2:14pm: The deadline is today, but Oklahoma City still hasn’t notified Portland about its intentions, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.
JULY 12TH, 1:50pm: The Thunder intend to match the offer to Kanter, tweets David Aldridge of TNT.
JULY 9TH, 4:17pm: Oklahoma City has received Kanter’s signed offer sheet from the Blazers, and have until Sunday to make a decision regarding the player, Wojnarowski tweets.
3:02pm: The offer sheet is worth the max over four years, with a player option on year three, Aldridge reports (on Twitter). It’s expected to include a trade kicker, too, Wojnarowski adds (Twitter link). That means a starting salary of $16,407,500 this season and a total value of around $70MM.
2:22pm: The Trail Blazers are set to sign Thunder restricted free agent Enes Kanter to an offer sheet, as TNT’s David Aldridge reports and as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports confirms (Twitter links). The expectation around the league is that the Thunder will match, according to Royce Young of ESPN.com (on Twitter). Grantland’s Zach Lowe suggests that the Thunder will also intensify their efforts to trade Perry Jones and Steve Novak to clear salary (Twitter link). Lowe also mentions D.J. Augustin along with Jones and Novak, but it’s not clear if that’s just speculation.
USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt reported last week that the Blazers were eyeing the big man. Thunder GM Sam Presti told Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman this spring that he was committed to re-signing his team’s trade deadline acquisition, and while they met to discuss a deal approaching the max, and both sides were reportedly eager to complete a deal, it appears Oklahoma City has let the market dictate his terms. The Knicks were also reportedly in contact with the Max Ergul client.
Oklahoma City has roughly $79MM in salary commitments for this coming season, counting the team’s deal with Kyle Singler. That puts them well above the $70MM cap, and a new deal for Kanter would likely push the team far beyond the $84.74MM tax threshold. The Blazers have nearly $30MM in cap flexibility after the exodus of LaMarcus Aldridge and Wesley Matthews.
That’s a really generous offer sheet for a guy with character questions who can’t play D, don’t you think?
Based on his play once he got to okc. This is a bargain for them. I actually wanted the Lakers to offer him a max deal
new candidate for worst contract in NBA history… I wanna 3-4 signed this off season are in the top 5
I wanted the Blazers to stick with Meyers Leonard. He came out of nowhere with an amazing 3-point shot. It was a small sample but paired with Plumlee and Aminu he’d be able to hit consistent 3’s.
Why where the times backwards? It was odd reading something from the bottom to top
Are the Blazers trying to Roy Hibbert them too? Would actually be a decent fit for them in some ways. I wonder if the thunder would seriously consider not matching. This would put them significantly into the luxury tax. They also have Ibaka, Steven Adams, and Mitch McGarry. I don’t know if Kanter is really necessary.
Roy Hibbert all over again
It should be interesting to see if they do match. I think there are at least considerable reasons not to