The trade exception

[AFully22]

Except that Vucevic is bad on defense so our bottom of the league defense would likely be back.

That’s not true. Vucevic and Nurkic have almost identical oppfg% and DBPM. While Vucevic is a 1.8 OBPM and has a 21.5 PER and Nurk is a -3.5 OBPM and has a per of 17.5.

Vucevic isn’t as bad of a defender as people think and while Nurk has had a big part in our improved defense I think it’s as much because of the improved play on that end from Dame and CJ, a healthy Aminu helped a whole lot too.

 

[illmatic99]

Except that Vucevic is bad on defense so our bottom of the league defense would likely be back.

Ya Nurk is huge for our defense. Hes the primary reason why we have been above average on that end

 

[Scalma]

Don’t care what stat you want to pull up, Vucevic is awful defensively. Led footed.

 

[AFully22]

Don’t care what stat you want to pull up, Vucevic is awful defensively. Led footed.

But his dlfp (detrimental led foot percentage) is a healthy 17.3%.

But in all seriousness his defense has been much better the last two years. I just don’t think a lot people noticed because he plays for the Magic.

 

[Scalma]

But his dlfp (detrimental led foot percentage) is a healthy 17.3%.

But in all seriousness his defense has been much better the last two years. I just don’t think a lot people noticed because he plays for the Magic.

And Orlando’s struggles defensively over the last years have been largely because teams score at will against them in the paint. Vucevic is a big reason why.

 

[rotary111]

Vucevic would be Nurks backup.

But may be mentally stronger and less prone to the big swings Nurk seems to have.

I'd rather have Nurk's potential though.

 

[AFully22]

And Orlando’s struggles defensively over the last years have been largely because teams score at will against them in the paint. Vucevic is a big reason why.

I think the reason why is because they’re the Magic and the entire team sans Gordon and Vucevic is ass.

 

[Sarni]

If we use the TPE we are paying the tax next year (by a lot), there is no way around that. We are almost certainly a tax team even without using the TPE.

Probably correct. We will need to either extend Napier and Nurkic, which will cost $20M a year or so, or replace them with someone else which will still cost money. We have very few assets that could be moved - we can sell Harkless, probably, but that only removes $10M from our payroll. To sell any from the rest of our non-core players we would need to sweeten the deal which is not ideal and I don't want to do that (attaching a pick to remove a salary in our situation is a very bad idea).

 

[Mediocre Man]

But, shouldn't they be removed from the list? Neither of them expire this year for us to need to sign them?

And then many of these are under contract through next season I think, so its not like we can just sign these people right? We have tog give up in a sign and trade?

I'm dumb in this area though. You have been forewarned... if you didn't already know.

Just nice enough to provide a list of players from basketball reference. They happen to be on it.

 

[Mediocre Man]

Serious question. Has any good player been traded for a TPE?

 

[KeepOnRollin]

Serious question. Has any good player been traded for a TPE?

Channing Frye good? A case could be made for either way I guess but he got traded for one at some point in his career.

 

[Denny Crane]

Okay I misunderstood what you are saying but you just ignored the part where we would be hard capped and wouldn't be able to sign our own free agents.

I was speaking about Sign-And-Trades with the TPE, I think that is where I got confused and you were simply talking about just using the TPE.

I agree with you. We should not do a S&T with the TPE.

We would have to renounce players we likely want to sign.

I do think we're paying the LT next season.

 

[Mediocre Man]

Channing Frye good? A case could be made for either way I guess but he got traded for one at some point in his career.

Thanks, man

 

[e_blazer]

This article is a few years old, but it has some good information regarding traded player exceptions:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/midlevelexceptional.com/2014/07/03/nba-salary-cap-trade-exception/amp/

 

[tester551]

Serious question. Has any good player been traded for a TPE?

The TPE is not valuable by its self. All it does is provide flexibility to teams. There's a reason that 90%+ of the TPEs league wide go un-used.

To get a "decent" player using a TPE, draft picks would need to be used as the asset. So it really depends upon how much value you give the draft picks.

It ludicrous to think that Portland will use the Crabbe TPE. Given the current salary commitments and LT penalties, there is no way it's going to happen. To bring in a $10M player, Portland would essentially be paying that player north of $25M. Go back to the list of players.... is there any that would be worth Portland paying $25M for? HELL NO! Even if there were, would there be any chance that the existing team would give them up for a future 1st round pick? NO!

The assertion that the TPE might be used has no logical basis at all. The cost v benefit comparison just doesn't work for Portland OR the other team.

 

[hoopsjock]

The TPE is not valuable by its self. All it does is provide flexibility to teams. There's a reason that 90%+ of the TPEs league wide go un-used.

