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Portland Trail Blazers to Sign Enes Kanter to Offer Sheet

Blazers chase Oklahoma City free agent.

Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

Sources are reporting that the Portland Trail Blazers are preparing to make an offer to Oklahoma City Thunder restricted free agent Enes Kanter.

Since Kanter is a restricted free agent the Thunder would have the right to match whatever offer the Blazers make, retaining his services in the process.

The 6'11" center holds career averages of 10.2 ppg and 6.4 rpg on 51.1% shooting, 35.4% from the three-point arc. He's 23 years old and was the 3rd pick in the 2011 NBA Draft , selected by the Utah Jazz, for whom he played 3.5 seasons before being traded to the Thunder. Oklahoma City gave up point guard Reggie Jackson, center Kendrick Perkins and a 2017 first-round pick in the 3-way deal that secured Kanter.

Update:

Thunder GM Sam Presti says OKC will match:

Perspective from Around the League:

(LOL at Neil Olshey and Paul Allen being the NBA's version of griefers.)

Let's understand Portland's position in this offer, folks.

National Twitter is going crazy with the dollar amount:

First, Oklahoma City is almost certainly going to match. As Blazers fans know well, giving up assets for a guy who plays 25 games for you is not ideal. The Thunder didn't just give up a pick, but a significant trade chip in Reggie Jackson. The Blazers are trying to force them into luxury tax territory, to limit their maneuverability on the open market, to force them to give up talent in order to keep their prize guys.

You also have to understand that the Blazers are $21 million below the minimum salary cap level for this season. If they don't spend that money it gets redistributed to the players on their roster. They don't get to keep it. The choice is to spend that $21 million on free agents or spend it on nothing.

Plus the Blazers have no huge free agent signings yet and the remaining unrestricted free agents aren't good enough to make a difference.  You could have 3 mediocre guys or one guy you like. (Whether the Blazers should like Kanter is up for debate, but obviously they do.)

The real cost here would be cap space in the 2nd-4th years of the deal, when Portland would have another opportunity to snag free agents. But the cap is supposedly rising another $17+ million next season anyway. Portland would still have room with Kanter on board. More to the point, everybody else will too. If they can't make a run at unrestricted free agents now, how are they going to do it when 20 teams have cap space to match? It wouldn't matter if Portland had twice as much. You can only spend so much on a single free agent. What good to have room for 2 max-level signings when you can't even net 1 max-level free agent?

For all these reasons, this offer makes more sense to the Trail Blazers than it does to most teams.