The Choad blew it: Note: The deadline expired Thursday for the Blazers to use the $3.38 million disabled player exception the NBA awarded them earlier this month because of the season-ending injury to center Greg Oden. The Blazers could have used the money to sign a free agent or in a trade for another player. Inexcusable.
Damn. There were lots and lots of available players making $3.38 million or less that could have either really helped this team this season or significantly upgraded their future. Somehow, Cho misses out on ALL of them? Sounds like he lost all the meniscus in his head.
Really? Who? I'm not disagreeing, I just have no idea who's out there, that's worth a damn, that hasn't already been picked up. I reserve the right to be upset, but I want to know if it's worth the effort first. The last two guys we picked up (Oberto and Marks) aren't exactly world beaters, and neither "really helped this team this season or significantly upgraded their future". So, who'd we miss out on? BNM
I was joking, which I thought my last line would make clear, and the "lots and lots." Oh well. It amused me to write it, which is good enough for me. IMO, this is a non-issue.
I'm not certain Cho is an actual GM. I think he's a puppet for Miller & Allen. They're the ones we should be pointing the finger at if we're unhappy.
You've hit upon something that will be increasingly discussed. Which GM duties does Cho do alone and which does he share with Miller or Vulcans? At the end of the Pritchard era, I was saying that Pritchard was very good at marketing (smiling to Quick and feeding him rumors a little at a time), decent at scouting (his picks were looking worse at they got lower in the 1st round), incapable of trading (so he baked the cake and said, calm waters), mediocre at trades even with the Paul Allen advantage (taking on bad contracts + paying $3M in cash), and a total bust at negotiating (either with other GMs who found him arrogant as he demanded uncompromising Pritchslaps, or with players like failing to avoid Roy's max contract). It will take a year or maybe even two, but eventually we'll have a detailed analysis of Cho's talents.
Sure, because there has never been another guy like Matthews, and never will be again. What's that you say? Nobody like that can be out there because *I* can't name them for you? Right....because Cho and the professionals that work for him should be held to the same standard as fans on a message board.
You scoff at the odds of Greg Oden playing an extended period but pin your hopes to the Blazers having an undrafted free agent with a lot of talent available right when they have an injury exception? If you consider low probability things to be silly to factor in, you should be consistent. "Guys like Wes Matthews" (that is, players with better than average NBA talent that every other team missed) come along, but extremely rarely. No, that's not what I say. I'm sure there are things that exist that you and I are unaware of. I just see that teams almost never find impact players with these types of exceptions and, from that empirical observation, fail to find this development to be worth great disappointment. Also, I have no particular reason to believe Cho and his front office are extraordinary and therefore able to identify that one guy that every other team missed. I certainly hope he is, but chances are that he isn't. In fact, I'm not sure anyone is. I don't really recall any GM/coach making a pattern of finding significant NBA players that every other team missed. Generally, guys like Matthews are discovered as lucky strikes. In my opinion, anyway. I'd have been fine with Cho taking a random gamble on some NBADL guy. That guy could be better or worse than Marks...but the chances of that player significantly affecting the team's present or future is beyond slim, as far as I'm concerned. That Cho didn't bother is not a big deal to me. Your mileage may vary.
I think you're spot on with this post. I can also understand there not being a free agent out there who could make the slightest difference, but we might have used that money in a trade, There are supposedly a lot of cash strapped teams. That's where we might have found someone who could contribute.
Our sweet smelling GM hopefully realized that a player of with that salary isn't going to make a difference. We are average at best, and the sooner the front office gets that, the better
I will concede I used an extreme example in Matthews. I will also concede that simply finding an upgrade over Marks, or Mills/Johnson wouldn't "save the season." OTOH, Cho and company were handed a risk-free way to make at least a slight upgrade to the bench - whether through a direct signing or by using it as a trade chip - and they just couldn't be bothered. I find that telling - and troubling. You can always find an excuse to do nothing.
