Free agency

[BlazersBroncos]

Walker absolutely needs to be locked up on a 3+1 deal. He could be our low minute starter next to Grant. I could see him given th Vonleh treatment, starting but only playing about 20 minutes. Alternatively we know he compliments Watford so maybe start Winslow at the other forward spot, putting another playmaker, defender, rebounder next to Dame/Ant.

I really think the GP2 signing showed our hand, Josh Hart is the starting SF on this team. Just dont see GP2 getting less than 20mpg, and if that is the case how do you fit a rotation w/o Hart ending up at SF?

G - Damian Lillard (34) / Anfernee Simons (14)
G - Anfernee Simons (18) / Gary Payton II (20) / Josh Hart (10)
F - Josh Hart (20) / Nas Little (20) / Jabari Walker JR or Shadeon Sharpe or Greg Brown (8)
F - Jerami Grant (32) / Justice Winslow (16)
C - Jusuf Nurkic (28) / Drew Eubanks (20)

Think it shakes out like the above assuming full health (Which never happens)

Agreed. You forgot Keon on that chart (we have way too many SGs as usual) so I wouldn't be surprised if Hart just spent all 30 at SF.

Ya, I hope he gets some run, he is a nice prospect. Will be interesting to see if Nas is ready for consistent minutes - could see Walker lap him if he starts the season injured or rusty.

I am interested in the ball movement - GP2 is really good at attacking the rim off screens for a easy dunk / layup. Walker has shown the ability to cut well too. Would love to see much more of that, its been a while since this team got easy points on those types of plays.

[JasonStern]

Wizenheimer is a better CBA expert than I, but I thought the Blazers were under the luxury tax if they signed Jabari to a two-way contract. Some loophole there where they could send him down to the G-League to avoid salary cap ramifications.

Not arguing that Jabari doesn't deserve a guaranteed contract, that other players should be dumped, or positions of need should be addressed via trades/signings. Just kind of figured this was management's plan at least to start the season. If not, being over the tax line by $500k and not talking Nurkić/Simons down a bit seems rather foolish.

[Norm2953]

The Blazers have the exact numbers and hopefully can sign Walker to a contract similar to what
Watford got.

[DaVoiceMaster]

Walker is more useful than Brown III. Can they just trade Louzada and $3M to the Spurs, Thunder, or whoever has capspace? There is no room for him on the roster.

PG Lillard / Payton II
SG Simon's/ Johnson / Sharpe
SF Hart / Little / Brown III / Louzada
PF Grant / Winslow / Walker
_C Nurkic / Eubanks / Watford

Two-Way Players - ?

Am I missing anyone?

[skoharry]

I'm going to say it again....our bench sucks. But what else is new

[BlazersBroncos]

Our bench sucks at scoring, but thats alot of hustle and defense.

Dame and Ant better be ready to score 25ppg though.

[Wizenheimer]

Wizenheimer is a better CBA expert than I, but I thought the Blazers were under the luxury tax if they signed Jabari to a two-way contract. Some loophole there where they could send him down to the G-League to avoid salary cap ramifications.

Not arguing that Jabari doesn't deserve a guaranteed contract, that other players should be dumped, or positions of need should be addressed via trades/signings. Just kind of figured this was management's plan at least to start the season. If not, being over the tax line by $500k and not talking Nurkić/Simons down a bit seems rather foolish.

they would not be under the tax with a two-way for Walker. Now, I'm not a CBA expert...not even close...so I can't speak to all the ramifications of Walker on a 2-way.

These things I'm pretty sure of: Blazers are above the tax line right now and Walker on a 2-way wouldn't change that. On a 2-way, Walker would be limited to 50 regular season games and not eligible for the playoffs. Next summer, I believe, the Blazers would only have non-Bird rights on Walker. Meaning they'd have to use cap-space (Portland won't have any) or exceptions to sign Walker. Meaning they'd have the full-MLE if they were under the tax after the signing (maybe not an option); the tax-MLE, or the BAE. The full-MLE or the BAE would hard-cap Portland again. And of course there is the risk that Walker could blow up this year and some team makes him an offer exceeding the MLE and the Blazers lose him because they can't match

according to Spotrac:

