is that we are slightly over the cap with Darius’ contract. If he was off…and without RLEC we were going to be far under the cap 18+mil depending on who we resigned. Now, we’re more like 9mil under the cap if we let RLEC expire (depending on who we resign). So depending on what we want, we might trade or might not. My numbers are hardly specific, if you need specifics there’s plenty of discussion in our archives, or you can look at storyteller’s site.

I do agree with the OP, I think Darius’ contract going back on the books increases the likelihood of a trade, though I think the idea of using the cap space next year to allow us to take on more than we give up (Dave explained it pretty well at one point) as being very elegant in KP’s style.

Here’s a breakdown I posted after Darius played number 10

In regards to your “fill his shoes” idea – there is no such thing like that in the CBA. Teams near or over the cap have various “exceptions” that allow them to sign players to fill out their rosters. None of these exceptions have anything to do with a previous player whose contract has run out. the most common exceptions are the mid level, biannual, and minimum salary exceptions, though there are others as well.

To answer your final question, the RLEC is potentially valuable to another team in several ways:
they could trade a player back to us whose deal goes on longer than this year, thereby shedding salary in future years. This may allow them to go under the cap this summer to sign a free agent, or it may allow them to go under the cap in a future year, now that they’ve ridded themselves of a longer contract. or it may not put them under the cap at all. that also could help them avoid paying luxury tax in future years. And in the case of RLEC, the contract is insured at 80% for the rest of the year, so essentially the new team is only paying 20 cents on the dollar for the rest of the year instead of the whole dollar they are paying now on whoever they might be trading back to us.

Usually when teams have a RLEC type situation, they are in a trade it or lose it type scenario – if they don’t deal the contract before the deadline, the contract expires, but they are still not under the cap in the summer, so they haven’t gained any advantage. The Blazers however are in a very rare and advantageous position of having several different options for RLEC. we can trade it now for a high-paid (and presumbably good) player, or we can let it expire ourselvss, at which point we can still be significantly under the cap and either look to sign a free agent this summer, or even more interestingly, can look to make a very unbalanced (salary wise) trade, where we take on a big contract (again, good player), for spare parts and/or draft picks. think marcus camby last summer.

hope this helps

I cannot see this team going very far without Joel, GO is not ready to play 40 minutes a night yet. I hope Joel is willing to backup GO.