NBA expected to announce a (estimated $3M) drop in next year's salary cap projection on Thursday.

Showdown · Post #1 » by **Showdown** » Thu Jan 30, 2020 8:38 am

The league will release their projections as early as Thursday, allowing teams to take them into account ahead of the trade deadline.

Many front office executives believe that the salary cap could drop from a projected $116 million down to $113 million next season.

The luxury tax had been projected at $141 million

What this means for the Blazers and how big impact will this have on their plans for offseason ?

Fitz303 · Post #2 » by **Fitz303** » Thu Jan 30, 2020 2:18 pm

If it's only 3 Mil, that's manageable. I'm really interested to see what happens this deadline. Do they throw their chips in on a risk like OPJ, or do they get under the tax this season so that they can bump back over in a year or 2 without as much worry on the repeater. 1 more week!

zzaj · Post #3 » by **zzaj** » Thu Jan 30, 2020 3:51 pm

Fitz303 wrote:If it's only 3 Mil, that's manageable. I'm really interested to see what happens this deadline. Do they throw their chips in on a risk like OPJ, or do they get under the tax this season so that they can bump back over in a year or 2 without as much worry on the repeater. 1 more week!

In a year or two Lillard and CJ will be making 73-80M between the two of them. IMO, in order to contend the Blazers will be repeaters for the length of Lillard's contract.

Wizenheimer · Post #4 » by **Wizenheimer** » Thu Jan 30, 2020 5:54 pm

so then, a tax line of 136-137M....and I'm mostly convinced that the Blazers are determined to be under the tax next season

* Portland would be at 110M with 10 players (includes Ariza, Hood, and Hezonja)

* 112-113M with their 1st round pick bringing them to 11 players

* their full MLE would put them in the 122-123M range with 12 players. It would hard-cap them at 142-143M but that's 20M higher so not really a problem

* already being hard-capped, they could use the 3.8M BAE (Melo?). They'd now have 126-127M in guarantees and 13 players and 15-17M margin to the hard-cap

* they have that 7.2M trade exception they could use to get them to 133-134M with 14 players and still have room for a vet minimum to remain under the tax line. Probably safely under because they wouldn't necessarily have to us the max MLE or BAE or TPE

my guess is that's probably close to the foundation of assumptions they are working with now. Obviously, if some incredible no-brainer deal for Whiteside came up in the next week they could do that and still have the option of waiving Ariza by June 30. But I think the market for Whiteside is extremely thin, mainly because there's a ton of expiring deals being shopped right now

zzaj wrote:
Fitz303 wrote:If it's only 3 Mil, that's manageable. I'm really interested to see what happens this deadline. Do they throw their chips in on a risk like OPJ, or do they get under the tax this season so that they can bump back over in a year or 2 without as much worry on the repeater. 1 more week!

In a year or two Lillard and CJ will be making 73-80M between the two of them. IMO, in order to contend the Blazers will be repeaters for the length of Lillard's contract.

I don't believe there's any goal of getting under the tax this season. And I'm betting that the view from JA now about tax-paying is a lot more conservative than it was last year right after the buzz of the playoffs ended. Reality came knocking this season in the form of the highest payroll in the league and a losing record

IMO, Portland won't ever be paying repeater tax and they won't be contending with CJ hogging 26-30% of the cap.

zzaj · Post #5 » by **zzaj** » Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:04 pm

Wizenheimer wrote:
zzaj wrote:
Fitz303 wrote:If it's only 3 Mil, that's manageable. I'm really interested to see what happens this deadline. Do they throw their chips in on a risk like OPJ, or do they get under the tax this season so that they can bump back over in a year or 2 without as much worry on the repeater. 1 more week!

In a year or two Lillard and CJ will be making 73-80M between the two of them. IMO, in order to contend the Blazers will be repeaters for the length of Lillard's contract.

I don't believe there's any goal of getting under the tax this season. And I'm betting that the view from JA now about tax-paying is a lot more conservative than it was last year right after the buzz of the playoffs ended. Reality came knocking this season in the form of the highest payroll in the league and a losing record

IMO, Portland won't ever be paying repeater tax and they won't be contending with CJ hogging 26-30% of the cap.

I worded that poorly. What I mean to say is that as long as the Lillard/CJ combo takes up that much of the team salary, it'll be hard for the Blazers to field a contending level team. If they do decide to go all in and field a contending level team, the tax bill will be enormous.

JRoy · Post #6 » by **JRoy** » Thu Jan 30, 2020 8:13 pm

zzaj wrote:
Wizenheimer wrote:
zzaj wrote:
In a year or two Lillard and CJ will be making 73-80M between the two of them. IMO, in order to contend the Blazers will be repeaters for the length of Lillard's contract.

I don't believe there's any goal of getting under the tax this season. And I'm betting that the view from JA now about tax-paying is a lot more conservative than it was last year right after the buzz of the playoffs ended. Reality came knocking this season in the form of the highest payroll in the league and a losing record

IMO, Portland won't ever be paying repeater tax and they won't be contending with CJ hogging 26-30% of the cap.

I worded that poorly. What I mean to say is that as long as the Lillard/CJ combo takes up that much of the team salary, it'll be hard for the Blazers to field a contending level team. If they do decide to go all in and field a contending level team, the tax bill will be enormous.

Your wording is just the truth.

Lillard is worth it, CJ is not.

d-train · Post #7 » by **d-train** » Thu Jan 30, 2020 10:33 pm

The previous projections of next year's tax line are about $141-142M. So, a $3M drop means the new projections are about $138-139M. We can see by the way most teams not owned by Paul Allen operate, teams don't want to pay luxury taxes. We can expect next years payroll will be $3M lower because of this adjustment. Fortunately, this small adjustment will have no impact on our plans to maximize the talent on our team.

Of course, the goal this season is not to get below the tax. The goal is to build the Blazers into being a contender. However, you can be assured that the Blazers want to get under the tax if they can without impacting their goal to be a contender. Fritz is right, we don't know what's going to happen over the next week. We don't know because NO doesn't know. Olshey is ready and has the team positioned to take the best opportunity that is available. We might add talent or maybe not. We might trim some salary or maybe not.