you can spend all the time you want thinking about blowing the team, but leave the rest of us out of that fantasy
Only Olshey knows exactly what he meant when he answered that question If the Blazers sign a waived player using the veteran's minimum, the amount of that contract is pro-rated based on how much of the season is left. So, the impact on team salary of taking on a waived player would be considerably less than having kept Skal, right?
If I were to blow up the team at the end of the season, I’d want to have a fairly good idea as to Nurk and Collins’ health. For discussion sake, let’s assume both return and show solid glimpses of full recovery: The players I would build around: Dame Trent Jr Nurkic these are my three - each would start next year. I would then sign Whiteside to a three-year deal with a team option for a fourth year. Perfect for back up 5 allowing Nurk not to work too many minutes. And perfect for future trade piece. I would keep Little, Gabriel and Hoard as my youngsters at the end of the bench. I predict that one of these three will develop in a big way. My early prediction is Hoard, Little, then Gabriel. the real “blow up” will be: I would trade CJ, Collins and Simons. (Focus upon a Power Forward - we need a stud at PF that can compliment Nurk and Whiteside. We also want to build a small war chest of good picks for the next 2-3 years. The team is missing a shooter off the bench. Trent has become this, but I want he and Dame to start next year, so we need to bring in a pure shooter; maybe we can get Seth Curry back or someone similar. If Melo would sign cheap, I’d keep him for another year but more as a 6th man or 7th man role. We’ll need to have Hood back, but he can always be a trade deadline piece to move if need be. a bigger blow up would mean trading Dame in a blockbuster deal - something along the lines of what New Orleans was able to pry out of the Lakers for Davis. But I much rather build around Dame, Trent Jr and Nurkic.
@e_blazer, please listen. Olshey specifically said they WILL NOT SIGN A BUYOUT PLAYER because they didn't trade Skal for tax savings only to add money back later. Please, please, please stop trying to justify this.
They're still in the tax so even if they signed someone like Kanter last year for $500,000 they'd pay $1 million in tax in addition to that. Savings from the Skal trade were a little over $2 million. Cost of a buyout player would be about $1.5 million. They're being so cheap they're unwilling to explore options to help the team because of $1.5 million. This is why I'm so upset man.
I'm not trying to justify anything. I don't see anything to justify. You seem to see this as some huge loss for the team. I don't see it that way for the reasons I stated above. I think both C and PF are covered in Olshey's plans. Skal will be a RFA this summer. I don't think that the Blazers planned to spend money on him next year anyway even before the injury. I didn't hear Olshey's quote, so I'll take your word for it. Unless, of course, Olshey does end up signing someone, in which case I reserve the right to ridicule you mercilessly.
Playing devil's advocate: Whiteside is iffy - it only takes one team to throw a stupid offer at him; Melo's former agent is now prez of the Knicks - he won't be back and it really isn't that big a loss; Hood will not be 100% next season and he may never be the player he was pre-injury; Simon's future is far from guaranteed. OTOH, I am glad Trent wasn't traded.
Maybe I don't understand the CBA on this correctly, but it looks to me like cutting Skal saved $2.8M in luxury tax on his contract. Luxury tax is based on team salary on the last day of the regular season. If the Blazers only add a minimum vet, the impact of that on team salary, I believe, is only the pro-rated amount of the minimum for the remaining days of the regular season. The LT implications are not zero, but significantly less.
The team salary implications of the buyout player are PRO-RATED, if I'm understanding this correctly: http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q28 If there's 10% of the season left when they sign the buyout player, that's only $150K added onto team salary that ends up getting taxed. If I'm not understanding it correctly, please explain.
it's a little complicated...if I'm figuring things kind of accurately: * Blazer likely still owed Zach about 33-35% of his current salary of 2.338M. So say they started out by saving 800K > Blazers are 4M above the line right now so they saved (1 X 1.5) + (1.33 X 1.75) in tax; so about 3.8M > so then .800 + 3.8M = 4.6M in gross savings * but, Portland reportedly sent 1.9M in cash so their net savings was 2.7M so then, say the Blazers sign somebody for the rest of the season. Pro-rated minimum would be around 500K and the tax would be 750K * that would mean their total savings would be around 2.7M - 1.25M = 1.45M. that's nothing to sneeze at but 2.7 is a lot more than 1.45 pretty sure the deadline for adding any buy-out player is March 1, less than 3 weeks away, so they'd likely be paying a pro-rated amount of close to a third of a season
"Stuck'? It would have been a real slap in the face to Lillard and the rest of the team to move Whiteside (especially for the likely garbage offered) when we had nobody that can play center at this stage. We can still do a sign and trade possibly with Whiteside as well as re-sign him to a reasonable contract that can be mover at the deadline or in the off season if necessary. There is also the mle as well as the Bazemore TPE to acquire players. This team isn't near as hamstrung as you want to make others believe.
I'm different from a billionaire owner, whose brother threw around that kinda cash multiple times a year in trades. Reality is, we have an owner now who apparently pinches pennies.
Kanter signed a pro-rated contract last year and it was for over $497K so I don't get where you are getting the $150K from? Marvin Williams and MKG just signed for more than that in their prorated deals.
C'mon man, you can't compare the salary cap of an NBA team to one of our situations. 29 out of the 30 teams made money last year and all 30 teams increased in value as well. This is the equivalent of would you care about losing a nickel in the wash machine.
