Posted 03/26/2012 9:11 PM

Your goal if you choose to accept it is to transform the Portland Trailblazers from a lottery team to NBA championship contenders. 

-Remember if you are making trades make them realistic. Miami will never trade us Lebron so if you include that in your response or similar trades you will lose all credibility. I know Portland has some smart fans so lets act that way. 
-Do not forget that unless Portland lands back in the lottery next year we will not have a 1st round draft pick (owed to Charlotte for Gerald Wallace).
-Be wary of the salary cap. For this thread it will be set at 58.04 million.
-Do not forget the cap holds http://www.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/draftpickcapholds.jsp
http://www.hoopsworld.com/portland-trail-blazers-team-salary  Note Portland Currently has 40.5 million in cap holds meaning we have 0 cap room unless we re-sign, lose or renounce our rights to players. 
- For this simulation Portland gets the #5, #10, #39, #40, #42 picks in the draft. 

Portland has a long ways to go from where they are right now in order to contend for a title. So we have lots of work. 

Since the salary cap issue is complex I will break things down for you. 
First Portland would have a cap hold for their 2 first round picks this year.
#5 $2,812,200 
#10 $1,865,300
That is $4,677,500 in tied up cap space. 

In addition Portland has a cap hold of $40,540,975 from J. Pryzbilla,H. Thabeet, R. Felton,J. Flynn, N. Batum, and JJ.Hickson. 
-Portland also has $27,128,290 tied up in L. Aldridge, W. Matthews, L. Babbit, N. Smith, E. Williams, C. Smith and K. Thomas. 
-S. Williams has a Player Option for $3,135,000 
-J. Crawford has a Player Option for $5,225,000 if both options are exercised Portland 2012-2013 salaries would be $35,488,290. Add in the Cap holds for the 1st round picks and Portland is at $40,165,790. Things get even worse if you add in the cap holds from our current free agents. That would mean Portland is looking at a team salary of $80,706,765. Or in other words zero cap room. So obviously we have some work to do in order to sign some free agents that our not our own.
-Note Portland also has to factor in $1,045,600 to their cap for V. Claver and $850,800 for J. Freedland unless Portland renounces their rights to them. They do not count against the cap during the season but do for Free Agency.

My Off-season
Step One- Renounce draft rights to V. Claver and J Freedland.
Step Two- J. Crawford and S. Williams opt out of their current deals saving us $8,360,000 and reducing our team salaries to $72,346,765. Note Williams is likely to Opt-in requiring Portland to buy him out, which will reduce our cap space
Step Three- Renounce our rights to H. Thabeet, J. Flynn and R. Felton  This would cut $26,156,880 from our cap figure leaving us at $46,189,885 and $11,854,115 in cap room. 
Step Four- Making a qualifying offer to N. Batum $3,166,231 *note this does not affect his cap hold.
Step Five- Renounce our rights to JJ Hickson this would raise our cap room to $18,917,726. 

Scenario One
Step One- Offer D. Williams a Max contract 4 yrs, 74 Million, which is a $17,779,458 cap figure for next season. If Williams signs with Portland we would only have $1,138,268 in cap room left. 
Step Two- Resign N. Batum 4 yrs, 38 Million teams will likely front load their offer sheets forcing Portland to eat up most of their mid-level exception to retain him. 
Step Three- Take the remainder of the mid level exception and sign Ian Mahinmi. 
Step Four-Resign J. Pryzbilla vet min. 
Step Four- Draft Andre Drummond #5
Step Five- Trade the #10 pick to Boston for pick #16 and future second round pick
Step Six- Draft John Henson #16
Step Seven- Trade Pick #39 and #40 to Memphis for pick #23 
Step Eight- Draft Doron Lamb #23
Step Nine- Draft Jesse Sanders #42

Your 2012-2013 Trailblazers
PG Deron Williams
PG Nolan Smith
PG Jesse Sanders
SG Nicolas Batum
SG Doron Lamb
SF Wesley Matthews
SF Elliot Williams
SF Luke Babbit
PF Lamarcus Aldridge
PF Craig Smith
PF John Henson
C Andre Drummond
C Ian Mahinmi
C Joel Przybilla

I do not know if this team would be title contenders but they certainly would be deep and should be quite good defensively. If the young players developed this team could become title contenders in a few years.