Portland Trail Blazers: What should Rip City do with its trade exception?

The Portland Trail Blazers generated a $12.9 million trade exception by dealing Allen Crabbe to the Brooklyn Nets, but how can Neil Olshey use it most effectively? Here’s a list of four options for Rip City to consider.

The Portland Trail Blazers have been expectedly quiet all summer long. With too little cap space to make any sort of meaningful change in the newly-stacked Western Conference, Rip City was somewhat forced to deal away the enormous contract of Allen Crabbe, whom many fans had hoped would continue to improve alongside the core of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum.

On the bright side, the Blazers took very little back in the trade, didn’t give up any future draft picks, freed up a huge chunk of cap space, alleviated the majority of their luxury tax hit, and generated a $12.9 million trade exception.

While some may see the Crabbe deal as being a simple salary dump, Neil Olshey made no mistake in creating this $12.9 million trade exception, which is just one piece of prime evidence that points to the Crabbe deal as being the first domino to fall.

Therefore, let’s explore four scenarios currently available to the Blazers with this new trade exception at their disposal.