2020 Free Agency

[Myth]

Already thinking ahead here. First, I have a question: Assuming we make no additional moves, how much money would Portland have to offer free agents in 2020? I know some of you guys are better with those things. Once I have a better sense of that I'll add my own thoughts of targets, but otherwise, who do you guys think we should be looking at?

[The Sebastian Express]

Already thinking ahead here. First, I have a question: Assuming we make no additional moves, how much money would Portland have to offer free agents in 2020? I know some of you guys are better with those things. Once I have a better sense of that I'll add my own thoughts of targets, but otherwise, who do you guys think we should be looking at?

If we don't trade Hassan at the deadline for someone like a Love, I absolutely want to see us do our best to go after AD or Draymond next year. I don't care if they're longshots. We need to at least TRY.

[d-train]

Already thinking ahead here. First, I have a question: Assuming we make no additional moves, how much money would Portland have to offer free agents in 2020? I know some of you guys are better with those things. Once I have a better sense of that I'll add my own thoughts of targets, but otherwise, who do you guys think we should be looking at?

We will have the $6.1M MLE. We could renounce Whiteside, Bazemore, and Skal to get $16M in cap room, which obviously we won't do if those players can be re-signed. Also, Hood has a $6M player option. If Hood rejects his option and we renounce his rights as well, we would have $20.7M in cap room. I doubt the Blazers could replace Whiteside, Bazemore, and Hood for $20.7M, but we do have that option if needed. Whiteside's agent can't easily use lack of cap room to extort an above market contract from Blazers.

[Wizenheimer]

the obligatory "2019 off-season isn't dome yet" out of the way....

last I saw the projected cap was going to be about 116M

Damian Lillard $31,626,953
CJ McCollum $29,354,152
Jusuf Nurkić $14,138,889
Zach Collins $5,406,255
Anfernee Simons $2,252,040
Gary Trent $1,663,861

Andrew Nicholson $2,844,429
Anderson Varejão $1,913,345

89.2M

now, you have to add 6 roster charges for being 6 players under the minimum. That will be about 5.5M raising the Blazers to about 94.7M. That would leave them only 21-22M in space

if they use their 2020 first to add a player, you delete a roster charge but add the rookie scale. Probably adding about 1.2M in salary dropping Blazer cap-space to the 20-21M range

and if Portland re-signs Hood to his early-Bird max of about 10M, their cap-space would be 10-11M with 8 players under contract. Hood's player option is 6M, so between his early-Bird max and PO there's a potential 4M in additional cap-space

That's 10M in cap-space with 6 players needed for a minimum roster, and this does not account for Whiteside, Bazemore, Hezonja, Tolliver, & Skal. Skal's QO would be 3.5M and Hezonja has a 1.98M player option.

Blazers will finally have some flexibility after 4 years of being strapped because of 2016. But it will be limited flexibility because they will have so few players under contract and only limited cap-space, if any at all.

[d-train]

BTW, I'm not sure what the repeater tax rules are, but Blazers are in excellent shape to get under the tax and reset the counter in 2020 before Lillard's extension kicks in.

[d-train]

Blazers will finally have some flexibility after 4 years of being strapped because of 2016. But it will be limited flexibility because they will have so few players under contract and only limited cap-space, if any at all.

Actually, Blazers will have flexibility because of 2016. We have cap room or the capability to go way over the cap to re-sign players. Had we not retained our assets in 2016, we wouldn't have nearly all the options we currently have to build a team this year and next season. We also have some nice trade assets to work with at the trade deadline if an opportunity arises.

[Norm2953]

I keep thinking we'll also have a potentially highly desireable expiring contract in CJ that we
could easily move to create more cap space if needed. Even NO might balk at paying huge
new contract to CJ, especially with Dames max deal.

[HoopsFanAZ]

I find no significant contradictions amongst those who posted above me. And thank you to those who have crunched the numbers, given the what-ifs on upcoming Blazers free agents or potential free agents, and the comment about CJ. I have nothing to offer but my thanks.

Okay. Not quite.

Players to Keep ... an opinion: Lillard, Simons, Collins, Nurkic, Little
Potentially Good to keep but Cost Conscious: Hood, Bazemore
How/IF he Fits: Whiteside
How much is too much: CJ (with one year to go)
Waiting Room: Trent, Hejonja, Tolliver, Labissiere

Whiteside and CJ are my biggest questions with CJ as very likely "yes." Next biggest question for me after HW is Bazemore.

