Nolan Smith

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).

Trail Blazers GM Neil Olshey has been on the job in Portland for four and a half months, having gone through his first draft and free agency period with the team this summer. While the Blazers may not be a contender this season, Olshey is enthusiastic about the direction the roster is taking, and spoke to Kerry Eggers of the Portland Tribune about the club's outlook. Here are a few of the highlights from Olshey:

On the trade market and whether the Blazers will get involved in deals:

"Everybody wants to feel things out for a little bit before making changes. We’re not going to make any moves that will take away long-term flexibility, unless it’s absolutely a player to add to our core. We’re not going to make incremental moves that don’t move the needle…. We took a lot of discipline to put ourselves in position where we could have a max (salary) cap slot next summer. We could be aggressive in free agency. We want to have that flexibility. We want to make big moves. We don’t want to make marginal moves."

On how next year's cap situation will influence the team's option decisions (on Luke Babbitt, Nolan Smith, and Elliot Williams) this month:

"We have to look at whether or not we even need that cap room [next summer]. We’re trying to judge which players are going to be in the free-agent market. That will impact our decision as much or more than whether or not we like the three guys who have options. We like all of them. The question is, is there an opportunity cost by taking ourselves out of free agency to a certain degree if we pick up the options?"

On whether owner Paul Allen will be patient throughout Olshey's rebuilding process:

"I’m going to accelerate this as quickly as possible without sacrificing the big picture. We want to win at a high level and for it to be sustainable. We don’t want quick fixes, where we’re back to the drawing board every offseason, trying to hold on to something that’s slipping through our fingers. Paul is buying into it right now. My promise to him is we’re going to move this as fast as humanly possible with sacrificing sustainabilty."