Clarifying Something: Signing Outlaw vs the MLE

Just to clarify something for all of you out there...I’ve seen some confusion on a few of the Blazers messageboards regarding whether it will require Portland using the mid-level-exception to re-sign Travis Outlaw.

The answer is simple: no. The Blazers drafted Travis, and he has played for them for four years, so they own his “bird rights” which means they can match any offer that he receives and it does not affect their mid-level exception. It would affect their total salary and hence would have luxury tax implications, but they can match any contract and they would still have their full MLE to use even though they would be over the cap.

The team who offered Travis the contract would either have to 1. have cap room, or 2. use some or all of their own MLE to present him with a contract offer.

Ime Udoka, on the other hand, does affect the MLE. So if they re-sign him, whatever his annual contract amount is would get deducted from the MLE available.

Hope that clarifies things.