDEFEATED WooHoo!
If that’s the case, we can’t just let him walk for nothing. Towards the deadline, if he keeps this up, he’ll show he’s either too valuable to not be on this team long-term, or be so valuable other teams will offer more for him at the deadline, or both.
There are certainly a lot of scenarios as the season progresses; including the two you listed. I'm guessing the most likely outcome would be to trade him to a team looking to contend who has a young big and draft assests. If we think we're a contender come February, then that changes everything.
Incorrect. Your definitive statement "This would require" is making many assumptions that may or may not happen. We don't know if Nurk/GP2/etc other players salaries are on the roster at the end of 2024 season when a possible Hart extension could first begin to trigger tax. We also don't know what the cap and tax will spike up to. Your statement "longer term" alludes to multiple seasons of tax so now your talking about 2025 or repeater tax which would begin in 2027 at the earliest. Plus who knows what kind of CBA changes could happen; there might not even be a tax or maybe it will be 200% of the cap. Its very stupid to trade away Hart now because what could happen if we leave every other player on the roster (which has never happened before), plus the cap doesn't spike (which appears unlikely), just to avoid some tax penalty that may or may not even be around.
I'm guessing not. There is no compelling evidence to support this random guess. I could make guesses that the Blazers will trade Dame for a draft pick, Ant for a backup wing, or Nurk for Wemba.
Sure its possible we trade Hart; But its possible we trade Nurk, he looks overpaid. Ant is great but maybe the team would be better with a star wing next to Dame instead of a similar guard and another team would want Ant's upside. Maybe Grant is going to be overpaid, is a poor rebounder, and the team wants to avoid luxury tax his contract could have in 2027. Maybe Sharpe value has jumped throughout the league and the Blazers have a chance to sell high for a boatload of picks. NAS is locked into a reasonable contract, maybe a tax team wants to trade for that cost certainty. Dame has proven he has recovered and is playing elite, maybe he can now get that monster all time great trade offer with a young stud and tons of picks. You could put rationale of why it makes sense to trade any player on the Blazers. Yes players can be traded, thats how the NBA has always worked. Yes Hart could become more expensive on his next contract. But he also could resign on a reasonable deal, that is something to figure out first in the summer, and secondly by the February 2024 trade deadline when luxury tax is set. The pending possible increase of his salary would hurt his value in a trade just as much as it hurts his value to the Blazers, so it's doesn't definitively mean he is more or less likely to be traded. You could alternatively make arguments that Hart has even more value to the Blazers with his contract in that the Blazers can try to resign him on a bargain contract, he appears to enjoy being with this group and may consider resigning at a more reasonable rate, and the Blazers can use the excuse of luxury tax concerns to bargain a reasonable rate. If another team trades for Hart they would be forced to resign for him or admit they gave up value for a player who walked for nothing months later. That puts a ton of pressure on the acquiring teams GM and harms their ability to negotiate a reasonable contract.
If you aren't compelled by the previous actions of ownership and want to ignore the trends to keep your hope alive, that's perfectly fine with me. I hope Jody wants to start acting like Joe Lacob or Steve Ballmer. I hope we can keep Hart. I wish the Blazers could live in the world you suggest where they don't forecast future salary cap and tax levels. That would be awesome!
All valid concerns long term and in future seasons. But none of that leads me to believe the Blazers are more likely to trade Josh Hart while he is starting in a season the team is under the tax.
Fair to disagree. The beauty of these threads/predictions is we can always revisit them in a year and see what assumptions we got right and what we got wrong. They may be under the tax today, but I assume they've already agreed to an extension for Grant in principle. We both like Hart, so we agree there!
Does anyone know--does Hart's player option for next year essentially mean that he's ineligible to be extended, or that if he were to be extended, that he would have to accept the 12.96M PO as part of that extension?
I'm assuming Harts contract is not eligible for extension (maybe it wasnt long enough or something) since I've never heard of that being a possibility. Grant we've heard dozens of times can be extended.
Looks like our friend Mike Richmond might've been reading the forum. He spent the first 10 min of his show this morning talking about this very issue.