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/portland-trail-blazers/cap/

the Blazers, after stretching Bledsoe, are 522K above the tax line with 14 players (not counting Walker). If they signed Walker to a rookie minimum deal (1.004M) They be 1.523M above the tax line and they would have a full roster of 15 players. Meaning they could dump a player and still meet the minimum roster requirement. Louzada looks like the likely candidate then. At the trade deadline the Blazers could pay a future 2nd and some cash to some team with space or a TPE to take Louzada and Portland dodges the tax. They wouldn't be paying much tax anyway but it's probably always a good policy to push the repeater tax further down the road

*********************************************************************************

by the way, as I said, I think all three of the Simons-Nurkic-Payton contracts had element of foolishness in them. I suspect the Simons & Nurkic contracts were essentially done when the Blazers decided to sit them and tank the season. I'd further suspect there was a major feeling of relief to be out from under the other foolish contracts of CJ-Powell-Nance(tm:injury-magnet) and management overreacted in yet another deceptive feel-good moment the Blazers have too often.

Simons had a 26 game stretch of good production in his 4th season, playing on a bad team, in games that didn't matter. That is not worth 25M/year; in fact that's a crazy number. And Nurkic is a traditional C in a league that is making traditional C's obsolete. The starting C's in the NBA finals were a pair of 6'8 PF's possessing the ability to defend the perimeter. Nurkic can't do that, and that is becoming a bigger and bigger flaw as the NBA evolves

and I will continue to question if Payton is good enough, to Portland, to justify being hard-capped for a season. That's a heavy restriction

[DeBlazerRiddem]

Definitely do what ya can to sign Walker, hitting on a late pick, especially a deep second round pick, is one of the biggest instant value boosts a team can get.

Our bench sucks at scoring, but thats alot of hustle and defense.

Dame and Ant better be ready to score 25ppg though.

Yeah, what worries me is that not having well rounded team scoring is one of the best ways to end up with a low scoring efficiency IMO, just too predictable for the kind of high level defense one is likely to see in the playoffs.

With how the team is constructed it just seems like we might end up watching 48 minutes of hero ball on one side of the floor and playing 4v5 defense on the other end. It just seems a really weird way to load up the team and one that has a low chance of success. It really is going to take those hustle and defense guys finding lots of little unexpected ways to score and Damian and Ant doing a very good job of using their own offense to set up others.

Hopefully Chauncey has the coaching ability to get this somewhat lopsided configuration all working together and smoothly and honestly will be a testament to him if he can make it work. But dang do I think it looks like a difficult task.

[Wizenheimer]

I think we overpaid Nurk by a few million per year, overpaid Lillard by ~$10m per year and got GP2 at market value.

As for Simons, while it's more than what i wished we could sign him for, I still think he's been signed at attractive value considering his talent (I'm super bullish on him). However, I see him functioning best when he's the primary guard. I'm sure he'll be staggered with Dame, so he should get approx half his gametime (likely just under) playing the lead guard role (assuming Dame plays 32 mpg.

last --> first: I'd imagine Dame gets closer to 36 minutes than 32, but that's a quibble

Dame isn't overpaid by 10M now, not close. He has the 8th highest salary, less than 2M more than Klay Thompson and less than 4M more than Khris Middleton and Tobias Harris. if you're talking about his extension that is 4 seasons away, I think worrying about it at this time is pointless. The salary cap will be around 170M when Dame makes 58M. Him making 10M less won't have an impact. It isn't the 35% of the cap or 27% of the room under the tax he'll be taking that matters. It's what Portland does with the other 70% of the payroll

I was hoping that Simons + Nurkic would combine for around 35M, first year. And I'm convinced the market for them was closer to 30M. So yeah, I think they are being overpaid. When it all said and done though Simons may end up on a bargain deal. Nurkic not.

Agreed. You forgot Keon on that chart (we have way too many SGs as usual) so I wouldn't be surprised if Hart just spent all 30 at SF.

Hart may get some burn at SG but of course, the lines are so blurred these days that it's probably just best to assume he'll get all his minutes at wing and Portland, like almost all teams will be investing a lot of minutes in wing.

