It is over 3. But you are closer. According to
@42N8Bounce it is $3,002,579 we have to cut. I believe it is going to be harder this year because I think there are going to be many more teams who are trying to be "sellers" than "buyers". I would love to be wrong on that though.
As the trade deadline nears, it's probably good to know where the Blazers are at with the CAP/TAX situation. Here are my estimates:
TAX Line:
$119,266,000
CAP line:
$99,093,000
Guaranteed Salaries:
Damian Lillard , $26,153,057
C.J. McCollum , $23,962,573
Evan Turner , $17,131,148
Maurice Harkless, $10,162,922
Meyers Leonard, $9,904,494
Al-Farouq Aminu, $7,319,035
Zach Collilns, $3,057,240
Caleb Swanigan, $1,465,920
Ed Davis, $6,352,531
Noah Vonleh, $3,505,233
Jusuf Nurkic, $2,947,305
Shabazz Napier , $2,361,360
Pat Connaughton , $1,471,382
Jake Layman, $1,312,611
Anderson Varejao (stretched), $1,984,005
Festus Ezeli (stretched), $333,333
Andrew Nichols (stretched) , $2,844,430
Total Guaranteed Salaries: $122,268,579
Total over the TAX line: $3,002, 579
This results in a tax bill of approximately $4,503,868.
The problem isn't necessarily the financial tax bill this year. I'm sure Paul Allen can afford that. The challenge is when we look ahead at the next 3 to 4 years. With Dame at a max contract, CJ at a near max contract, Turner, Harkless and Leonard all locked in for the next 2 years at over $10M/yr, plus a potentially large contract for Nurk, the
repeater tax could come into play very quickly. The repeater tax kicks in when the team was a tax payer in at least three of the four previous seasons. Then, instead of a 1.5x multiplier for the tax, it becomes a 2.5x multiplier.
