Dame's contract extension doesn't kick in till 2025. next season, the NBA is projecting a 134M salary cap https://www.sportsbusinessclassroom.com/examining-the-nbas-134m-salary-cap-projection-for-2023-24/ Dame's current salary is 34.3% of the cap. If that projection holds, Dame's salary next season will 'drop' to 34.05% of the cap. So it won't hve any bigger impact on the tax than it did this season. Maybe a bigger factor, in terms of salary vs impact will be Grant's salary
I'm not sure it's proof the previous years of money savings were all built around spending big by using the MLE in 2023. Yes, they'll have it this year, and yes they should use it this summer. However, using it this year does not prove that ownership has been all in the last 3 years either.
I'll let someone who has gone to more games than me speculate if an average attendence of 96% capacity seems accurate. I have a strong suspcision it isn't as that would mean only 33k empty seats all season. I'd bet anything there wasn't anywhere close to 18k people at the game last night, as reported. I did go to a game in Boston and Philly this month. Both those arena appeared to be sold out or really close.
That could certainly be the case. Do donated seats count in that number as well? Either way, people buying tickets, but not coming and paying for parking, food, gear, etc. certainly has to impact the buttom line. Not to mention that it is now cheaper to buy on the secondary market than snatching up one of those "few" remaining seats directly from the Blazers.
If the Blazers don't spend it some fans will probably just say it's to avoid the hard cap or avoid repeater tax in 2032.
This is the summer to rebuild around Dame. Cronin is going to have to spend in order to do it. It’s put up or shut up time. I don’t see Dame or any knowledgeable fan being satisfied with trotting out another mediocre, under the LT team.
It will not feel clean and simple. It will feel like a massive overpay, or it will feel like a series of smaller moves and/or draftees that are individual upside plays that, in the aggregate, will not seem like enough. There is no PritchSlap coming. There is no Champagne room. (Unless, of course, they get Wemby)
I think if the team gets shafted in the draft, it'll be a really really bad summer for the team. There isn't a Ray Allen and KG out there getting traded to Portland for cheap, to give Paul Pierce a title.
I suspect if they have an amazing summer with super strategic moves, it will piss off more than half the fanbase.
So last summer wasn't put up or shut up time.... What's so different about this upcoming summer that wasn't possible last summer? Blazers had an expiring contract in Bledsoe to add a talent such as John Collins or Julius Randle. Blazers had a great bench player/acceptable starter in Hart. Blazers had an extra year of Dame's prime. Now they'll have none of those, oh but they'll have luxury tax flexibility in 2028.
When trader Bob got Scottie Pippen for Kelvin Cato and a bunch of scrubs it didn't piss off the Blazers fan base. When Pritchard got LaMarcus and Roy in the same draft it didn't piss off the Blazers fan base. When Chad Buchanan traded Gerald Wallace for the pick that became Lillard it didn't piss off the Blazers fan base. I want a GM and ownership that has the ability to do moves like that. Moves that can lead to talent improvements of the team and maybe one day contending. Not "strategic" moves that get luxury tax relief in 4 years or "flexibility" in the Clippers trade, sign Gary Payton as a $26 million 6'3 backup forward, or give a plodding injury prone center $70 million who's market was the tax MLE.
Is she going radio silent with the media for years, not conducting GM searches, hiring inexperienced front office people, and not having a G-League team because she cares about winning and creating a top notch product? Don't buy it.
Blaming fans is a winning ticket. We are all stupid and whine too much. Lillard is no ring chaser, hasn't complained once about being on a bad team. Everyone loves the coach, so too bad you freaking Billups haters, he's not getting fired. When we see the unbiased C+ ratings of trades Cronin made, we need to trust the local media because they have a self proclaimed higher basketball IQ then anyone in the world. Fans just need to shut up and buy some tickets. Negative fan input is a meaningless insect that needs to be squashed. Now if you write an extra happy tweet and hashtag it correctly during a game, you might get on television for 2 seconds!
Pippen hopped aboard a team that had just gone to the Western Conference Finals. This year's team is going to finish in the low 30s in terms of wins. Embiid isn't coming, and even if he were leaving Philly, he wouldn't be coming to Portland. If Cronin grabbed a second non-Scoot/Wemby high lottery pick and drafted both players, half of the fanbase would complain about The Dame Timeline. Actually it would be more than half. If Cronin traded Jerami Grant for a future draft pick, it would piss off half of the fanbase. Again, context matters. Dame being on the team means that it's either going to be an inefficient overpay or a series of smaller moves that might actually end up being better but in the moment will seem like a crime against Dame-anity. If Cronin were to double down on this draft and try to secure even more young talent, people would bitch about it.
