Rip City Project
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Blazers fans frustrated again as Crabbe traded player exception expires

Matt George Moore|
PORTLAND, OR - FEBRUARY 9: Allen Crabbe #23 of the Portland Trail Blazers rebounds against the Boston Celtics on February 9, 2017 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images)
PORTLAND, OR - FEBRUARY 9: Allen Crabbe #23 of the Portland Trail Blazers rebounds against the Boston Celtics on February 9, 2017 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images)

It’s easy to feel like the basketball gods have it in for Portland Trail Blazers fans. But that’s silly. It’s just plain ol’ mismanagement.

I offer the following piece of opinionated Blazers news content for a couple of reasons.

First, we fans like to keep abreast of things which affect our favorite team.

Second, we’re gluttons for punishment.

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Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that we’re gluttons for information that confirms what we know in our bones: The basketball gods hate us here in Rip City.

The less superstitious among us might say it’s just lame management.

How else to explain some recent news that gave us some recent blues?

Traded Player Exception

Ya’ll remember Allen Crabbe, yeah? Of course you do. Although it seems like ancient history, homeboy has only been gone for a year.

One year to the day exactly.

Quick recap: On July 25, 2017, the Blazers traded Crabbe to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for …

… (CHECKS NOTES) …

… Andrew Nicholson.

It doesn’t really matter who that is, since the Blazers waived him five days later. It does sorta matter, however, that his salary is still on Portland’s books — albeit elongated until 2024 so as to minimize the salary cap hit.

Shipping Crabbe to the Nets provided Portland with a $12.9 million traded player exception (TPE) — $12,969,502, to be precise.

As our friends at HoopsRumors.com helpfully explain, “Using their TPE, the over-the-cap Blazers wouldn’t have to send out any salary if they were to acquire a player earning ($13 million).”

If

That was always a big if. It’s not unusual for teams to let their TPEs expire.

But what does seem unusual to beleaguered Blazers fans is the fact that the move was touted not just as a cost-saving measure but as something that might be used to improve the team down the line.

But as we’ve grown accustomed to here in Rip City, Olshey rarely does that thing — whatever that thing may be — that would make Blazers fans feel fine rather than frustrated.

A tweet from The Oregonian’s Tim Brown sums it all up nicely, I think.

There may come a time when the basketball gods shine a ray of winning light on the Portland Trail Blazers franchise. Maybe a day will come when the Blazers as currently constructed parade down Southwest Broadway in downtown Portland with the Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy held aloft above grinning, we-told-you-so faces.

But dreams like that seem further and further away whenever tools that might be used to improve the product on the court come and go without so much as a whisper.