Playoff game 3:Portland vs GS 7:30pm KGW/ESPN

[Wizenheimer]

For the record, It's my opinion that, barring serious injuries, Nurkic is going to end up earning between 25-30 million a year...and probably closer to the latter. Anybody thinking 20 million a year is stuck thinking in salary structures of yesteryear. There is a good chance that Nurkic will be the highest paid Blazer, simply because of the timing of his contract.

I could analyze it from several different directions, but I do have a relatively simple gauge:

over the last 6 or 7 years, just about every time I try and anticipate what a FA in the 22-29 year old range will get, I end up on the low side of what he actually gets, and it's usually significantly low. Obviously, when it comes to players who are very likely o get the max, it's easy to peg the contract

but for all the others, they always seem to get a lot more, every time, whether it's Batum or Matthews or Turner or Bazemore. Then, after adjusting the cross-hairs upward, you just about have to add in the big-man premium. Look at Steven Adams or Mozgov. Sure, you can say the contracts are ridiculous, and it many ways they are, but all it takes is just one GM to go crazy with an offer...and there always seems to be at least one.

I'd think Nurkic and his agent would bank on that if they go into negotiations this summer. That if discussions stalled, they could just take their chances in RFA. Portland has a little leverage, but it isn't enough leverage to depress Nurkic's asking price, IMO
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just for fun, Blazers, 2018-19:

Damian Lillard $27,977,689
Allen Crabbe $19,332,500
Evan Turner $17,868,852
Meyers Leonard $10,595,506
Maurice Harkless $10,337,079
Al-Farouq Aminu $6,957,105
C.J. McCollum $25,759,766
Jusuf Nurkic $25,000,000
Jake Layman $1,544,951
three 1st round picks $6,000,000
Anderson Varejao $1,984,005

about 153.4 million....keep in mind, this is only 14 months from now

notice first that the Blazers would still need to add 2 players to reach the roster minimum. Then notice that Portland has only 3 guards with no backup PG; Aminu is the only named PF since I didn't account for Vonleh; and no backup C since I don't know what Meyers is.

That's expecting three first round picks to plug about 6 roster holes. And what if Vonleh builds on his play of late and looks like a PFOTF next year? At best, tax-wise, you can delete Aminu and add Vonleh

the tax threshold that year will be in the 122-123 million range. Just to get to a minimum roster would bump the Blazers up to about 156 million...that's 34 million over the tax line. In case you're wondering how much tax that would mean, it's 104 million in luxury tax....for one year

so yeah, that loops back around to the notion the Blazers are going to need to make moves in the next 14 months...actually, 10 months till the next trade deadline; and that loops back around to the advisability of using one of this year's draft picks to dump salary. I go back and forth on that.

[monopoman]

I think that type of salary nightmare is going to hit a lot of young teams in the next few years. I mean people are hyping up so many young rosters but a lot of those teams are going to have a hell of a time signing all their contracts. Maybe the CBA changes but right now it seems that the cheap-skate teams or financially responsible teams will be dumping players for practically nothing so they can go from rookie contract to rookie contract.

Portland was one of the first teams with this problem, because we had a lot of players having their contract expire right after the CBA changed.

[zzaj]

For the record, It's my opinion that, barring serious injuries, Nurkic is going to end up earning between 25-30 million a year...and probably closer to the latter. Anybody thinking 20 million a year is stuck thinking in salary structures of yesteryear. There is a good chance that Nurkic will be the highest paid Blazer, simply because of the timing of his contract.

I could analyze it from several different directions, but I do have a relatively simple gauge:

over the last 6 or 7 years, just about every time I try and anticipate what a FA in the 22-29 year old range will get, I end up on the low side of what he actually gets, and it's usually significantly low. Obviously, when it comes to players who are very likely o get the max, it's easy to peg the contract

but for all the others, they always seem to get a lot more, every time, whether it's Batum or Matthews or Turner or Bazemore. Then, after adjusting the cross-hairs upward, you just about have to add in the big-man premium. Look at Steven Adams or Mozgov. Sure, you can say the contracts are ridiculous, and it many ways they are, but all it takes is just one GM to go crazy with an offer...and there always seems to be at least one.

I'd think Nurkic and his agent would bank on that if they go into negotiations this summer. That if discussions stalled, they could just take their chances in RFA. Portland has a little leverage, but it isn't enough leverage to depress Nurkic's asking price, IMO
**********************************************************************

just for fun, Blazers, 2018-19:

Damian Lillard $27,977,689
Allen Crabbe $19,332,500
Evan Turner $17,868,852
Meyers Leonard $10,595,506
Maurice Harkless $10,337,079
Al-Farouq Aminu $6,957,105
C.J. McCollum $25,759,766
Jusuf Nurkic $25,000,000
Jake Layman $1,544,951
three 1st round picks $6,000,000
Anderson Varejao $1,984,005

about 153.4 million....keep in mind, this is only 14 months from now

notice first that the Blazers would still need to add 2 players to reach the roster minimum. Then notice that Portland has only 3 guards with no backup PG; Aminu is the only named PF since I didn't account for Vonleh; and no backup C since I don't know what Meyers is.

That's expecting three first round picks to plug about 6 roster holes. And what if Vonleh builds on his play of late and looks like a PFOTF next year? At best, tax-wise, you can delete Aminu and add Vonleh

the tax threshold that year will be in the 122-123 million range. Just to get to a minimum roster would bump the Blazers up to about 156 million...that's 34 million over the tax line. In case you're wondering how much tax that would mean, it's 104 million in luxury tax....for one year

so yeah, that loops back around to the notion the Blazers are going to need to make moves in the next 14 months...actually, 10 months till the next trade deadline; and that loops back around to the advisability of using one of this year's draft picks to dump salary. I go back and forth on that.

No doubt the Blazers are a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they try and attach their draft picks to get rid of Turner/Leonard/Crabbe, they are also getting rid of the one guaranteed and cheap way to (hopefully) strengthen the bench. If they stick with the players they've got, keep their picks and go unbelievably deep into the tax, they still are probably topped out at a 4 seed in the West if all the supporting players continue to trend the way that they have this year.

Is an outside chance at a WCF appearance worth a quarter of a billion dollars to Paul Allen? I have no idea...

Another option is to trade bad contracts for bad contracts that might fit better, ie Turner for Biyombo (which is an idea that I stole from the GB). That is probably the best case scenario...I guess? We know Olshey isn't into vets outside of Lillard's age range, so that limits this idea. Perhaps if the team is more competitive that philosophy will change. Also, Lillard will be 27 next season...perhaps 29 or 30 is in his age range now?

Lillard--28 million
CJ--25.75 million
Nurkic--27 million

Is the base on which the Blazers are probably already looking at building upon for the next 5 years. Everything else is going to have to be fluid because that is such an insanely huge amount of salary. And I have absolutely zero idea what 'fluid' means for the Blazers...

I guess the good news is that trio has shown some decent chemistry and shown they can do most of the heavy lifting to beat good teams. AND, we're not talking about what amount of salary we're going to have to match to keep Plumlee as the COTF...clearly, Nurkic is a better building block than Plumlee.