We did one of these last year, and the consensus was we’d stay pat. I don’t remember too many people thinking we would trade Plumlee...mainly because everyone assumed Olshey liked him too much/was scared to make a move. So my idea for this year is we have two categories; traded and targets. If you want to predict the actual trade go for it, but be prepared to look back in a year and laugh at yourself lol. Here’s mine: Traded: Napier Harkless One of Leonard and Davis Vonleh Targets: Nikola Mirotic Jabari Parker Wes Matthews Malik Beasley Juan Hernangomez Stanley Johnson Magic wings (Ross, Simmons, Fournier, Hezonja) I think we land Mirotic.
Dallas should be tanking, and we have some younger guys that might interest them (Leonard, Harkless, Vonleh)
No can do. Wes makes too much. His salary is $17,884,176, our TPE from the Crabbe trade is $12.9 million. The max salary we can bring back is $12.9 million + $100K = $13 million. Even if we could do it, we wouldn't. That would put us WAY over the luxury tax threshold this year and next, even before resigning Nurk (or anyone else). If Wes is a target, we will need to ship out comparable actual salary. BNM
The cool thing about Wes is he's not locked in beyond next season. Would be one way to dump salary while also upgrading the roster. Something like Leonard/Harkless and Davis for Wes would work. Or both Leonard and Harkless.
The uncool thing is this isn't pre-injury Wesley Matthews and he's owed $17.7 million this year and $18.6 million next year. He can shoot the three better than Evan Turner, but with a 10.8 PER (lowest of his career) he doesn't do much else. Loved Wes, but that was then and this is now. We need an upgrade, not more overpaid, below average players. Adding Wes seems like a lateral movement, at best. BNM
Mirotic is a good bet but not sure what we can send back. We cannot send TPE with another asset, can we? I doubt we send a 2018 first rounder but we might send a 2019 first rounder. Second rounders have no value to Chicago, they sold Bell for $2M or so.
If we make a move just to dump salary, I will be supremely disappointed. Like the Wes deal above. I'd do that only if a prospect or pick (s) came back our way. No more AC like moves. Sure, Pat has replaced him fairly well, but we just gave away a double digit scorer and shooter for nothing, and will take away nearly 3 mil of dead capsace (to Andrew Nicholson) over the next six seasons. Continually making these kinda moves is what will lead to resentment from Dame. We don't want that.
Leonard, Harkless and Swanigan or Layman would work from a cap standpoint and would get the Blazers under the Luxury Tax threshold.
Lateral moves may be our only option in some regards. We got a lot of crap and some teams have a lot as well too. If we can play "flip this player" we might be able to get someone who xan atill br worth something.
I like this as we could be potentially get rid of unwanted contracts a year sooner (either Leonard or Harkless) and only have one more season of Wes.
And then what? we still won't have any capspace to pursue free agents next summer. Dumping contracts will do little more than helping PA's bottom line.
See my proposed trade in the other thread: Harkless + Napier + Davis for Courtney Lee + Kyle O'Quinn I personally think that's a talent upgrade AND it saves us JUST enough salary to get under the tax threshold. Shabazz has been playing great, but a 3-guard rotation of Dame, C.J. and Shabazz is undersized for a high school team. Lee would be a much better third guard (shooting .422 3FG% and leading the league at .961 FT%) to pair with Dame and C.J. and would give us a much better small ball/3-guard line up. O'Quinn is an upgrade over Davis who can both back up Nurk and play beside him. He has a great midrange game out to 16-feet (which would allow him to play next to Nurk), is an excellent passer (18.4 AST%), elite rim protector (5.5 BLK%) and an all around great defender (+4.5 DBPM). He's underutilized in NY playing behind Porzingis. They coveted Moe last summer, need a solid PG and Davis would replace O'Quinn's 16 MPG backing up Porzingis and Kanter. BNM
The odds of being correct predicting a trade are pretty freaking slim, so I would never look back in a year and give someone a hard time for their ideas. There is no way I'm going to dip my toe in that pool. What I expect is for the Blazers to make a trade for the purpose of getting below the tax threshold, to avoid the repeater tax so that they can go over next season. I do appreciate reading the trade ideas of others, however. Party on dudes! And be excellent to each other
I think Meyers is gone and that the Blazers will come up with a deal that gets them under the Luxury Tax threshold. Other than that, I have no idea what the deadline will bring for Blazer fans.
Stop bringing the knicks up regarding Napier for the love of God. They have their point guard. Moving him off the ball to accommodate someone else while he's in his developmental stage is the opposite of smart.
Vonleh, Napier, Davis are the obvious candidates to be traded because of their value or their contract situation. My guess is we try and get a late first for one or more of those three and then use that first to get rid of one of our bad contracts like Turner or Meyers.