Other Teams' Free Agents: The field is not nearly as strong as this year. I haven't looked enough on who is 2021 (1 year remaining) for trades. But is this too early to look? Of course not.

[d-train]

Looking at it again, Blazers could re-sign all their free agents, sign their rookie(s), and have the non-tax $9.9M MLE and the $3.9M BAE, if they do everything in the right order. Additionally, they can stay under the tax if they spend carefully. 2020 is going to be a big year determining the future of the Blazers. When Lillard's extension kicks in 2021, the roster building is over for a long while.

[HoopsFanAZ]

Looking at it again, Blazers could re-sign all their free agents, sign their rookie(s), and have the non-tax $9.9M MLE and the $3.9M BAE, if they do everything in the right order. Additionally, they can stay under the tax if they spend carefully. 2020 is going to be a big year determining the future of the Blazers. When Lillard's extension kicks in 2021, the roster building is over for a long while.

Simply "letting" Bazemore and/or Whiteside walk after the coming season likely won't return enough with free agency compared to what a trade in February by the deadline MIGHT, and I hope will, return. Being hard capped by using the larger MLE is just fine if they're low enough below the cap threshold to still bring on those fortunate, opportunistic minimum vet contracts (e.g., Kanter).

The primary roster building move after Lillard's uber-super-max kicks in involves CJ's big bucks packaged with players exceeding their contract $$$ and picks. So, yes, I totally agree -- build now. Build well.

[d-train]

Looking at it again, Blazers could re-sign all their free agents, sign their rookie(s), and have the non-tax $9.9M MLE and the $3.9M BAE, if they do everything in the right order. Additionally, they can stay under the tax if they spend carefully. 2020 is going to be a big year determining the future of the Blazers. When Lillard's extension kicks in 2021, the roster building is over for a long while.

Simply "letting" Bazemore and/or Whiteside walk after the coming season likely won't return enough with free agency compared to what a trade in February by the deadline MIGHT, and I hope will, return. Being hard capped by using the larger MLE is just fine if they're low enough below the cap threshold to still bring on those fortunate, opportunistic minimum vet contracts (e.g., Kanter).

The primary roster building move after Lillard's uber-super-max kicks in involves CJ's big bucks packaged with players exceeding their contract $$$ and picks. So, yes, I totally agree -- build now. Build well.

I believe Whiteside and Bazemore are eligible for extensions. Blazers should consider trading them at the trade deadline if they don't agree to terms of an extension.

The hard cap is not going to be an issue 20-21. It's likely the Blazers will be voluntarily capping themselves at the tax level, which is about $6M less than the Apron. The hard cap is at the Apron. Teams that use an exception designated for non-tax teams agree to not exceed the apron.

[Wizenheimer]

BTW, I'm not sure what the repeater tax rules are, but Blazers are in excellent shape to get under the tax and reset the counter in 2020 before Lillard's extension kicks in.

the repeater tax kicks in if a team has paid tax in 3 of 4 previous seasons. Portland appears to be headed for their 2nd straight season of tax.

Which is why the idea they would trade either Whiteside or Bazemore for longer term salary seems very unlikely. That could easily put Portland over the tax line for a 3rd straight year meaning they'd be in the repeater tax in the first year of Dame's supermax if they were over the line

[d-train]

BTW, I'm not sure what the repeater tax rules are, but Blazers are in excellent shape to get under the tax and reset the counter in 2020 before Lillard's extension kicks in.

the repeater tax kicks in if a team has paid tax in 3 of 4 previous seasons. Portland appears to be headed for their 2nd straight season of tax.

Which is why the idea they would trade either Whiteside or Bazemore for longer term salary seems very unlikely. That could easily put Portland over the tax line for a 3rd straight year meaning they'd be in the repeater tax in the first year of Dame's supermax if they were over the line

Thanks for that clarification. I'm not sure what Jody is willing to do with regard to the repeater tax. But, it makes great sense regardless how much you are willing to spend, to take advantage of an opportunity to avoid punitive cash payments. Blazers can stay under the tax 20-21 without harming the ability of the team. After 20-21, I think it's going to be a while before we can get out of tax hell.

[Norm2953]

I do think Portland will take a long look at how Whiteside fits with this team but also feel will not
hesitate to move him if lets say SA is ready to move from LA and DD and begin their rebuild.

