So which team does Ezeli end up with, and what do we have to add?

It's a matter of when, not if, so let's play call your shot. What's the Ezeli trade?

 

Ezeli and a second for nothing. Otherwise part of a larger trade.

 

Ezeli, Crabbe, Leonard and all of this years picks for Butler or DMC.
Prefer Butler for solid perimeter D.

 

There properly to a team that need to reach the floor limit.

 

The question is: Why do we need to trade him?

We can just as easily give him a mil to walk away this summer, and his contract will be completely off the books. There are 0 luxury tax implications to doing this.

If we want to actually add value to shed his contract, that means we might be looking to add someone else for this season who makes a ton of $.

 

This.

The Plumlee-Nurkic trade lowered our team salary, a little. So dumping Ezeli's contract means another trade in the works, with more salary coming back than going out.

 

We can trade him for a player with a longer contract that his team wants to unload, or as part of a bigger trade. His trade value is positive because of his contract being not guaranteed

Edit: I see it already been posted, nevermind

 

Yeah, I don't see us dumping him to get another team to the salary cap floor. If he's traded, it's to help match salaries.

 

His contract is guaranteed next year for $1 million, and his contract is about half paid already this year. Total savings are ~4 million this year. The Blazers are in the luxury tax next season barring no other trades, so that $1 million is more like $2.5 million for a total of ~$6-7 million of total savings we would get for dumping him for nothing. Most second rounders sell for less than $6 million, so there is a real $$$ incentive to dump his contract for nothing by attaching a 2nd on top of it.

 

That makes sense. Didn't consider the savings for this season. Most I would part with is a future 2nd rounder.

 

To Brooklyn in exchange for a 2nd round pick

 

Yes, let's make Brooklyn pay US a second round pick by picking up guaranteed money for a guy that will never play.

They'll never see it coming!

 

Brooklyn is under the salary threshold and has to add salary to avoid penalties. On top of that insurance is paying Ezeli's salary anyway... If you'd actually do some research, you might have picked up on that .

 

What penalties? They just need to pay the difference between their salary books and the floor to the players. This is the same situation we were in when we got Varejao last year. Cavs gave us a pick to take his contract on for the rest of the season, while also helping us get to the floor.

 

Varejao wasn't an expiring though. We wouldn't have gotten a first otherwise.

 

The penalty is that they pay out the additional money to the rest of the players on their roster, so either way that money is going somewhere.

Ezeli will never play and is guaranteed $1 million next year. How does this make any sense at all?

Portland was in a similar situation last year, and was able to eat Anderson Varejao's contract......and get a 1st rounder on top of it.

So yeah, the team dumping salary is giving up the draft assets.

 

For the last time (and I don't think people have fully picked up on this yet), Ezeli IS NOT AN EXPIRING. He's owned $1 million next year guaranteed, and he's NEVER going to play. Why on earth would anyone pay US to take him?

 

How sure is everyone that he's guaranteed 1m next season, because I found this

• 2017 $1 million guaranteed, fully if not waived on or before 6/30/17

 

Read it. It literally says 1 million is guaranteed regardless of whether he is waived or not...