NBA’s new TV deal gives Trail Blazers financial options
By Bryce Olin
So what if the Trail Blazers lost a preseason game to the Jazz?
There are much bigger matters to discuss, especially that nine-year, $24 billion TV deal the NBA just agreed to last week.
I’m definitely not a trained expert on the salary cap, but I know my fair share and I’ve read the hottest takes from the media’s most respected journalists, and I also stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, so I think I know my stuff pretty well (I don’t).
But, one of the best to cover the NBA, Grantland’s Zach Lowe, talked about how the new TV deal would affect the salary cap in the future:
"The league right now projects a jump to $66.5 million for 2015-16, a modest rise pegged to the final year of that modest $930 million TV deal. If the new TV deal kicks in for the 2016-17 season just shy of $2 billion, the cap could exceed that same $14 million leap, all the way to around $80-plus million, in a single year. If for some reason the new TV deal starts north of $2 billion in the first year — meaning it would include smaller year-over-year jumps — the cap for 2016-17 could leap even higher. If it started at that exact $2.68 billion figure, it would break $90 million, according to my own math and some bleary-eyed late-Sunday projections from cap gurus around the league."
With the salary cap possibly jumping to $80 million per season by the 2016-17 season, the Trail Blazers now have to re-evaluate their plan for the future.
As has been well reported, the Trail Blazers have some major decisions to make this offseason about LaMarcus Aldridge, Robin Lopez, and Wesley Matthews. Based on the cap jump, I don’t think there is much of a chance, regardless of how this season goes, that the blazers let Aldridge, Matthews, or Lopez walk at the season’s end. In fact, I’d suggest it would be financially irresponsible to let them walk knowing how much the cap could jump in the next season. Of course, as unrestricted free agents, the players have equal say in the matter.
More from Blazers News
- Blazers News: Portland signs FIBA WC standout center
- Blazers News: Portland re-signing failed lottery pick
- Portland Trail Blazers NBA 2K24 team, player ratings
- Woj: Blazers, Lillard ‘fully prepared’ for star to be with team in training camp
- 3 Underrated Blazers who could make a massive impact this season
The Aldridge deal was supposedly done this summer, and the Trail Blazers will bring him back on a five-year, $108 million deal. Honestly, I can’t picture a scenario in which Aldridge deserves more than that, even with a cap at $80 million. He’s a great player, and he should make a quarter of the salary cap. That seems fair.
Lopez and Matthews, on the other hand, would not want to sign any deal longer than one season because they could cash-in for at least 25 percent more on a contract. Likely, Lopez and Matthews would sign a one-year deal and then take their chances in the biggest free agency market in the history of the NBA.
The Trail Blazers may be able to sway Lopez and Matthews into taking more than market value deal now to make sure they’ve got them at a discounted rate for the future. Because of Bird rights, the Trail Blazers can exceed the salary cap to do this.
The new salary cap will have huge implications for the Blazers in the future, but it would have been nearly impossible to keep the core of the Trail Blazers’ roster, Damian Lillard, Nicolas Batum, Matthews, Aldridge, and Lopez, all together after this season if the salary cap was going to remain at $63 million. With the increase, the Blazers will likely be able to even go over the cap and into the luxury tax next season to set themselves up with stability once the big money deals start flying around in 2016-17.
Depending on how this season goes, the Blazers may not have any interest keeping the core together, but at least a higher salary cap has given the Blazers the ability to choose for themselves without having to make mega-financial sacrifices. That’s definitely a positive for the Blazers moving forward.