If you want some very depressing reading on next years payroll situation check out this post from another board (thx to "Wiz"):
"just for debate's sake, Portland's scheduled payroll situation next season:
Damian Lillard $27,977,689
C.J. McCollum $25,759,766
Evan Turner $17,868,852
Maurice Harkless $10,837,079
Meyers Leonard $10,595,506
Al-Farouq Aminu $6,957,105
Zach Collins $3,628,920
Caleb Swanigan $1,740,000
Jake Layman $1,544,951
Andrew Nicholson $2,844,429
Anderson Varejao $1,913,345
Festus Ezeli$333,333
$112,000,975
the latest projections I have seen put the salary cap in the 100-100M range and the tax line at 120-121M
now, the only wiggle room there is with Layman; his salary is not guaranteed till June 30. But even counting Layman, the Blazers have only 9 players so they would be assessed roster charges, with the charge for each being about $830K. But that offset is for setting cap-space and determining some CBA triggers...at the beginning of free agency. For Portland, the critical numbers are luxury tax numbers and those are calculated at the end of the season, in April
so, whether it's Layman or another player, there is not going to be much difference.
that leaves Portland 8-9M below the tax line with 9 players. The minimum roster size is likely 13 (although it could be 14 if a CBA provision is triggered)
Blazers would need to add at least 4 players, 5 if they waived Layman.
Nurkic - Davis - Napier - Connaughton - Vonleh. There are 5 players. The big question is Nurkic. I know he has played poorly, at least on offense; but his defensive presence has been a major factor for Portland. I'd say unless he really turns around his peformance this season, soon, the odds of him getting a 25M/year deal seem extremely remote. However, I'm not convinced at all that he'll drop much below 20M a year. For the sake of argument, give him a 1st year salary of 18M. Blazers are now at 130M dollars, 9-10M over the tax line and they still need to add 3 more players.
now, here's a problem with those 5 free agents Portland has: if you go by winshares, those 5 players have accounted for 7.2 of Portland's 18 wins. If the Blazers were to win 45 games this year, the math would be those 5 players accounted for 18 wins; and Nurkic would only have accounted for 2 of them
how does Portland mitigate their tax problem without becoming a much worse team? Napier and Davis have accounted for 4 of Portland's win and that would be around 10 of Portland's hypothetical 45 wins. Say Davis gets 8M and Napier gets 7M. Portland is now approaching 25M over the tax line which is higher then where they were before the Crabbe trade. And of course that doesn't account for Connaughton and Vonleh. For giggles, say Portland re-signs one of them for 5M.
so now, Portland has a full minimum roster and are 30M over the tax line. That's a 65M dollar tax bill....
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How bad is it really?...try this one out: say that Portland can magically erase the Turner and Leonard contracts...gone, poof!...no return salary. Well, then, Portland would be 3M over the tax line, but they'd be at 11 players and would still have to add 2 more. Their draft pick would bump them up to 5M over the line and a minimum salary player would push them to 6M over the line...and it would be the 2nd year in the tax. And again, keep in mind that scenario is the fantasy scenario where portland gets out of the Turner and Leonard contracts scott-free. Does the term fat-chance-dream-on-fool-no-way-in-hell seem fitting?
Looking at all that I guess the biggest question is how much stomach Paul Allen has for paying gobs and gobs of luxury tax for a team that's very likely around .500."
