Over time, the 2016 NBA offseason has become synonymous with regret and bad decisions, the Portland Trail Blazers are no exception to this rule. A handful of bad contracts dolled out to mediocre players left the team in purgatory.
Instead of agreeing to a cap smoothing, the NBA player’s union forced the league to spike the salary cap in 2016. This resulted in many teams having an unprecedented amount of money to spend, and was the only reason the Warriors were in a financial position to acquire a player like Kevin Durant and establish a dynasty.