One of this season’s biggest success stories has a chance to build an even more dangerous team around young backcourt Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum.
The Trail Blazers caught the NBA by surprise and now have a young rotation that largely will stay in tact while still having enough salary cap space to make an impact. The trick will be patching holes to ensure that last season’s success does not end up a fluke.
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Let’s take a look at their free agents, salary cap space and assets for this summer before breaking down what needs to be done.
Potential free agents: Allen Crabbe (restricted), Meyers Leonard (restricted), Maurice Harkless (restricted), Gerald Henderson (unrestricted), Cliff Alexander (non-guaranteed), Brian Roberts (unrestricted), Luis Montero (non-guaranteed) and Chris Kaman (unrestricted).
Likely cap space: $25.5 million
Realistic maximum cap space (using $92 million estimate): $39.4 million
2016 NBA Draft: None. (First round pick to Denver and second round pick to Chicago.)
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Having more than $25 million in space with so many rotation players under contract means the Blazers can try to spend on a single player without sacrificing team quality, but those star players will be hard to lock down in such an open market. Alternatively, 2015-16 NBA Executive of the Year runner-up Neil Olshey could follow his own lead by striking early on reasonable contracts with lower-tier players. Moving early may yield some of the few bargains in a truly desperate free agent market.
Portland’s free agency challenge begins with restricted free agents Meyers Leonard and Allen Crabbe. Neither was a full-time starter this season, but each played a meaningful role in this season’s success and should be better moving forward. Crabbe’s ability to hit 3s and defend could make him a sought-after talent, but Portland leading others to believe it will match all reasonable offers could chill his market a little. Leonard’s unusual ability to shoot 3s and free throws as a legit 7-footer will intrigue teams, and someone could sell themselves on him as being a center built for the new NBA.
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One of Portland’s more interesting decisions comes on Maurice Harkless. Considering they acquired the big, athletic forward for nothing from Orlando with one year left on his rookie contract, the Blazers likely expected to decline his qualifying offer and let him hit unrestricted free agency. However, his success this season could make about $4 million worth it to retain his matching rights, if they cannot land a new contract that appeases both sides.
While the Blazers are figuring out their near-term additions, they will also have the opportunity to resolve some of their more complicated 2017 situations as well. Both McCollum and Mason Plumlee are eligible for extensions that will kick in for the 2017-18 season but have low cap holds, so the team may be interested in waiting it out and using that space before re-signing them like the Spurs did with Kawhi Leonard and the Wizards intend to do with Bradley Beal this summer. That said, talking it over with the players is worthwhile because they may be interested in the security of life-changing money at a somewhat discounted price. The Raptors’ extension for Jonas Valanciunas looks good now after similar discussions last offseason.
A big picture angle to watch is how close ownership is willing to come to the luxury tax. With major raises coming for McCollum and Plumlee coupled with no one of substance coming off the books in 2017, Portland’s spending this summer directly affects their flexibility and potential luxury tax bill in 2017-18 and beyond in a way that parallels the Jazz.
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One of the most interesting wrinkles of Portland’s offseason already happened. When they negotiated Lillard’s extension last summer, the sides agreed that if he qualified for the Rose Rule by making an All-NBA team (his second in his first four seasons), he would only take 27.5 percent of the cap rather than the allowed 30 percent. Because Lillard made the the All-NBA second team, that reduction gives Portland approximately $2.2 million more in space than if he took his maximum allowable but is similarly about $2.2 million less flexibility than they would have had if he did not qualify in the first place.
After one of the league’s shortest rebuilds in recent memory, the Trail Blazers have the rare opportunity to add without sacrificing any of what made them so successful. The question now is how aggressive they will be to lock up the future, even at a heavy cost.