To get a "decent" player using a TPE, draft picks would need to be used as the asset. So it really depends upon how much value you give the draft picks.

It ludicrous to think that Portland will use the Crabbe TPE. Given the current salary commitments and LT penalties, there is no way it's going to happen. To bring in a $10M player, Portland would essentially be paying that player north of $25M. Go back to the list of players.... is there any that would be worth Portland paying $25M for? HELL NO! Even if there were, would there be any chance that the existing team would give them up for a future 1st round pick? NO!

The assertion that the TPE might be used has no logical basis at all. The cost v benefit comparison just doesn't work for Portland OR the other team.

The Blazers have paid for draft picks before though. Allen was always willing to pay to add picks, that is why they added the rule limiting cash in trades. Using the TPE to take on an unwanted contract and getting a draft pick or a young player in return is a way to basically pay for that asset without trading straight cash. While some of the money paid to Varejao was offset due to being under the cap floor that year the Blazers are still going to have paid a lot of money to him for a late 1st round pick.

I don't think Allen wants Dame to leave, as evident by his worry when Dame requested a meeting. The TPE represents one of the few ways the Blazers can add talent in their current situation. I wouldn't write it off as a possibility.

 

[hoopsjock]

I had another idea too involving both of our TPE's. The Blazers could take on a bad contract with the large one in exchange for a good player on a rookie deal with the small one.

Just an example, but the Blazers could send their 2018 1st to the Bucks for Malcolm Brogdon and then agree to take on Snell's contract. The Bucks probably aren't that desperate to get rid of Snell but I'll look into other situations where this might work.

 

[tester551]

The Blazers have paid for draft picks before though. Allen was always willing to pay to add picks, that is why they added the rule limiting cash in trades. Using the TPE to take on an unwanted contract and getting a draft pick or a young player in return is a way to basically pay for that asset without trading straight cash.

Yes, PA has been willing to pay for draft picks (on the order of $2M-$4M). Using the TPE to take on a bad contract for a pick will cost the Blazers closer to $25M. That's a HUGE difference.

While some of the money paid to Varejao was offset due to being under the cap floor that year the Blazers are still going to have paid a lot of money to him for a late 1st round pick.

The Varejao trade was a good trade that NO messed up on. Yes, Portland was under the floor - but they stretched his contract (which was a terrible move). So instead of taking the cap hit in the years where Portland had plenty of cap space, we still have a $2M cap hit. Portland would've been much better off by keeping the salary hits on the '15-'16 and '16-'17 seasons (it would've cost us signing Ezieli - but so what).

I don't think Allen wants Dame to leave, as evident by his worry when Dame requested a meeting. The TPE represents one of the few ways the Blazers can add talent in their current situation. I wouldn't write it off as a possibility.

Agreed with most of this, but Portland would be better off trading a player like Mo (or Chief) + a pick to acquire better talent than just using the TPE.

I had another idea too involving both of our TPE's. The Blazers could take on a bad contract with the large one in exchange for a good player on a rookie deal with the small one.

Just an example, but the Blazers could send their 2018 1st to the Bucks for Malcolm Brogdon and then agree to take on Snell's contract. The Bucks probably aren't that desperate to get rid of Snell but I'll look into other situations where this might work.

Again, to give context to what you are suggesting.... Portland would end up paying over $30M per year for Snell + Brogdon. The '19-'20 year, would be another $30M and likely even more the following year. Are they good enough to move the needle sufficient to justify the cost?
Especially over other options such as just using the pick ourselves.....and finding our own Brogdon.

 

[hoopsjock]

Yes, PA has been willing to pay for draft picks (on the order of $2M-$4M). Using the TPE to take on a bad contract for a pick will cost the Blazers closer to $25M. That's a HUGE difference.


The Varejao trade was a good trade that NO messed up on. Yes, Portland was under the floor - but they stretched his contract (which was a terrible move). So instead of taking the cap hit in the years where Portland had plenty of cap space, we still have a $2M cap hit. Portland would've been much better off by keeping the salary hits on the '15-'16 and '16-'17 seasons (it would've cost us signing Ezieli - but so what).


Agreed with most of this, but Portland would be better off trading a player like Mo (or Chief) + a pick to acquire better talent than just using the TPE.


Again, to give context to what you are suggesting.... Portland would end up paying over $30M per year for Snell + Brogdon. The '19-'20 year, would be another $30M and likely even more the following year. Are they good enough to move the needle sufficient to justify the cost?
Especially over other options such as just using the pick ourselves.....and finding our own Brogdon.

