Edit: Also, I want to stop hearing people talk about clearing cap room for Ant and Nurk. We have both of their bird rights, we don't need cap room for them. I am hoping when Cronin talks about clearing a runway for Ant's success being important to him, that he was talking about freeing up playing time. If we are going to try and dodge the tax every year and people in here are going to applaud that from a trust worth tens of billions of dollars... I just don't know what to say.
first off, I agree that the Clippers trade was a very poor return. I have heard no good explanation for the rush. The only explanation I heard was Cronin's and I didn't find it credible at all that teams were blackmailing Portland in trade talks because the Blazers were 1.3M over the tax line
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for me, there's a big difference between 'cap-space' and cap room. Yeah, it's semantics but when I think of cap-room I think of a team operating under realities of the CBA, salary-cap, tax-threshold, and apron. It's a catch-all phrase whereas cap-space is specifically about margin under the season's salary cap. Probably need another term for all that so there's no confusion
and in that regard, those trades were not about cap-space. They were about 'cap-room'. Right now, the Blazers have around 77-78M in guaranteed salary and dead salary next season (includes Bledsoe's partial and Nicholson). That's for 9 players.
after that calculation, compare a before and after for those trades (
next season). Between Hart, Winslow, Bledsoe, Johnson, and Louzada there is 25.5M in salary. However, between CJ, Powell, & Nance, there is 59.5M in salary.
That's a 34M difference, and that's pretty significant
so, go back to that 77-78M in guarantees and add 34M. That would put Portland at 110-111M in guarantees...for 8 players. That leaves only 34-35M in margin under the tax threshold; and 40-41M under apron. Now, remembering Portland's potential 2 lottery picks, those two picks could be adding 10-15M in salary (
the 3rd pick from last year is making 8M this season. The 8th pick is making 5M and the salary cap is increasing 8%)
so, if you add the two picks, the Blazers have 20-22M in margin under the tax line...for 10 players. And then there are Simons and Nurkic. From what people are saying it sure seems the Blazers would be lucky to sign both for 40M combined next season. Maybe 45M (or more) if they aren't so lucky. Say it's the unluckier 45M; well then the Blazers are 23-25M OVER the tax line and they would still have to sign 2 more players. But, back out that 34M difference in salary between the former players and new ones and the Blazers suddenly have much more flexibility, especially since they've successfully re-set the repeater tax clock
again, the Clippers trade is highly suspect in the level of return. The Pels trade will be much better, assuming Blazers win the gamble on the 1st round pick. But the sum of both trades had the net effect of basically climbing most of the way out of the hole of stupid that Olshey dug
