I'm in the process of editing a video going in depth on the Blazers summer options in terms of the cap but basically...
The Ariza decision also comes into play here. They can either waive him by June 30th and take a $1.8 million dead cap hit or keep him on the team for $12.8 million. I'm assuming both Hood and Hezonja will opt in and that the Blazers will not want to be a tax paying team next year.
If Ariza is waived they have about $33 million to sign 4 players after factoring in draft picks. The Full-MLE is going to be around $9.7 million so they could use that, sign Gabriel to about $2 million, sign one other free agent for the Bi-Annual Exception at around $3.8 million, and that leaves them with one roster spot for Whiteside which they could pay him up to about $17 million as a starting salary. If Whiteside isn't re-signed or signs on another team the Blazers would only be able to offer a minimum contract to whoever they picked up. If we predict Whiteside re-signing then we'd have Dame, CJ, Hood (injured?), Trent, Simons, Little, Hezonja, Gabriel, Collins, Nurk, Whiteside, 1st round pick, 2nd round pick, MLE, and BAE signings. If Hood isn't 100% that leaves us pretty thin at SF depending on who the MLE was. So......
That almost means Ariza needs to be kept as the starting SF, in which case they'd have $22 million to play with before going into the tax and after signing their picks with just 3 roster spots remaining. Sign Gabriel for $1.75 million (or whatever his minimum ends up being) and the Full-MLE at $9.76 million and that leaves the max offer for Whiteside and not going into the tax at $10.5 million. If they were willing to go into the tax we could offer him up to $16.5 million in that scenario and then try to get under the tax later in the season but after the penny pinching moves this season that seems unlikely. They could also only use the Tax-MLE of $6 million to free up more money for Whiteside and not go into the tax but then you're talking about getting a lesser quality player. I guess it just depends on who's willing to sign here. A guy like say Marvin Williams wouldn't probably command the Full-MLE so you could maybe get him for the Tax-MLE, who knows?
So the question is would Whiteside sign for $10.5 million in year one to maximize Portland's ability to keep Ariza and use the Full-MLE? I'm not sure. It's more than any other team that can only offer the Full-MLE of $9.76 so maybe he'd take it but if one of those teams are offering a starting job is it worth taking a million less to play more? Not sure of that either.
Another thing is that this pretty much leaves Melo out of most scenarios unless you think he's worth using the MLE or BAE to retain. We do not have bird rights on him so he'd either have to sign for the minimum or using one of those two exceptions. We also have the trade exception of $7.1 million to add a player that route if needed but that cuts into the money elsewhere.
