Jsun947 wrote:DusterBuster wrote:Jsun947 wrote:
Ya…. That’s not really how this works. At a certain point the tax can cost you nearly $7 in taxes on each dollar… meaning it’s possible that Towns doesn’t cost you $60 mil a season, that he might cost you up to $480 million a season.
And that’s on top of having your picks frozen, not being able to sign almost anyone, a handful of serious trade restrictions etc. The new rules are so punitive that most execs will be treating it more like a hardcap.
This is also expecting worst case scenario and no changes. Teams hire cap experts for a reason. It’s not just for someone to understand the rules, it’s to exploit and work around or find loopholes so you avoid the worst case scenario you laid out.
I don’t understand you.
There is no loophole. You stay under the aprons, and if you have two max players making $100-$125 million combined then you have to fill out the roster with cheap talent like serviceable rookies, undrafted players, & minimum or low salary veterans. You simply don’t have room to spend money on above average starters at three other positions.
The entire point of what they did is to make it hard enough on teams that it be will disperse talent to create more parody in the league.
What you’re saying is an analogy to a couple in massive debt making $10,000 a month and the Husband wants to keep charging $15,000 a month on a credit card. When the wife yells at him he says, It’s ok because he’s finding a loophole. The only loop hole he’s going to find is called bankruptcy because you can’t change **** math.
I agree that the Dame/KAT idea is probably too expensive and wouldn't get the 'bang-for-the-buck' Portland would be hoping for
but it's also worth actually looking at the numbers while keeping in mind that the critical threshold in the new CBA will be the 2nd apron. 2 or 3 years over the 1st apron is manageable with the only real limitations being a tax-MLE rather than a full-MLE and trading for less salary than you are sending out
* next season's cap numbers are projected to be: a 134M cap; 162M tax line; 169M 1st apron; 180M 2nd apron
* there are no solid projections for 2024-25 yet, but I've seen estimates of: 145M cap; 175M tax line; 182M 1st apron; 192M 2nd apron
and it's the 2025-26 season when the 1st year of Dame's extension starts. That season, Dame & KAT would combine for 111M in salary
but that's also the season when all the new media deals will kick in. The NBA just keeps growing in popularity and those media deals are projected to include an absolutely massive amount of streaming media revenue including significant international streaming rights.
now, the new CBA includes a
'smoothing' provision that wasn't in the current CBA in 2016 when there was a 35% increase in the cap. Remember Evan Turner and Allan Crabbe? Anyway, that smoothing provision will prevent a massive 35-40% increase in the cap numbers. But even if it as low as 15-20% over 2024-25, that could mean that the 2025-26 cap numbers could be in the realm of a 170M cap; 205M tax line; 220M 2nd apron. Meaning that the Blazers after Dame & Kat's salaries could have around 60M in room under the cap; 95M in margin under the tax line; and a 110M margin under the 2nd apron. That's a lot of margin and it's still significant margin if you project more conservative estimates
keep in mind, for next season, if you assume Dame + Grant as the two highest salaries with no other roster changes, and with Grant being around 30M, the Blazers only have around 65M guaranteed to the rest of the roster. That's less than 50% of the cap
again, KAT is very likely too expensive, but the math of the situation isn't as overwhelmingly adverse as people assume