Olshey didn't mess up the Varejao trade. We had to stretch him when we did in order to have cap space that summer. Sure, in hindsight the use of that cap space was a disaster but that is irrelevant to whether or not Varejao should have been stretched at the time of the trade. Sad to think that having Varejao's contract on the books that year would have been better than what happened but that is not because of the trade it is because of a different failure at a later date. Varejao is counting just under $2 million against the cap. 2% of the cap isn't really a huge deal either way.

Why not use the TPE and also make other trades with the players you mentioned? They could trade guys like you mention for slightly smaller contracts that would offset some of the burden of using the TPE. The Milwaukee example was just one I could think of off the top of my head. I do agree that our pick could accomplish something similar, if they get it right.

 

[Scalma]

I think we’re gonna use it. It’s one of the few ways we can actually improve. Yeah there’s gonna be a heavy bill, but with Meyers, Moe, and Evan turning into expirings the following season, I don’t think we’ll be repeat offenders in the future.

 

[illmatic99]

Bump.

We better use it. We'll be paying tax as is.

 

[blue9]

Bump.

We better use it. We'll be paying tax as is.

Do you think we use it on a player we actually want? Or do we use it to take a garbage contract with a pick attached?

My bet: We use it on a player NEIL wants, but not a player WE want - another Evan Turner. Best case scenario is someone a bit long in the tooth like Courtney Lee or Wilson Chandler, and while they'd upgrade our bench I don't think either really changes the complexion of the team.

 

[Blazinaway]

Middleton for our TPE + 2018 first rounder? Would they do this?

I don't think they would do Middleton straight across for CJ, Middleton is very good, on a really nice contract and relatively young - would you do the trade you proposed if you were a Bucks fan?

 

[Scalma]

Bump.

We better use it. We'll be paying tax as is.

Courtney Lee
Wilson Chandler
Terrence Ross
Danny Green
Alec Burks
Jordan Clarkson
Jeremy Lin
Tony Snell

That’s pretty much the list for the Crabbe TPE.

 

[Nikolokolus]

Bump.

We better use it. We'll be paying tax as is.

When you're stuck in a hole, the first thing to do is put down the shovel, not keep digging.

You don't double-down on a flawed team and hope to round it out with a high salary roster-reject, that somebody was dying to get rid of for cap relief -- that player is unlikely to solve the foundational problems that exist on this squad. Now on the other hand, if there are significant roster moves to fix those foundational issues (the CJ/Damian conundrum for instance) and then you use the TPE to take on the right kind of role-player, I'm all for it, but just taking on more salary, because, "Fuck it, why not" has disaster written all over it.

 

[Gronk Brady]

Courtney Lee
Wilson Chandler
Terrence Ross
Danny Green
Alec Burks
Jordan Clarkson
Jeremy Lin
Tony Snell

That’s pretty much the list for the Crabbe TPE.

Yuck...

 

[Scalma]

I like our options in free agency more, outside of Courtney Lee.

Guys like Wayne Ellington, Hezonja, Belinelli, Seth Curry, KCP, Ian Clark interest me with the MLE. Redick and Barton do as well but they’re probably out of our price range.

 

[hoopsjock]

Courtney Lee
Wilson Chandler
Terrence Ross
Danny Green
Alec Burks
Jordan Clarkson
Jeremy Lin
Tony Snell

That’s pretty much the list for the Crabbe TPE.

Well, that's a list for guys making close to $13 million but we can also use it on multiple players or in separate deals (like for two different players making $6 million each).

 

[Scalma]

Well, that's a list for guys making close to $13 million but we can also use it on multiple players or in separate deals (like for two different players making $6 million each).

Problem with that is teams probably wouldn’t be as motivated to dump a $6m contract as one closer to $13m, especially not someone that could actually help us.

 

[hoopsjock]

When you're stuck in a hole, the first thing to do is put down the shovel, not keep digging.

You don't double-down on a flawed team and hope to round it out with a high salary roster-reject, that somebody was dying to get rid of for cap relief -- that player is unlikely to solve the foundational problems that exist on this squad. Now on the other hand, if there are significant roster moves to fix those foundational issues (the CJ/Damian conundrum for instance) and then you use the TPE to take on the right kind of role-player, I'm all for it, but just taking on more salary, because, "Fuck it, why not" has disaster written all over it.

How would it be a disaster? If we're already in the luxury tax the only thing it hurts is Allen's wallet. We're pretty much stuck with bad contracts for the next two seasons anyway. Most of the guys mentioned don't have more than a couple years left on their deals. If it helps us get an asset such as a draft pick or another rotational player. Sure, it probably won't lead to the missing piece but if we get an asset like a draft pick too with it then that could potentially help too.