Once again, not the same concept. Being "hard-capped" only happens if you do one or more of a few things: Take in a S&T player. Use the Full MLE Use the BAE If we don't do any of those things, we don't need to operate under the "hard-cap". We can go as far into the luxury tax as we want. The Warriors had 171M in salary last year. It's very likely we will exceed the apron this year, thus we cannot operate as a hard-cap team and we can't do any of the moves listed above.
He's saying the Blazers won't make any moves that require a hard cap (Full MLE, BAE, S&T). They're going to leave themselves the option to go over the apron.
Going into the luxury is almost the opposite of hard capping. If you make certain move (full MLE, BAE, sign and trade) that makes it so you can only go 6M into the luxury tax which is being hard capped. If you don't make those moves you can use your bird, early bird, non bird, trades at 125% +500k and minimum contract exceptions to go as far into the luxury as you want... a much much higher payroll than the ~145 that the hard cap is this year. In theory by making uneven trades and re-signing player with bird exceptions you can never be capped in this league... your payroll could be like like 560M if all of your players had bird rights and were all nba selections at some point during their contract.
I don't see them doing a S+T either They might use their Full MLE or BAE The hard cap is what $6million above the Luxury line right? The Blazers could easily still hard cap with resigning Powell and filling the roster out with vet mins. I do think we will see a trade. Probably not the big one we hope for.
Blazers won't have the normal mle, being over the tax. The only way blazers can be hard capped is a S&T where we receive the signing player, or using that BAE. Otherwise, there is no hard cap for us.
You are not understanding. They don't need to worry about the hard-cap if they just bring Powell back, use the TPMLE, and sign some vets. I know I mentioned Powell starting at 19M in my previous post, but I should have said 19M for a player that we get back in the S&T. Everyone keeps talking about DeRozon S&Ts. That's the only way it gets done. But I don't see it as likely because then we would need to worry about the hardcap.
DJ + pick for Marcus Smart to be our 6th man. Let Powell walk. Does that open the non-taxpayer MLE for us? Could open us up to more useful wings if we have that cash available.
Why does Boston want to get worse? I'm looking for RoCo types and those players are all on teams trying to win. Also, Smart makes more than DJJ, so it wouldn't open up the non-taxpayer MLE. We need to cut a good amount of salary to do that.
Well they certainly cannot use the full MLE and also re-sign Powell for anything more than like 14M a year. That is impossible even if you fill the rest of the roster out with minimums.
DJ for smart doesn't even work under the 125% +500k rule. Also, in that scenario who would have started as the other forward with RoCo? Edit: But to answer your question, yes it would open up the full MLE because if we only signed a mix of young and vet min level players to fill out the other 6 roster spots we'd end up under the luxury tax.
Mannix mentioned this about Smart: https://www.si.com/nba/2021/08/02/2021-nba-free-agency-preview-rumors-buzz Smart’s value now? “Probably a first round pick and a rotational player,” a high ranking Eastern Conference executive told SI. “Might be able to swap him for similar player that fits a positional need. [Danny Ainge] valued him like an All-Star though—he is not.” It's questionable about DJ being a rotational player though. But it's moot. Smart makes more $ than I thought he did. Thought his deal was closer to 10 mil. Oh well
For those that are thinking about whether or not to operate under the hard-cap. I think CJ for Simmons becomes illegal at that point. Simmons is getting paid 3M more than CJ, and he has a 15% trade kicker that goes on the books of the team receiving him. So 36M. We could still do Dame for Simmons though!