[DusterBuster]

the obligatory "2019 off-season isn't dome yet" out of the way....

last I saw the projected cap was going to be about 116M

Damian Lillard $31,626,953
CJ McCollum $29,354,152
Jusuf Nurkić $14,138,889
Zach Collins $5,406,255
Anfernee Simons $2,252,040
Gary Trent $1,663,861

Andrew Nicholson $2,844,429
Anderson Varejão $1,913,345

89.2M

now, you have to add 6 roster charges for being 6 players under the minimum. That will be about 5.5M raising the Blazers to about 94.7M. That would leave them only 21-22M in space

if they use their 2020 first to add a player, you delete a roster charge but add the rookie scale. Probably adding about 1.2M in salary dropping Blazer cap-space to the 20-21M range

and if Portland re-signs Hood to his early-Bird max of about 10M, their cap-space would be 10-11M with 8 players under contract. Hood's player option is 6M, so between his early-Bird max and PO there's a potential 4M in additional cap-space

That's 10M in cap-space with 6 players needed for a minimum roster, and this does not account for Whiteside, Bazemore, Hezonja, Tolliver, & Skal. Skal's QO would be 3.5M and Hezonja has a 1.98M player option.

Blazers will finally have some flexibility after 4 years of being strapped because of 2016. But it will be limited flexibility because they will have so few players under contract and only limited cap-space, if any at all.

Is that the right number for Nurk? Hoopshype has him at 12.8 in 2020, not 14.1. Did he hit some incentives that maybe they aren't taking into account?

Regardless, I believe we've reached a point in time where fans care more about these cold hard cap figures than actual GM's do. If there's one thing this summer proved, having cap space at the beginning of FA really doesn't matter. If you have a player to wants to play for you, teams always find ways to make room. We talk about these numbers as though they're set in stone when in reality, they're much more fluid than that. Maybe it costs some picks or renouncing a FA on the books, but if you need to make extra room, you can do it.

I also seriously question how seriously the NBA enforces the roster charges for teams under the minimum. When was the last time that ever figured into nullifying a potential roster move? Who knows, maybe they do. That may be a question without an answer, but there's no question the NBA absolutely LOVES the player empowerment era with guys moving around the league more than ever. It creates a nearly 12mo NBA news cycle which is great for the leagues bottom line. As we saw with tampering, there are certain rules that don't strictly enforce and the league is trying to address by either changing the rules or eliminating the rules. I just can't see the NBA telling a team "No you can't sign this star player because you have a couple too many empty roster spots".

Got off on a tangent there, point being, if in some bizarro world the AD in LA experiment goes horribly wrong and Dame is able to convince AD to play for the Blazers, I believe they'd find a way to make it work even if the black and white numbers at this time aren't there. There's always bad teams willing to advantage of a team needing to cut salary for a FA, it's like clockwork every year. If the Blazers were in a position to get AD, you can't tell me there wouldn't be 4-6 teams lined up and willing to absorb Collins and Trent's contracts to open up the space for his deal.

It just feels like more than ever before, there's a TON of "coloring outside the lines" being done with how teams approach their salary cap and I think we as fans tend to think it's a lot more rigid in terms of teams ability to make things work.

[Malapropism]

the obligatory "2019 off-season isn't dome yet" out of the way....

last I saw the projected cap was going to be about 116M

Damian Lillard $31,626,953
CJ McCollum $29,354,152
Jusuf Nurkić $14,138,889
Zach Collins $5,406,255
Anfernee Simons $2,252,040
Gary Trent $1,663,861

Andrew Nicholson $2,844,429
Anderson Varejão $1,913,345

89.2M

now, you have to add 6 roster charges for being 6 players under the minimum. That will be about 5.5M raising the Blazers to about 94.7M. That would leave them only 21-22M in space

if they use their 2020 first to add a player, you delete a roster charge but add the rookie scale. Probably adding about 1.2M in salary dropping Blazer cap-space to the 20-21M range

and if Portland re-signs Hood to his early-Bird max of about 10M, their cap-space would be 10-11M with 8 players under contract. Hood's player option is 6M, so between his early-Bird max and PO there's a potential 4M in additional cap-space

That's 10M in cap-space with 6 players needed for a minimum roster, and this does not account for Whiteside, Bazemore, Hezonja, Tolliver, & Skal. Skal's QO would be 3.5M and Hezonja has a 1.98M player option.

Blazers will finally have some flexibility after 4 years of being strapped because of 2016. But it will be limited flexibility because they will have so few players under contract and only limited cap-space, if any at all.

Is that the right number for Nurk? Hoopshype has him at 12.8 in 2020, not 14.1. Did he hit some incentives that maybe they aren't taking into account?

