The Trail Blazers were hardly alone in spending extravagantly during the 2016 offseason, but their investments – C.J. McCollum, Evan Turner, Maurice Harkless, Meyers Leonard, and Allen Crabbe – have proven particularly onerous. Those aren’t all bad deals, and Crabbe has since been traded, but the Blazers’ big contracts have hamstrung the team’s ability to keep upgrading the roster. That issue figures to continue plaguing Portland this offseason, as the club has little cap flexibility.
Here’s where things currently stand for the Trail Blazers financially, as we continue our Offseason Salary Cap Digest series for 2018:
Guaranteed Salary
- Damian Lillard ($27,977,689)
- C.J. McCollum ($25,759,766)
- Evan Turner ($17,868,853)
- Maurice Harkless ($10,837,079)
- Meyers Leonard ($10,595,506)
- Al-Farouq Aminu ($6,957,105)
- Zach Collins ($3,628,920)
- Andrew Nicholson ($2,844,430) — Waived via stretch provision
- Anderson Varejao ($1,913,345) — Waived via stretch provision
- Caleb Swanigan ($1,740,000)
- Festus Ezeli ($333,333) — Waived via stretch provision
- Total: $110,456,026
Player Options
- None
Team Options
- None
Non-Guaranteed Salary
- Wade Baldwin ($1,544,951)1
- Jake Layman ($1,544,951)2
- Georgios Papagiannis ($1,544,951)3
- Total: $4,634,853
Restricted Free Agents
- Jusuf Nurkic ($4,749,591 qualifying offer / $8,841,915 cap hold): Bird rights
- Shabazz Napier ($3,452,308 qualifying offer / $7,084,080 cap hold): Bird rights
- Pat Connaughton ($1,839,228 qualifying offer / $1,839,228 cap hold): Bird rights
- Total: $17,765,223
Unrestricted Free Agents / Other Cap Holds
- Ed Davis ($12,069,809): Bird rights
- No. 24 overall pick ($1,819,780)
- Total: $13,889,589
Projected Salary Cap: $101,000,000
Projected Cap Room: None
- With over $110MM in guaranteed contracts already on their books for 2018/19, the Blazers have no viable path to cap room, barring multiple trades and/or cuts. In fact, with only eight players accounting for that $110MM+, Portland could easily approach or surpass the tax line once the team’s roster fills out — especially if Nurkic is re-signed.
Footnotes:
- Baldwin’s salary becomes fully guaranteed after July 19.
- Layman’s salary becomes fully guaranteed after June 30.
- Papagiannis’ salary becomes fully guaranteed after July 19.
Note: Rookie scale cap holds are estimates based on salary cap projections and could increase or decrease depending on where the cap lands.
Salary information from Basketball Insiders was used in the creation of this post. Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
If they can’t trade any of these guys without taking back salary… do they stretch Turner – 7.28M over 5 years? Harkless – 4.26 over 5 years? Or Leonard 4.374 over 5 years?
They all have 2 years left, stretch is 2Y*2+1Y right?
Yeah, until August 31.
This is why trading CJ is your best opportunity at a shakeup. I would love to see Love in Portland, teamed up with Dame.
How does that solve their salary cap issue?
It doesn’t solve their salary cap issue, but makes them a better team, K-Love is better than CJ, & balances the team better, definitely would improve their team/chances.
Then why would Cleveland do it? They have no one in the frontcourt if they make that trade.
Pretty sure Cavs would do it, for consistent #2 scoring.
Generally there are no effective ways for any team to reduce salary in the current or upcoming year. A team has to acquire expirings to do that then they have room next year.
On Cleveland, the expirings are George Hill and JRSmith. So.
CJ for JR and Jordan Clarkson?
$83mil due vs $42mil due. (JR is not guaranteed for 19/20.) Then Portland can sign a Nurkic replacement for 19/20.
They reduced salary by trading Crabbe to the Nets last year for nothing. They stretched Nicholson. They could do similar if they trade to a team with cap space. It sounded like they were desperate to dump salary last year and during the year. The idea being to free up space for 2019-20 free agents, list is similarly good to this years’.
Okay, to a team under the cap.