There's about a week to go before we enter the crucial early-July Free Agency & Trading period.

The purpose of this article is to lay out where the Blazers are with respect to their player salaries, free agents, and salary cap exceptions heading into this period. This is not to advocate any particular action they should take. I won't even discuss trading. In fact, I will lay out 3 Basic Scenarios simply assuming they make no trades at all. Should they make a trade that returns more or less salary than they trade out you can adjust the scenario's accordingly.

There will be one scenario where the Blazers PAY NO TAX, and 2 scenarios where they PAY A TAX including one where they are hard-capped, and one where they are not hard-capped.

8 PLAYERS UNDER CONTRACT

The Blazers have 6 players with guaranteed contracts for next year, and 2 1st-round draft players that most certainly will sign in the next few days for the customary, maximum 120% of the Rookie Salary Scale (there's almost never an exception to the 120%).

Dame Lillard, $45.6M

Anfernee Simons, $24.1M

Jusuf Nurkic, $16.9M

Scoot Henderson, $9.8M

Shaedon Sharpe, $6.3M

Nassir Little, $6.3M

Keon约翰逊,2.8美元

Kris Murray, $2.8M

NON-GUARANTEED CONTRACTS

The Blazers have 2 players with non-guaranteed contracts, and 1 player with a team option.

Trendon Watford, $1.8M, non-guaranteed, June 30 decision deadline

Jabari Walker, $1.7M, non-guaranteed, July 20 decision deadline

Kevin Knox, $3M, team option, June 29 decision deadline

FREE AGENTS

The Blazers have 5 Free-Agents, 2 Restricted (RFA) and 3 Unrestricted (UFA)

Jeremy Grant, UFA, $31.4M Cap Hold, Full Bird Rights

Matisse Thybulle, RFA, $13.2M Cap Hold, $6.3M Qualifying Offer, Full Bird Rights

Cam Reddish, RFA, $17.9M Cap Hold, $7.7M Qualifying Offer, Full Bird Rights

Justise Winslow, UFA, $5.3M Cap Hold, Early Bird Rights

Drew Eubanks, UFA, $2.0M Cap Hold, Early Bird Rights

Bird Rights and Early Bird Rights would allow the Blazers to re-sign each of those players to salaries exceeding reasonable expectations. Grant could receive as much as a $40.8M starting salary and a 5 year contract. Thybulle and Reddish as much as $34M starting salaries. Winslow and Eubanks as Early Bird players could sign for as much as $11.3M first year, and up to 4 year contracts. In addition, if the Blazers make the QO offers (listed above) to Thybulle and Reddish, they can retain those players by matching any offer sheet they sign with another team. i.e. the Blazers have Bird Rights Exceptions adequate to re-sign any of those players.

额外的EXCEPTIONS

The Blazers have several additional Exceptions that can be used to add new players. They will have a Mid-Level Exception (MLE) - either the $5M taxpayer MLE (TPMLE), or the $12.4M non-taxpayer MLE (Full MLE). They can only use the Full MLE or any part of it that exceeds the $5M TPMLE if they stay under the 1st Apron ($172.1M). They could also use a $4.5M Bi-Annual Exception (BAE) if they stay below the 1st Apron.

The MLE's and the BAE can ONLY be used to sign free agents.

The Blazers also have 2 Traded Player Exceptions (TPE) from the Payton and Hart trades. One TPE is $8.3M, and the other TPE is $2.6M. They can only use a TPE in a trade, not to sign a free agent. And TPE's can not be aggregated (combined) with each other or any player salaries.

DEAD MONEY

The Blazers owe $4.4M in "Dead Money" to Nicholson, Bledsoe, and Louzada.

ROSTER CONSTRUCTION

Teams must have a minimum of 14 and a maximum of 15 players with regular contracts (not counting any 2-way contracts). In recent years the Blazers have chosen to start their season with 14 players.I'll make the initial assumption they will again start with 14 players.

