was curious so I went to BB Insiders for the Blazer numbers:
Damian Lillard $39,344,900
CJ McCollum $30,864,198
Robert Covington $12,975,471
Jusuf Nurkic $12,000,000
Norman Powell 16M (est)
Derrick Jones $9,720,900
Anfernee Simons $3,938,818
Andrew Nicholson (W) $2,844,429
Nassir Little $2,316,240
CJ Elleby $1,517,981
Cody Zeller 5M (est)
Ben McLemore 1.7M (est)
that's about 138.2M for 11 players. Probably no difference between signing Brown and accruing a roster charge of about 900K. So then about 139M for 12 players with the apron being around 143M. Blazers will need 14 players. Another vet minimum would bump Portland up to about 2M below the apron. Couldn't really do a trade for a S&T for more than the Jones contract and still have margin for some in-season maneuvering
obviously, there could be some extra margin there in the Zeller contract and Powell's 1st season