I am a bit disappointed that after Cronin explicitly talked about the critical need to add length and size to the roster...he didn't. Grant sure doesn't play bigger than RoCo or Nance. Neither does Winslow. Yeah, Hart is bigger and longer than the laughable-Powell-at-SF experiment, but he's still a little undersized. Walker is an unknown. Payton is unorthodox but he's still the same size as Dame. And of course, Blazer luck has Sharpe awaiting surgery.....geeeeezuz

now, maybe that's being unfair to Cronin. He can't play cards he wasn't dealt and the roster is a work in progress. No GM could completely rework a roster in one trade deadline and one moratorium after Olshey spent a decade baking undersized DNA into the mix

I will say this: with Payton, Hart, and Winslow I think the Blazers have their best trio of perimeter defenders in the Dame era. And it's not Stotts scheming the defense. maybe that will be significant

[DeBlazerRiddem]

I will say this: with Payton, Hart, and Winslow I think the Blazers have their best trio of perimeter defenders in the Dame era. And it's not Stotts scheming the defense. maybe that will be significant

You are a ray of sunshine in my morning

This will absolutely have to be our identity so fingers crossed we can make it happen. I wouldn't hate a hardcore hustle team as long as we are still competitive against the best teams.

[skoharry]

I will say...if eubanks and Winslow can recreate their bench play from last year while they played for us, little comes back from injury with the same level of play before he got injured, and GP II can be that Defensive stopper his dad was plus improve as a distributor....then the bench might be good.

[BNM]

Definitely do what ya can to sign Walker, hitting on a late pick, especially a deep second round pick, is one of the biggest instant value boosts a team can get.

Our bench sucks at scoring, but thats alot of hustle and defense.

Dame and Ant better be ready to score 25ppg though.

Yeah, what worries me is that not having well rounded team scoring is one of the best ways to end up with a low scoring efficiency IMO, just too predictable for the kind of high level defense one is likely to see in the playoffs.

With how the team is constructed it just seems like we might end up watching 48 minutes of hero ball on one side of the floor and playing 4v5 defense on the other end. It just seems a really weird way to load up the team and one that has a low chance of success. It really is going to take those hustle and defense guys finding lots of little unexpected ways to score and Damian and Ant doing a very good job of using their own offense to set up others.

Hopefully Chauncey has the coaching ability to get this somewhat lopsided configuration all working together and smoothly and honestly will be a testament to him if he can make it work. But dang do I think it looks like a difficult task.

I think you're forgetting Jerami Grant, who averaged 20.9 ppg his two seasons in DET, and Josh Hart, who averaged 19.9 ppg on .622 TS% in his brief stint with the Blazers. Nurk has also been a consistent 15 ppg scorer in his six seasons in POR. I like Nurk more in the pick and roll, with both Dame and Ant, than I do force feeding him on the low block (unless he has a much smaller player on him).

Dame and Ant will be our most prolific scorers, but it's not like we don't have anyone else on the roster that can score. Grant was miscast as No. 1 option in DET, which hurt his efficiency. He'll be back to being a No. 3 or 4 option, like he was in OKC and DEN. Sure, he'll have his share of 20 point games, but I'd rather see him average a very efficient 17 ppg than an inefficient 22 ppg. Hart has been consistently above league average in scoring efficiency, regardless of his role.

I think we'll be fine on offense. If we start Dame, Ant, Hart, Grant and Nurk, we will have five proven scorers in the starting lineup. Personally, I'd rather see Hart staring at the 2 (with Little or Winslow at the 3) and bringing Ant off the bench with Payton. I think that gives us a better mix of offense and defense with both the starters and the bench.

[BlazersBroncos]

Definitely do what ya can to sign Walker, hitting on a late pick, especially a deep second round pick, is one of the biggest instant value boosts a team can get.

Our bench sucks at scoring, but thats alot of hustle and defense.

Dame and Ant better be ready to score 25ppg though.

Yeah, what worries me is that not having well rounded team scoring is one of the best ways to end up with a low scoring efficiency IMO, just too predictable for the kind of high level defense one is likely to see in the playoffs.

