It was 7 years ago, when the Portland Trail Blazers, flush with cap space, offered a max contact to Oklahoma City’s Enes Kanter, a contract many didn’t think he would attain.
“On a scale of "puzzling" to "totally confusing," the Portland Trail Blazers' handing Enes Kanter a max offer sheet ranks as wholly and inexplicably baffling,” said Dan Favale of Bleacher Report
A contract like that has much more meaning than simply the $ amount attached to it.
It does 3 things:
It potentially gives one team a young talent from a division rival
It puts the other franchise in a place of having to max out a player they don’t want to max, hindering future cap maneuvers
It builds goodwill with the player’s agent and player
Enes turned out not to be worth a max after all, the pundits were correct per se. But that doesn’t mean it was a bad offer, quite the opposite. OKC did match, not wanting to lose a young asset. They had to re-evaluate their own cap situation to create space and avoid massive luxury tax penalties. Eventually, OKC traded Enes and he signed a buyout deal with the team who offered goodwill years prior.
Anfernee Simons fits a similar profile. A young talent, with high upside, who should command a large contract.
And as for the Trail Blazers, they can’t afford to lose their minimal young talent.
It should be an easy decision for a team to max out Simons.
You could… poach the most promising young talent from a rival.
Or the more likely option, force Portland to match a max contact.
If you’re Portland, you’ve already traded near All-Star CJ McCollum, in part because you had Simons. Simons proved his value as the team began its tank. And he became the future face of the franchise if Damian Lillard were to decide to leave town in the near future.
If you’re a new GM, you can’t allow one of your first moves to be a rival snatching your top young talent.
General Manager Joe Cronin stated, “The goal is to win a championship. It's plain and simple for us. We're not content just making the playoffs and winning a round or two. Our goal is to take this to the peak and push it to the limit.”
They’ve already stated Championship is the goal. They’ve traded future assets to acquire immediate help towards that goal. And losing their best young asset and a key contributor to winning would signal to Damian and the city that ownership is not willing to spend money to win.
The timing couldn’t be better for Anfernee to go get his bag, and maybe a lot more than people are expecting.