I didn’t really give a damn about sports, pretty much at all, until about 1989, when BlazerMania gripped Oregon as the Portland Trail Blazers made their first of three runs deep into the NBA playoffs and contended for the league championship. Even then, I was slow to embrace the movement, as I am pretty sure I was too busy trying to become a cheesy dance club DJ and meet girls. But eventually, thanks mostly to my parents’ rabid fandom, I got the bug. And even though those three years of Blazer dominance never resulted in a championship coming to Portland, I was hooked. And now, almost 22 years later, I remain as devoted to the team as ever. Beyond the Trail Blazers, however, I really enjoy the NBA in general, and follow most teams and league goings-on fairly closely. I am also a big NFL football fan, as are most sports fans, considering pro football is the biggest sport in America. I am guilty of being a fantasy geek, and look forward to getting together with my usual group of suspects for the draft and season every Fall. I am definitely pro-sports-centric, as I find college sports to be a little generic for my tastes, but I do pay attention to what’s going on in college sports and can get excited when one of the Oregon schools rises into national prominence. I have no real allegiance to the Oregon Ducks or the Oregon State Beavers, as I attended (to use the term loosely) both schools, but I am a big fan of either school being a national power. I actually enjoy mixed martial arts a lot more than I thought I would, and find that if you make the effort to learn a little more about the disciplines and the athletes themselves, it is not nearly the barbaric spectacle that many people still think it is. I also follow baseball a little, and have a reasonable aptitude when it comes to most other pro sports as well. Then there’s the Portland Timbers. I will fully admit that I have historically disliked soccer. A final score of 1-0 (or, God forbid, 0-0) after 90 minutes of play just feels unacceptably unsatisfying. After a little more thought, though, I sort of figured that I could embrace the Timbers the way I embraced Triple-A baseball when Portland had a team: Go, sit out in the beautiful summer weather, talk to friends, and drink copious amounts of microbrew, with the game as an afterthought. Little did I realize how rabidly Portland would embrace the Timbers, and how vocal the fan base would be. The idea of casually grabbing tickets whenever we felt like going was out the window, as games sold out quickly. The Timbers have become a big deal in town, and the fan base sort of feels like a “secret society” that you’re not cool if you don’t get. There is a definite Portland feel to the whole soccer thing, sort of an indie-rock-and-good-beer vibe that I am attracted to, and so I am determined to overcome my soccer misgivings and learn more. So that’s my sports mindset, and now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we can go forward talking about what’s going on.
********************************The biggest thing on my mind today relates to the Trail Blazers and Brandon Roy. Apparently, as the NBA owners and players have discussions about a new collective bargaining agreement, the idea of an Amnesty Clause is looking more and more like a reality. Typically, such a clause would allow every team in the league a chance to void one player’s contract, causing the money from that contract to not count against the team’s luxury-tax threshold so that team owners wouldn’t have to pay extra, assuming the player is picked up by another NBA team. This is generally just a financial relief for the owners, and would have minimal effect on the ability to sign free agents to the team or make trades that weren’t basically a dollar-for-dollar match. But (and this is a HUGE but), apparently the Amnesty Clause being discussed currently wouldn’t just affect the luxury tax liability, but also would remove the contract from the team’s salary cap directly – the money would come off the books, giving the team significant financial flexibility. This is a big deal for Portland, because if they decided to use the Amnesty Clause on Brandon Roy’s contract, they could clear almost $70 million off the books over the next four seasons. A couple seasons ago, the idea of the team “being able” to get Brandon Roy off the books would be ludicrous. Roy was a genuine NBA star, a player Kobe Bryant was quoted as saying was the hardest defensive cover for him in the league. Roy was averaging 22 points a game three years into his pro career, and his future was blazingly bright. Unfortunately, Roy’s knees had other plans, and they decided to start going bad on him sometime in 2008. Finally, last year, it was revealed that the meniscus in his knees had deteriorated, bones were impacting, and he would never be the player he was earlier in his career.
Which brings us to our current dilemma. If the “Super Amnesty Clause” does in fact come to fruition, should the Trail Blazers use it to clear Roy’s salary? It would almost certainly mean Roy would sign elsewhere for less money, and the man who is viewed as most responsible for the emergence from the “Jail Blazers” era would be gone. Anyone who witnessed Roy’s magical performance in Game 4 of this season’s NBA playoffs against the Dallas Mavericks knows that he can still contribute, possibly in a major way, to the team. But he’ll probably never be a “star” again, and may never even be a starter again. Is that worth $16 million a year for a team? While the “duh” answer would probably be “no”, I am going to say yes, the Blazers should keep B-Roy and not use the Amnesty Clause on his contract. Why? Because dumping Roy’s salary wouldn’t do anything of note for the team. NBA teams need to be below the salary cap in order to sign free agents or make trades that don’t basically match contracts dollar-for-dollar. Other than the draft, that is how teams build to dominance. But the Trail Blazers will most likely be over the salary cap for the next several seasons with or without Roy’s contract included, thanks to the contracts of LaMarcus Aldridge, Gerald Wallace, and Wesley Matthews. True, they could get under the cap in 2012 without Roy’s salary included, but that is assuming they don’t re-sign Greg Oden, Andre Miller, or Marcus Camby, and also let Patty Mills, Luke Babbitt, Elliot Williams, and Armon Johnson leave with no compensation. Someone is going to take cap space up in order for the Blazers to remain competitive, and the difference between being $2 million over the cap or $18 million over the cap isn’t seen on the court. Meanwhile, Brandon Roy could be a perennial candidate for the NBA Sixth Man of the Year award, take a few games off every season to keep those knees rested, and stay with the team he (figuratively) resurrected and brought back to respectability. I leave you with my final argument for my pro-Roy stance. Watch the video below, and with that, I rest my case. Talk to you tomorrow.
Why isn't medical retirement on the table? Same effect right, $70mil of salary transferred to an insurance company. Roy keeps his money and can go start a basketball camp or car dealership.
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