With how the team is constructed it just seems like we might end up watching 48 minutes of hero ball on one side of the floor and playing 4v5 defense on the other end. It just seems a really weird way to load up the team and one that has a low chance of success. It really is going to take those hustle and defense guys finding lots of little unexpected ways to score and Damian and Ant doing a very good job of using their own offense to set up others.

Hopefully Chauncey has the coaching ability to get this somewhat lopsided configuration all working together and smoothly and honestly will be a testament to him if he can make it work. But dang do I think it looks like a difficult task.

I think you're forgetting Jerami Grant, who averaged 20.9 ppg his two seasons in DET, and Josh Hart, who averaged 19.9 ppg on .622 TS% in his brief stint with the Blazers. Nurk has also been a consistent 15 ppg scorer in his six seasons in POR. I like Nurk more in the pick and roll, with both Dame and Ant, than I do force feeding him on the low block (unless he has a much smaller player on him).

Dame and Ant will be our most prolific scorers, but it's not like we don't have anyone else on the roster that can score. Grant was miscast as No. 1 option in DET, which hurt his efficiency. He'll be back to being a No. 3 or 4 option, like he was in OKC and DEN. Sure, he'll have his share of 20 point games, but I'd rather see him average a very efficient 17 ppg than an inefficient 22 ppg. Hart has been consistently above league average in scoring efficiency, regardless of his role.

I think we'll be fine on offense. If we start Dame, Ant, Hart, Grant and Nurk, we will have five proven scorers in the starting lineup. Personally, I'd rather see Hart staring at the 2 (with Little or Winslow at the 3) and bringing Ant off the bench with Payton. I think that gives us a better mix of offense and defense with both the starters and the bench.

Ya, the starting unit has enough firepower.

Wouldnt be surprised to see something like:

Dame - 24-28ppg
Ant - 22-24ppg
Hart - 15-17ppg
Grant - 15-19ppg
Nurkic - 13-15ppg

[Norm2953]

Biggest problem Portland will have will be when Nurk begins to miss games.

Interesting to see Ismael Kamagate getting a look in the summer league with Denver. Portland
traded his draft rights to the Nuggets for a future SRP and it might have nice for Portland
to have taken a look at him, even if he ends up back in Europe for Portland could use another
big body.

[BNM]

Walker needs a contract RIGHT NOW !!!!

He has one:

https://www.nba.com/blazers/news/trail-blazers-sign-jabari-walker

No detail on dollars or length, but POR has signed him.

Edit: still no details on $ or years, but this piece describes it as a "standard NBA contract" (i.e. not a 2-way contract):

https://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/2022/07/portland-trail-blazers-sign-rookie-jabari-walker-to-standard-nba-contract.html

Spotrtac has POR with $1,601,111 of the the non-tax payer MLE remaining. Brown and Watford each make $1,563,518. So, probably something similar for Walker.

Prior to the signing, Spotrac has POR at $3.548 million under the hard cap.

2022 NBA Hard-Cap ("Luxury Tax Apron") $156,938,000
Total Hard-Cap Salaries $153,389,928
Hard-Cap Space $3,548,072

[Norm2953]

Portland reportedly signed Walker to a standard NBA contract, not a two way. Nobody is arguing he isnt worth it but it appears the team has a bit of space under the tax line after all.

Nice job by the Blazer scouts to have found and drafted Walker in the late second round. Blazer scouts in finding Watford last season and Walker this season are doing a fine job as long as the team GM does not trade away their picks.

[Village Idiot]

Congratulations to Walker and to the Blazers scouts! Given what he's shown thus far I would not be at all surprised if Walker is starting alongside Grant by the end of the season.

[PDXKnight]

Congratulations to Walker and to the Blazers scouts! Given what he's shown thus far I would not be at all surprised if Walker is starting alongside Grant by the end of the season.

id be shocked barring injuries. This is summer league and although he’s injured little imo should be the starter on paper if Hart isn’t starting at sf

[tester551]

Portland reportedly signed Walker to a standard NBA contract, not a two way. Nobody is arguing he isnt worth it but it appears the team has a bit of space under the tax line after all.

They are OVER the tax line. They are still below the hard-cap by ~$2M.

[Norm2953]

None of us has the exact contract numbers to be making definitive statements