Regardless, I believe we've reached a point in time where fans care more about these cold hard cap figures than actual GM's do. If there's one thing this summer proved, having cap space at the beginning of FA really doesn't matter. If you have a player to wants to play for you, teams always find ways to make room. We talk about these numbers as though they're set in stone when in reality, they're much more fluid than that. Maybe it costs some picks or renouncing a FA on the books, but if you need to make extra room, you can do it.

I also seriously question how seriously the NBA enforces the roster charges for teams under the minimum. When was the last time that ever figured into nullifying a potential roster move? Who knows, maybe they do. That may be a question without an answer, but there's no question the NBA absolutely LOVES the player empowerment era with guys moving around the league more than ever. It creates a nearly 12mo NBA news cycle which is great for the leagues bottom line. As we saw with tampering, there are certain rules that don't strictly enforce and the league is trying to address by either changing the rules or eliminating the rules. I just can't see the NBA telling a team "No you can't sign this star player because you have a couple too many empty roster spots".

Got off on a tangent there, point being, if in some bizarro world the AD in LA experiment goes horribly wrong and Dame is able to convince AD to play for the Blazers, I believe they'd find a way to make it work even if the black and white numbers at this time aren't there. There's always bad teams willing to advantage of a team needing to cut salary for a FA, it's like clockwork every year. If the Blazers were in a position to get AD, you can't tell me there wouldn't be 4-6 teams lined up and willing to absorb Collins and Trent's contracts to open up the space for his deal.

It just feels like more than ever before, there's a TON of "coloring outside the lines" being done with how teams approach their salary cap and I think we as fans tend to think it's a lot more rigid in terms of teams ability to make things work.

You can make space by moving players, but it would have to be one from here:

Damian Lillard $31,626,953
CJ McCollum $29,354,152
Jusuf Nurkić $14,138,889
Zach Collins $5,406,255
Anfernee Simons $2,252,040
Gary Trent $1,663,861

I can't see Neil moving Lillard or McCollum. Nurkic is on such a good deal the Blazers would need a lot. Trent, Simons and Zach don't make enough to open up max space.

So if the Blazers wanted a max FA from the lackluster pool of free agents, they would probably lose more from the current roster than they would like.

[zzaj]

the obligatory "2019 off-season isn't dome yet" out of the way....

last I saw the projected cap was going to be about 116M

Damian Lillard $31,626,953
CJ McCollum $29,354,152
Jusuf Nurkić $14,138,889
Zach Collins $5,406,255
Anfernee Simons $2,252,040
Gary Trent $1,663,861

Andrew Nicholson $2,844,429
Anderson Varejão $1,913,345

89.2M

now, you have to add 6 roster charges for being 6 players under the minimum. That will be about 5.5M raising the Blazers to about 94.7M. That would leave them only 21-22M in space

if they use their 2020 first to add a player, you delete a roster charge but add the rookie scale. Probably adding about 1.2M in salary dropping Blazer cap-space to the 20-21M range

and if Portland re-signs Hood to his early-Bird max of about 10M, their cap-space would be 10-11M with 8 players under contract. Hood's player option is 6M, so between his early-Bird max and PO there's a potential 4M in additional cap-space

That's 10M in cap-space with 6 players needed for a minimum roster, and this does not account for Whiteside, Bazemore, Hezonja, Tolliver, & Skal. Skal's QO would be 3.5M and Hezonja has a 1.98M player option.

Blazers will finally have some flexibility after 4 years of being strapped because of 2016. But it will be limited flexibility because they will have so few players under contract and only limited cap-space, if any at all.

IMO, unless Collins or Simons makes a pretty massive jump, the Blazers almost HAVE to make a game changing move with Whiteside's expiring or CJ (I know, won't happen) at the trade deadline if they want to remain competitive during Lillard's prime. There won't be many realistic ways to upgrade the roster after that.

[d-train]

A trade involving Whiteside or Bazemore is unlikely. I think Blazers 2-year plan is to get under the tax in 20-21. To achieve this, we need developing players on rookie contracts to fill significant roles. And, we need to re-sign Whiteside and Bazemore to smaller contracts, which rules out a trade for players with longer-term contracts.

