RealGM

I posted this in response to Trade topic - How 76ers get out of Lux Tax in 20-21?

3 way option with Sacramento and Portland - addresses some issues with all three teams and works on ESPN

Portland Sends Hassan Whiteside to Philly (27M); and sends Bazemore & Nassir Little & '20 1st to Sacramento (total 21M) (48M out);
Portland receives Tobias Harris (Phi - 32M 5 yrs); and DeWayne Dedmon (SAC- 13M) (45M in)

Philly Sends T Harris to Portland (32M out) and receives Whitesides (27M exp) and Bogdan Bogdanovic (8.1M RFA) in ($35M)

Sacto sends Dedmon (13M) and Bogdanovic (8.1M) (22M out); and gets Bazemore (19M exp), Nassir Little (2.1) and 2020 1st (22M in)

Why
Portland needs to cash in on Expirings (created in 2016) and if they wait the Dame/CJ extension only allow $13M cap space asset. Trade for the long term SF with Dame/CJ/Harris/Collins and Nurkic. (Portland Pays to open their window with Dame & CJ).

Philly covers Embiid's Injury with Whiteside (having a great year) 27M expiring and downgrades? from Harris to Bogdanovic (not much of a downgrade - but with RFA can be signed for less that the $32M spent on Harris). Has Cap relief 20-21 with Whiteside walking.

Sacto - gets relief to be able to sign Bagley Jr and extend Fox with Bazemore's expiring & gets great young prospect in Nassir and a 1st in 2020 (can put a llttle protection on it but it should go to Sacto this year). (One thread mentioned their concern with paying up in the future).

Harris is sooooooo overpaid. We can’t take on that type of salary without offloading CJ

The only player in this trade Blazers would want besides their own players is Bogdanovic.

Drop Sixers from the deal and just trade Bazemore, Little, and a 1st for Bogdanovic and Dedmon. Blazers might do this. I doubt it, but it's possible. Bogdanovic is a good player.

Blazers would trade Whiteside for Horford, but would not take Harris.

Edit: Dedmon needs to change his name to Deadmoney.

I think I'd rather Portland seek a sign and trade type of move with Whiteside where Portland gets some
future picks as opposed to simply alowing him to walk and use the cap space to sign soneone like
Saric for the roughly $12 Million we will have in cap space. Whiteside is going to get paid and if he's
willing to return for roughly Portland's cap space, I'd be fine keeping him for no telling what Nurk's
salary demands will be in two years when the Dame/CJ extensions begin.

Team needs to add two front court players and continues to have a desperate need for a SF to play
the point forward role and perhaps a big defensive guard.

Norm2953 wrote:I think I'd rather Portland seek a sign and trade type of move with Whiteside where Portland gets some
future picks as opposed to simply alowing him to walk and use the cap space to sign soneone like
Saric for the roughly $12 Million we will have in cap space. Whiteside is going to get paid and if he's
willing to return for roughly Portland's cap space, I'd be fine keeping him for no telling what Nurk's
salary demands will be in two years when the Dame/CJ extensions begin.

Team needs to add two front court players and continues to have a desperate need for a SF to play
the point forward role and perhaps a big defensive guard.

Cap space? The cap space Blazers has to resign Whiteside starts at $35M per year. How much do you think Whiteside is going to get?

d-train wrote:

Norm2953 wrote:I think I'd rather Portland seek a sign and trade type of move with Whiteside where Portland gets some
future picks as opposed to simply alowing him to walk and use the cap space to sign soneone like
Saric for the roughly $12 Million we will have in cap space. Whiteside is going to get paid and if he's
willing to return for roughly Portland's cap space, I'd be fine keeping him for no telling what Nurk's
salary demands will be in two years when the Dame/CJ extensions begin.

Team needs to add two front court players and continues to have a desperate need for a SF to play
the point forward role and perhaps a big defensive guard.

Cap space? The cap space Blazers has to resign Whiteside starts at $35M per year. How much do you think Whiteside is going to get?

Portland does have the bird rights to Whiteside but nobody will offer anything more than $20 Million. He's
likely going to sign for above what Portland can offer but could circle back to Portland if the offers are
sparce for many of the teams are angling for the 2021 market.

My guess is Portland will be shopping in the free agent market for one of the mid tier players and can
offer more than the MLE. With the Dame/CJ extensions looming on the horizon they can't afford to
overpay (again).