There are 16 players listed above.It is a good bet the Blazers will use at least 1 of their exceptions(MLE, BAE, TPE) to add another veteran player to that total. Therefore,3 of the players listed would not be on the team next year.I believe most people would agree the most likely 3 players not returning would be Knox, Winslow, and Reddish. I will assume that below.

(Knox is in an interesting position because if the Blazers are certain he would be added into an early July trade a few days later for matching purposes, they can guarantee his salary on June 29. But if they guarantee his salary and then don't trade him, they risk getting stuck and later having to waive and pay his $3M salary.)

DUCK THE TAX?

Scenario 1: NO TAX -$164.6M Payroll

Assume as a starting point, the Blazers make no trades. Optimistically assume Grant re-signs for $30M, Thybulle for $5M (to get a 2 year contract instead of a 1 year $6.3M QO), and Eubanks a $2M minimum salary. (I actually believe Drew will be looking to get closer to the $4.5M BAE from someone.) Andassume they only use the $5M TPMLE.

That would give them a 14 man roster with the following players:

Dame, Scoot, Keon

Sharpe, Simons

$5M TP-MLE, Thybulle ($5M), Little

Grant ($30M), Watford, Murray, Walker

Nurk, Eubanks ($2M)

That roster would duck below the $165M tax threshold by about $400K.

But notice our 2nd round draft pick, Rupert is not on that roster. Normally he would receive a $1.1M minimum salary for a 2nd round pick. One solution would be to sign him to a 2-way contract, which doesn't count against the Team Salary or the Tax Threshold, butI don't believe they will do that.

So to free up the additional $700K needed to give him a regular contract and stay below the tax, Keon could be waived (saving about $1.9M this year because his $2.8M salary is stretched over 3 years), added into a trade as salary-matching filler, or possibly dumped via trade into another team's cap room.

PAY THE TAX?

Scenario 2: PAY THE TAX - Use Full MLE-$177.7Mincluding $7.6M tax

Make the same assumptions as above,BUT assume we use the FULL MLEthis time.No trades, and free agents sign as above.也使假设Keon被倾倒team with cap room (with a 2nd round pick going one way, or the other) and replaced in the roster by Rupert.

Dame, Scoot

Sharpe, Simons

$12.4M MLE, Thybulle ($5M), Little, Rupert

Grant ($30M), Watford, Murray, Walker

Nurk, Eubanks ($2M)

This looks a bit better. We are about $2.0M below the $172.1M 1st Apron, BUT hard-capped at that Apron because we used more MLE than the TPMLE,

But Jody now pays about $7.6M in taxes, and loses approximately another $15M in the year-end tax distribution to non-tax teams. Who knows if she will do that?

Scenario 3: PAY THE TAXUse TP-MLE & TPE -$180.7Mincluding $9.5M tax

Same as Scenario 2, but instead of using the Full MLE use the $5M TP-MLE and the $8.3M TPE. The possible upside here is that we would get a 2nd player with the TPE (but we'd most probably need to trade out a future 1st round draft pick(s)) instead of relying completely on getting a free agent(s) with the larger Full MLE. We might also include a non-aggregated minor player in the trade (such as Walker), else we end up with 15 players. Since we only used the TP-MLE we would NOT be hard-capped, so we could go over the 1st Apron if necessary and give more salary to re-sign Drew, Thybulle, Grant, etc.

Dame, Scoot

Sharpe, Simons

$8.3M TPE, $5M TP-MLE, Thybulle ($5M), Little, Rupert

Grant ($30M), Watford, Murray, Walker

Nurk, Eubanks ($2M)

CONCLUSION

These are 3 basic scenarios to either duck the tax, go over the tax and be hard-capped, or go over the tax and not be hard-capped.

No trades are assumed. But I think almost all of us would agree a trade is needed, and is coming. IF a player (you decide who) is traded for a player with a higher salary that will almost certainly drive us over the tax in Scenario 1, or drive us above the Apron in scenario 3 (remember we are not allowed to go over the Apron in Scenario 2 because we would be hard-capped).

On the other hand, if we traded a player for a player with a smaller salary, it would be easier to duck the tax in Scenario 1, or to stay under the Apron if we were hard-capped in Scenario 2.