Portland Trail Blazers don’t have worst financial situation in NBA
By Nate Mann
Journalists often reference the Portland Trail Blazers’ crazy summer 2016 spending when describing the current market. However, maybe the Blazers don’t have the worst salary cap situation in the league.
The Blazers made three of the worst signings during the 2016 offseason. Neil Olshey signed Allen Crabbe, Evan Turner and Meyers Leonard to a combined four-year, $186 million contract.
Fortunately, the Brooklyn Nets agreed to take Crabbe as a salary dump opportunity. Brooklyn returned Andrew Nicholson, who was immediately waived and had his contract stretched until 2024.
Without Crabbe’s $18.7 million per year, Portland still battled to stay under the luxury tax line. The team traded Noah Vonleh and cash to the Chicago Bulls for Milovan Rakovic to dodge starting the NBA’s repeater tax count.
Portland Trail Blazers
The Blazers have four free agents to re-sign this summer. Already at a team payroll of $112 million, there’s not a lot of room to work with.
Shabazz Napier played too well to continue backing up Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum in a staggered lineup. Also, he’ll ask for too much money after the successful season.
Pat Connaughton is the cheapest potential re-signee and loves Portland. There’s a good chance he’ll stay for under $5 million per year.
Ed Davis and Jusuf Nurkic have both expressed a desire to stay, but the team may not have the funds to keep both.
Including the potential contracts of two or more of these free agents, the Blazers will likely find themselves above the luxury tax line again…and the problem is far from leaving.
Anderson Varejao, Festus Ezeli and Nicholson are all on payroll for at least another two seasons. Turner and Leonard still have two years remaining on their ludicrous contracts. Plus, Al-Farouq Aminu will be a free agent next summer, so the Blazers need to spend money re-signing him.
But which team has a worse financial situation than Portland?
Miami Heat
The Miami Heat have made arguably more poor financial decisions than the Portland Trail Blazers.
For one, the team pays Chris Bosh the final year of his max contract from 2014 ($26,837,720). Bosh missed large chunks of the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 season due to blood clots and hasn’t played since then. (The organization didn’t know this would happen, so it’s certainly not a bad financial decision, rather an unfortunate one.)
Two, Tyler Johnson will earn $19 million next year, and potentially the following year as well (player option). He averaged 11.7 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.7 three-pointers in 28.5 minutes per game. His numbers are down from his previous season (except three-pointers), when Miami paid him $5.8 million annually.
Three, Kelly Olynyk has a contract resembling Meyers Leonard’s. The Heat give him a four-year, $50 million extension last summer and he averaged 11.5 points and 5.7 rebounds per game in 2017-2018.
Yes, this is much better than Leonard’s contributions to Portland. Still, $12.5 million each season for a bench player is pricey.
Finally, Miami only has ten available players on contract for next year, yet it’s spending $145 million. The team needs to re-sign Wayne Ellington for three-point shooting, along with Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem for nostalgia.
Without some sort of trade, the Heat will join the Blazers above the luxury tax line, which is set at $123 million for 2018-2019.
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Both teams need to engage in major trade talks to fix their respective salary cap issues. After back-to-back summers of big spending, very few teams are viable for salary dumps, though.
To stay positive, at least the Blazers aren’t stuck paying the final year of Carmelo Anthony’s contract (priced at $27,928,140).