Norm2953 wrote:

d-train wrote:

Norm2953 wrote:I think I'd rather Portland seek a sign and trade type of move with Whiteside where Portland gets some
future picks as opposed to simply alowing him to walk and use the cap space to sign soneone like
Saric for the roughly $12 Million we will have in cap space. Whiteside is going to get paid and if he's
willing to return for roughly Portland's cap space, I'd be fine keeping him for no telling what Nurk's
salary demands will be in two years when the Dame/CJ extensions begin.

Team needs to add two front court players and continues to have a desperate need for a SF to play
the point forward role and perhaps a big defensive guard.

Cap space? The cap space Blazers has to resign Whiteside starts at $35M per year. How much do you think Whiteside is going to get?

Portland does have the bird rights to Whiteside but nobody will offer anything more than $20 Million. He's
likely going to sign for above what Portland can offer but could circle back to Portland if the offers are
sparce for many of the teams are angling for the 2021 market.

My guess is Portland will be shopping in the free agent market for one of the mid tier players and can
offer more than the MLE. With the Dame/CJ extensions looming on the horizon they can't afford to
overpay (again).

Blazers might be shopping for mid tier players but they won't have more than their MLE and BAE to offer. If they renounce everyone except Skal, they have _NO_ cap room other than their MLE and BAE, which they can also have after resigning Whiteside, Bazemore, and Melo. If they want more than the MLE to offer another team's free agents, we need to renounce Whiteside, Bazemore, Melo, _AND_ Skal. This would give us $14M cap room after we also renounce our $9.9M MLE and our $3.9M BAE. Do you get how stupid chasing that $14M cap room is? We have to renounce all of our players and $13.8M cap space to get $14M cap room.

BTW, I think Whiteside will get something between $10-15M per year. If he gets more or less, I think it will be less.

Bazemore will get between $4-6.5M per year. Blazers should be able to resign Whiteside, Bazemore, and have lots of room to use all of their MLE and BAE while staying below the tax.

Edit: We might have to use the BAE to resign Melo.

Dtrain is the only regular on this board who would opt to sign Bazemore.

Likely Melo will opt to sign elsewhere for a contender to chase a ring. It will be interesting to
see what Whiteside will end up signing for but he's not likely Portland's #1 priority in free agency.
Likely Portland will opt to renounce all their free agents including Skal for none of those guys
really fit long term in Portland for Skal's reputation of being made of glass preceded him to
Portland. Portland doesn't have to announce they are renouncing all their free agents and
in the past operated in free agency as if they really had $14 Million in cap space. They'd be
better off chasing the Marcus Morris or Dario Saric of the world for Portland even after they get
Nurk and Zach back, badly needs at least one solid front court player and hopefully will get
something from Little, Hoard or their #1 pick.

Team might be okay next season with Nurk and Zach at center with, Zach, free agent, Hood
and whoever emerges from Little, Hoard, #1 pick and Dame/CJ and a second season from Simons.

I honestly don't really want to bring back any of our FA's. Kent and Hassan can go, I would maybe resign Skal to a 3-4M per deal as the 3rd string backup PF + C. Obviously Tolliver and Mario are hopefully given bus tickets too.

Its why I hope we can move the big expiring's for talent ASAP. I don't think any of these guys are winners, that talented or even good fits moving forward.

Curious why you see Skal as a third stringer. I instead would like to see a preseason competition between him and Collins for the starter role (and minutes) next season.

Curious why you see Skal as a third stringer. I instead would like to see a preseason competition between him and Collins for the starter role (and minutes) next season.

I just don't see him as that talented at either side of the ball. I want a lockdown, 3/D defensive PF or a scorer. Skal is a jack of all trades, master of none. Its worth noting that he is a really good mid ranged shooter, but that shot sucks. I would rather a guy like Zach who sucks in mid range but only takes 11.8% of his shots there but 34% of his shots from the 3 line than Skal who takes 26% from mid ranged and only 8% from 3.

We have seen Collins elevate his game, especially defensively, in the playoffs. His 3.3 DBPM in the playoffs are the real saving grace for a player that didn't seem to make the jump expected from year 1 to 2.

Most importantly, he is under contract next year.

The ideal situation is a veteran swing forward that is a bench scorer with Zach as the low usage 5th offensive option IMO. Relying on a PF rotation of only Zach and Skal is not something a team aspiring to be that good would do. A lot comes down to contract, one is under contract, one would have to get paid. Both have similar limitations, especially on offense. But one can shoot the 3, and has shown playoff level defense.

