Kevin Love AGAIN (with poll)

I'm extremely skeptical that the Blazers would have traded expiring contracts for 31M in additional salary over the next 3 seasons. That's guaranteed repeater tax the season after next, and the season after that. In fact, I don't believe it

 

Why not? It’s not coming from Portland. Love is exactly the type of player Olshey gets hard for.

 

Agreed! The only way it makes even a tiny bit of sense is if it got Portland completely out of the tax this season to do so. Cleveland would not really be in a position to do that on their own.

 

well, I said right in that post 'why not'. In a season decimated by injuries, and when they are making moves based on reducing tax, the Blazers decide to trade for one of the most often injured players in the league, while just about guaranteeing huge repeater tax for two seasons? It simply doesn't compute

 

A trade for Love wouldn’t have been just about this season though. And so far I have yet to see any actual evidence that avoiding the tax is a priority (Shit, they added to it when they traded for Whiteside.) If it was, they would’ve/could’ve/may have just attached assets (like a pick) to Whiteside and gotten under. Shaving a couple mil off the bill after they’ve realized there were no other trades to make isn’t really the same thing.

 

I'm in the process of editing a video going in depth on the Blazers summer options in terms of the cap but basically...

The Ariza decision also comes into play here. They can either waive him by June 30th and take a $1.8 million dead cap hit or keep him on the team for $12.8 million. I'm assuming both Hood and Hezonja will opt in and that the Blazers will not want to be a tax paying team next year.

If Ariza is waived they have about $33 million to sign 4 players after factoring in draft picks. The Full-MLE is going to be around $9.7 million so they could use that, sign Gabriel to about $2 million, sign one other free agent for the Bi-Annual Exception at around $3.8 million, and that leaves them with one roster spot for Whiteside which they could pay him up to about $17 million as a starting salary. If Whiteside isn't re-signed or signs on another team the Blazers would only be able to offer a minimum contract to whoever they picked up. If we predict Whiteside re-signing then we'd have Dame, CJ, Hood (injured?), Trent, Simons, Little, Hezonja, Gabriel, Collins, Nurk, Whiteside, 1st round pick, 2nd round pick, MLE, and BAE signings. If Hood isn't 100% that leaves us pretty thin at SF depending on who the MLE was. So......

That almost means Ariza needs to be kept as the starting SF, in which case they'd have $22 million to play with before going into the tax and after signing their picks with just 3 roster spots remaining. Sign Gabriel for $1.75 million (or whatever his minimum ends up being) and the Full-MLE at $9.76 million and that leaves the max offer for Whiteside and not going into the tax at $10.5 million. If they were willing to go into the tax we could offer him up to $16.5 million in that scenario and then try to get under the tax later in the season but after the penny pinching moves this season that seems unlikely. They could also only use the Tax-MLE of $6 million to free up more money for Whiteside and not go into the tax but then you're talking about getting a lesser quality player. I guess it just depends on who's willing to sign here. A guy like say Marvin Williams wouldn't probably command the Full-MLE so you could maybe get him for the Tax-MLE, who knows?

So the question is would Whiteside sign for $10.5 million in year one to maximize Portland's ability to keep Ariza and use the Full-MLE? I'm not sure. It's more than any other team that can only offer the Full-MLE of $9.76 so maybe he'd take it but if one of those teams are offering a starting job is it worth taking a million less to play more? Not sure of that either.

Another thing is that this pretty much leaves Melo out of most scenarios unless you think he's worth using the MLE or BAE to retain. We do not have bird rights on him so he'd either have to sign for the minimum or using one of those two exceptions. We also have the trade exception of $7.1 million to add a player that route if needed but that cuts into the money elsewhere.

 

very generous of your time, thank you and please let me know when video is polished up.

 

It's no problem at all. I nerd out pretty hardcore on this stuff.

 

So now it comes out the Blazers did indeed offer a trade package for Kevin Love. Cavs didn't accept the offer. It would have been a good deal if they would have got it done looking at the possibilities.

 

only if you believe what one blogger said....I don't

 

He’s the Athletic’s editor in chief for Cleveland. Hardly a blogger.

 

Someone can check the math, but off the top of my head, I think that trading Whiteside and Bazemore plus a pick to the Cavs for Love and John Henson (who they dumped to Detroit in the Drummond deal), would have worked from a cap standpoint and would have moved the Blazers under the LT for this season.

 

Yes, it would've gotten the Blazers out of the tax BUT it would have taken Cleveland from a non-tax team to the highest salary in the league and give them a huge tax payment. For one of the worst team's in the league there is no way they would've done that without being compensated to do so. That's why I don't buy that this was being discussed. The guy also said that those two matched the salary of Love, not that it would be an unbalanced trade.

 

The word is they also wanted picks. That would make more sense.

 

I feel like you missed several pages of this thread discussing this yesterday, lol.

No team offered a pick. In fact if this guy is to be believed Portland sounds like the only team that didn't ask Cleveland to be the one including the pick.

 

I believe it. I think Love has always been a target and he'll probably remain a target.

 

Who would know this information anyway, and why leak it?

 

seems like Cleveland would want this supposed leak, if anyone did. It would give them a little cover for not adding a pick to a Love trade in order to dump him

 

Portland was asking to move both Whiteside and Bazemore.
I would not think asking for a pick also would be reasonable. Thus my statement. "They wanted picks". Cleveland wanted picks.
It is understandable why Cleveland didn't want that deal. It is also understandable why Portland didn't want to give up draft picks.