OCTOBER 30TH: Olshey confirmed today that the Blazers have obtained a disabled player exception for Williams, tweets Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com. The GM says it's a financial tool, rather than a roster tool, which presumably means it'll only be kept on the books for cap purposes, rather than actually used to acquire a player.
OCTOBER 1ST: With Elliot Williams expected to miss the entire 2012/13 season after undergoing surgery on his ruptured achilles tendon, the Trail Blazers will not waive him, GM Neil Olshey told the media today. However, as Joe Freeman of the Oregonian tweets, the team will apply for a disabled player exception worth half Williams' salary.
Freeman adds within the same tweet that Olshey says the Trail Blazers still have about $2MM in cap space, but the GM is likely referring to the room exception, rather than actual cap space. Despite only spending about $56MM on team salary, Portland has a traded player exception worth about $2.25MM from this summer's Raymond Felton trade that the club would have to renounce to claim that cap room. Also, disabled player exceptions are only available to over-the-cap teams, so the Blazers wouldn't receive a DPE if they still had cap space.
Even if the league approves the disabled player exception for Williams, it likely won't be of much use for the Blazers. By rule, the team would receive an exception worth 50% of Williams' $1.443MM salary, which would be about $721K, less than the veteran's minimum.
Olshey also told the media today that the Blazers will make option decisions on Williams, Nolan Smith, and Luke Babbitt later this month (Twitter link via Freeman).