Let someone else pay Skal IMO. But I do see argument to keep him, if we move Zach.

That's why I would like to see a fair competition in preseason between the two, rather than on impressions. I would award starter minutes to whomever of the two demonstrates better shooting, better rebounding, and better interior defense (with a capability of for a few counts guarding a perimeter player). BTW, Skal's three point shooting careerwise is above 35% and over 75% at free throw shooter ( a somewhat indicator of 3 capacity). Finally, I see nothing wrong with a tandem which can give good rebounding, efficient shooting, good interior defense, and adequate perimeter helping for full 48 minutes.

BlazersBroncos wrote:We have seen Collins elevate his game, especially defensively, in the playoffs. His 3.3 DBPM in the playoffs are the real saving grace for a player that didn't seem to make the jump expected from year 1 to 2.

I think that's deceptive. He only averaged 17 minutes a game overall in the playoffs, and that dropped to 14 minutes against the Warriors because he had a lot of trouble guarding the mobility of Green and Jerebko. The only matchups he was OK with were against Bogut and Bell, and neither played much. In fact, in the OKC and Warrior series, Zach averaged 14 minutes; and more than 21 against Denver. He didn't match up well against two of the teams, but Denver played a lot of Millsap and Plumlee at PF, and those guys Zach could matchup with. Zach's career DBPM is 0.9 over 146 games, so pointing at a 3.3 mark over 16 games when he had unbalanced minutes in those 16 games seems pretty flawed

it's interesting how highly a lot of Blazer fans rate Zach defensively...he doesn't deserve that to this point. That's not to say he won't be a good defender, but there are a lot of good defenders at PF and C in the NBA, and so far, Zach hasn't posted the kinds of defensive numbers that warrant all the praise he gets. Last season, among all PF's and C's who played in more than 40 games, Zach ranked 64th in DRPM. Among all players he ranked 103rd. Kevin Love was better last year in DRPM, but he only played 22 games...but that's still 6 more games than Zach played in the playoffs

PF's who were better last year in DRPM than Zach: Luke Kornet, Jaren Jackson Jr., Maxi Kleber, PJ Tucker, Mike Muscala, Daniel Theis, Ersan Ilyasova, Mason Plumlee, Noah Vonleh, Richaun Holmes, Al-Farouq Aminu, Kelly Olynyk, Thaddeus Young, Cody Zeller, Jonathan Isaac, Nemanja Bjelica, Thon Maker, Larry Nance Jr., Domantas Sabonis

and just some of C's who were better last season: Ed Davis, Nerlens Noel, Hassan Whiteside, Nikola Vucevic, Brook Lopez, Nene Hilario, Aron Baynes, Willie Cauley-Stein, Bam Adebayo, Wendell Carter Jr., Ivica Zubac, Dewayne Dedmon, Jonas Valanciunas, Tyler Zeller, Jakob Poeltl, Ante Zizic, Jarrett Allen, LaMarcus Aldridge, Mitchell Robinson, Thomas Bryant

another example since you decided to highly rate Zach because of a single stat over a small unbalanced 16 game sample size, a comparison of Zach & Aminu in:

defensive Real Adjusted PM: Aminu +2.79....Zach -0.25
defensive Real Adjusted PM rank: Aminu 53rd....Zach 520th

(all PM stats are rates; they aren't cumulative, so playing more minutes and games don't change the numbers)

http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm5?id=1052846636

BlazersBroncos wrote:Most importantly, he is under contract next year.

The ideal situation is a veteran swing forward that is a bench scorer with Zach as the low usage 5th offensive option IMO. Relying on a PF rotation of only Zach and Skal is not something a team aspiring to be that good would do. A lot comes down to contract, one is under contract, one would have to get paid. Both have similar limitations, especially on offense. But one can shoot the 3, and has shown playoff level defense.

