Official 2016 Free Agency Thread

i'd take deng and noah, but i still like barnes more than deng if we're trying to build something. deng has a ton of mileage (thanks, thibs!), and there's no telling when he's going to hit that wall. it's why he got a short deal last time around, i think. in short, i think if you go the deng/noah route, you pay them both big numbers on short deals. 3/60 million, team option on third year. the market will dictate whether the 60 is too big a number, but i'm thinking that's what it would take to draw veterans to a team that's not going to be in title contention.

back to barnes: i don't think he really gets a chance to shine in gs. he's largely a catch and shoot guy, and yes, he appears to have lost confidence (after hitting some huge shots against okc, btw). in terms of aggressiveness, re-watch game three of this series, when he was the only guy who really bothered to show on either end. i think in a bigger role, he can do more. we may not get to find out, though.

all that said, i'm starting to think that barnes is going to have to wait out FA anyway, so the lakers might not have to choose between him and others. they can chase others and if they strike out, make a big offer to barnes.

 

yeah, i quibble with the idea that he's just ariza. they ask him to be ariza, but he can do more. i've seen it, as have you. maybe if you consistently ask these things, he grows more as a player. you have to gamble a bit in FA, particularly when you're a beggar.

 

Mitch about to be like....

 

As bad as Barnes has been, I'd still take him for $20 million than Deng for $15 million (unless Deng was willing to come on a short term deal). Deng is just a role player at this stage in his career. A good role player and a veteran presence, but we know what we're getting. He's not going to get better with age. With Barnes, worst case he's a solid role player. Best case, he starts putting things together and uses that natural talent to step up to the next level now that he's not playing fourth fiddle on the Warriors.

 

The Portland Trail Blazers made two moves at today's NBA trade deadline. They received forward Anderson Varejao from the Cleveland Cavaliers along with an unspecified first-round pick in exchange for a future second-rounder. They also picked up point guard Brian Roberts from the Miami Heat along with a second-round pick. They are expected to waive Varejao and retain Roberts through the end of the season, when his contract expires. They waived guard Tim Frazier in the process.

The official press release from the Trail Blazers regarding the Varejao deal is brief, containing only a single quote:


"This was an opportunistic way to use our cap room to acquire a valuable asset," said [President of Basketball Operations Neil] Olshey.

Prior to these moves, the Blazers sat roughly $14 million below the NBA's minimum salary cap threshold, defined by the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the league and its players. Had the Blazers not made these deals, they'd be required to cut a check to their current players for that amount at the end of the season, to be distributed among the roster.

With these moves, the Blazers all but eliminate that obligation. After the trades are finalized, the cap obligations of Varejao ($9.6 million plus a trade kicker) and Roberts ($2.8 million) will bring the Blazers close to the cap threshold. The amount they owe to their current roster will be negligible.

But here's the real twist. Because they're picking up both players midway through the season, the Blazers only pay them for the amount of time served in a Portland uniform. The number on the cap books says $13-million-ish combined, but the Blazers will only end up paying around $4 million in real salary to Varejao and Roberts.

Varejao has partially-guaranteed years remaining on his contract. When they waive him, the Blazers will use the salary cap stretch provision to spread their payments on that remaining amount over 5 years, resulting in an obligation of $2 million per year...$10 million total. Added to the $4 million they owe this year, that makes $14 million.


Key Point: The Blazers would have paid $14 million at the end of the year had they made no moves today. The Blazers pay the same $14 million (spread out over a number of years) with the moves they made. The financials are essentially a wash, give or take a million.

The big difference, of course, is the first-round pick acquired from Cleveland in the process. For the Blazers, that's the equivalent of finding a quarter lying on the ground. It cost them almost nothing...just the willingness to accept a trade and shuffle reserve point guards. The pick not only gives them an extra player to draft, it allows them more flexibility in future trades. They have another trade asset now and they wiggle free of the Stepien Rule which prevents teams from leaving themselves without first-round picks in consecutive years. Portland owes its 2016 first-round pick to Denver but protection clauses tie up Portland's ability to trade first-rounders through 2019. This eases that burden.

The only thing as yet unclear about these deals is the status of the promised pick from Cleveland. According to RealGM's future draft obligation page, the Cavaliers owe their first-round pick this year to Phoenix. It's lottery protected, and the terms of that protection run through 2019. Technically that means the Cavaliers should not be able to promise Portland a first-round pick until 2021, unless Phoenix and Cleveland have agreed to waive the protection clause. The Columbian's Erik Gundersen offers this:


It doesn't solve the issue. The official press release describes only a "future first round pick". We'll bring you more details as they evolve.

http://www.blazersedge.com/2016/2/18/11055012/nba-trades-deadline-anderson-varejao-brian-roberts

Or do what good GM's do and use it creatively like Olshey.