[DusterBuster]

the obligatory "2019 off-season isn't dome yet" out of the way....

last I saw the projected cap was going to be about 116M

Damian Lillard $31,626,953
CJ McCollum $29,354,152
Jusuf Nurkić $14,138,889
Zach Collins $5,406,255
Anfernee Simons $2,252,040
Gary Trent $1,663,861

Andrew Nicholson $2,844,429
Anderson Varejão $1,913,345

89.2M

now, you have to add 6 roster charges for being 6 players under the minimum. That will be about 5.5M raising the Blazers to about 94.7M. That would leave them only 21-22M in space

if they use their 2020 first to add a player, you delete a roster charge but add the rookie scale. Probably adding about 1.2M in salary dropping Blazer cap-space to the 20-21M range

and if Portland re-signs Hood to his early-Bird max of about 10M, their cap-space would be 10-11M with 8 players under contract. Hood's player option is 6M, so between his early-Bird max and PO there's a potential 4M in additional cap-space

That's 10M in cap-space with 6 players needed for a minimum roster, and this does not account for Whiteside, Bazemore, Hezonja, Tolliver, & Skal. Skal's QO would be 3.5M and Hezonja has a 1.98M player option.

Blazers will finally have some flexibility after 4 years of being strapped because of 2016. But it will be limited flexibility because they will have so few players under contract and only limited cap-space, if any at all.

Is that the right number for Nurk? Hoopshype has him at 12.8 in 2020, not 14.1. Did he hit some incentives that maybe they aren't taking into account?

Regardless, I believe we've reached a point in time where fans care more about these cold hard cap figures than actual GM's do. If there's one thing this summer proved, having cap space at the beginning of FA really doesn't matter. If you have a player to wants to play for you, teams always find ways to make room. We talk about these numbers as though they're set in stone when in reality, they're much more fluid than that. Maybe it costs some picks or renouncing a FA on the books, but if you need to make extra room, you can do it.

I also seriously question how seriously the NBA enforces the roster charges for teams under the minimum. When was the last time that ever figured into nullifying a potential roster move? Who knows, maybe they do. That may be a question without an answer, but there's no question the NBA absolutely LOVES the player empowerment era with guys moving around the league more than ever. It creates a nearly 12mo NBA news cycle which is great for the leagues bottom line. As we saw with tampering, there are certain rules that don't strictly enforce and the league is trying to address by either changing the rules or eliminating the rules. I just can't see the NBA telling a team "No you can't sign this star player because you have a couple too many empty roster spots".

Got off on a tangent there, point being, if in some bizarro world the AD in LA experiment goes horribly wrong and Dame is able to convince AD to play for the Blazers, I believe they'd find a way to make it work even if the black and white numbers at this time aren't there. There's always bad teams willing to advantage of a team needing to cut salary for a FA, it's like clockwork every year. If the Blazers were in a position to get AD, you can't tell me there wouldn't be 4-6 teams lined up and willing to absorb Collins and Trent's contracts to open up the space for his deal.

It just feels like more than ever before, there's a TON of "coloring outside the lines" being done with how teams approach their salary cap and I think we as fans tend to think it's a lot more rigid in terms of teams ability to make things work.

You can make space by moving players, but it would have to be one from here:

Damian Lillard $31,626,953
CJ McCollum $29,354,152
Jusuf Nurkić $14,138,889
Zach Collins $5,406,255
Anfernee Simons $2,252,040
Gary Trent $1,663,861

I can't see Neil moving Lillard or McCollum. Nurkic is on such a good deal the Blazers would need a lot. Trent, Simons and Zach don't make enough to open up max space.

So if the Blazers wanted a max FA from the lackluster pool of free agents, they would probably lose more from the current roster than they would like.

I still haven't heard if that number for Nurkic is correct or not. He only makes that 14.1 mil number if he hits an incentive bonus. I don't know what that bonus is or how likely he is to actually hit it. If he doesn't, that brings his number down to 12.8 mil, not 14.1.

And again, my larger point all together is that teams find ways to make things work to open up space. Maybe that means a max guy simply is willing to take less than the max? There's just so many variables of what can happen that I find it pretty pointless to worry and fret over the cold hard numbers the way so many fans here do... especially considering GM's certainly don't seem to fret that heavily about it.

[Malapropism]

I still haven't heard if that number for Nurkic is correct or not. He only makes that 14.1 mil number if he hits an incentive bonus. I don't know what that bonus is or how likely he is to actually hit it. If he doesn't, that brings his number down to 12.8 mil, not 14.1.

And again, my larger point all together is that teams find ways to make things work to open up space. Maybe that means a max guy simply is willing to take less than the max? There's just so many variables of what can happen that I find it pretty pointless to worry and fret over the cold hard numbers the way so many fans here do... especially considering GM's certainly don't seem to fret that heavily about it.

His incentives became likely after hitting them this year.

We can always debate what-ifs, but there's still a likelihood component and it's not very high for the Blazers.