Let someone else pay Skal IMO. But I do see argument to keep him, if we move Zach.

it's true Zach is under contract for another year, but he's just 1 year ahead of Skal in getting paid

as far as the "ideal" situation at PF, I'd broaden it to say the the ideal situation at the pair of forward positions is to have one of them have all-star talent and ball-handling skills while being a two-way player. Zach's versatility only runs from PF to C. He is probably a better defender in the paint than Aminu, or at least will develop into that in the future; and he a little better rim protector. But Zach is not mobile enough to cover the perimeter players he'll have to at PF since the NBA is filling up with stretch-4 lineups. As the full time PF Zach would have to spend a hell of a lot of time guarding guys like Durant, Lebron, Kawhi, PG13, Doncic, Siakam, Giannis, Tobias Harris, Montrezl Harrell (who has totally owned Zach). He's going to be over-matched and in foul trouble a lot

another issue is his poor rebounding. He under-performs on the boards and it's a problem. Portland's two biggest issues, now that Olshey has disassembled the roster that made it to the WCF are rebounding and perimeter defense. Zach doesn't help in either or those area's

and, as far as letting somebody else "pay Skal"...think about what you're saying: right now, Portland has two players over 6'8 who have guaranteed contracts next season and both are injured. The Blazers really can't afford to let Skal walk

I like what Skal brings and I hope the Blazers resign him as either a backup PF or C. I'm not on the Collins bandwagon. Never have been, but was hoping to jump on his season when the Blazers cleared the way for him by trading Aminu. Sadly, that won't happen this year now with his injury. I've said for a while that the Blazers drafted the wrong Collins. Not sure I can say that anymore after last summer, but, who else could they have drafted instead... sigh. I'm hoping they can bring Melo back for another year with a healthy Nurkic, Collins, Skal, and Hood. I'm good with saying goodbye to Whiteside and Bazemore. I wish they could turn one of them into Gallinari before the trade deadline. For the record, I'm also not high on Simons either. I could be, but I'm not there yet. He shows potential, but so does Collins. I'm kind of tired of waiting for players to develop. I just want someone to step in and go, kind of like what Melo's done.

DaVoiceMaster wrote:I like what Skal brings and I hope the Blazers resign him as either a backup PF or C. I'm not on the Collins bandwagon. Never have been, but was hoping to jump on his season when the Blazers cleared the way for him by trading Aminu. Sadly, that won't happen this year now with his injury. I've said for a while that the Blazers drafted the wrong Collins. Not sure I can say that anymore after last summer, but, who else could they have drafted instead... sigh. I'm hoping they can bring Melo back for another year with a healthy Nurkic, Collins, Skal, and Hood. I'm good with saying goodbye to Whiteside and Bazemore. I wish they could turn one of them into Gallinari before the trade deadline. For the record, I'm also not high on Simons either. I could be, but I'm not there yet. He shows potential, but so does Collins. I'm kind of tired of waiting for players to develop. I just want someone to step in and go, kind of like what Melo's done.

Developing players is not about waiting for skill or talent. The skill and talent is either there or it will never be there. Developing players is helping young players, new to the NBA, understand the role they can play in making a NBA team successful. In most cases, the role these players need to learn is different than the way they played leading up to their NBA careers.

d-train wrote:

DaVoiceMaster wrote:I like what Skal brings and I hope the Blazers resign him as either a backup PF or C. I'm not on the Collins bandwagon. Never have been, but was hoping to jump on his season when the Blazers cleared the way for him by trading Aminu. Sadly, that won't happen this year now with his injury. I've said for a while that the Blazers drafted the wrong Collins. Not sure I can say that anymore after last summer, but, who else could they have drafted instead... sigh. I'm hoping they can bring Melo back for another year with a healthy Nurkic, Collins, Skal, and Hood. I'm good with saying goodbye to Whiteside and Bazemore. I wish they could turn one of them into Gallinari before the trade deadline. For the record, I'm also not high on Simons either. I could be, but I'm not there yet. He shows potential, but so does Collins. I'm kind of tired of waiting for players to develop. I just want someone to step in and go, kind of like what Melo's done.

Developing players is not about waiting for skill or talent. The skill and talent is either there or it will never be there. Developing players is helping young players, new to the NBA, understand the role they can play in making a NBA team successful. In most cases, the role these players need to learn is different than the way they played leading up to their NBA careers.

If you want to put it that way, then I am tired of waiting for Collins and Simons to understand their roles.

How could you be tired of waiting for Simons to understand his role? He has only had a role for 1/2 a season and isn't old enough to buy a Mickeys.

BlazersBroncos wrote:How could you be tired of waiting for Simons to understand his role? He has only had a role for 1/2 a season and isn't old enough to buy a Mickeys.

I'm just not a fan of his. I'd also like to find some players with size for this roster. How many Lillard's and CJ's does this team need?