Who decided to break up our starters; Neil or Aldridge?

You dont sign Rolo to 54m and an injured wes for 52m if your not sure if LAs coming back or not. If were rebuilding Olshey has set it up nicely for salary cap dumps for picks near the deadline.

 

At this point, I'm pretty sure he is gone. What I don't understand is why this general manager would reject a sign and trade scenario that would bring back assets. Something is better than nothing. If he's sold on Miami and are willing to give something up, get on the phone with them. I just don't get what goes in this thought process.

 

That's so weird because I'm trying to understand your thought process when you wrote this out.

 

What's not to understand? He's stated he's not going to do a sign and trade. It's pretty clear. It's completely foolish.

 

Where did he state that

 

Very good point

 

why would

per jabari article

 

Who says he isn't?

 

Basically, you set a policy of not negotiating with terrorists. The idea is this: if you don't accept sign and trades, then LMA must sign for less $$ unless he signs with us. Most FAs will take the $$. Once you have that policy in place and everyone knows that, then you reluctantly agree to a sign and trade at the end of negotiations and squeeze the team for all they're worth!

So yeah, if the Heat will give us their 2 young studs, Neil agrees and looks like a genius.

 

There was a Twitter report from one of the insiders that said a sign and trade option was off the table.

In any case, what wiz said makes some sense but all it did was force the team to make a salary dump deal with another team which allows them to sign him out right.

 

Ding-ding-ding. Winner!

 

Aldridge has wanted out for 2+ years.

 

Also Olshey is no dummy; he must have known this, and made plans accordingly. We either made the finals last season and stuck around, or we didn't and blew up, all players performing (hopefully) well enough to earn raises from the teams that picked them up.

 

Because no one knows whether he's leaving. Chill out, he's taking his time.

 

Yeah I don't take any stock in the idea we're against sign and trades. Especially now with Wes, Rolo, Monroe elsewhere. Neil has probably said a lot of the things he's said just to help the Blazers strategically. I'm glad he knows how to play that game.

If Aldridge was under contract right now with all our other youth I bet we'd consider trading him.

I'm surprised LMA doesn't get a new meeting with the Knicks. They could setup sign and trades where we get Prozingas, Calderon and Bargani on a one year contract. I'd love to do that to get the rookie. LMA would get to play next to a center and become a legend in NYC.

 

Yep. Not as comprised the last couple of years. That's what I'd been saying about falling in love with your own players ... this team would have been good but it probably wasn't going to win it all without either adding another key contributor somehow or a couple of other teams imploding. Because of the cap and things, it needed to be freshened up, IMO. It was at an evolutionary dead end. Had they been successful in keeping Aldridge and signing Monroe, I would have loved to see how it would have matched up with the Warriors ... I think pretty well.

 

If he knew, he should have traded him a long time ago instead of holding onto hope.

 

I tend to agree here but Allen had to be breathing down his neck about not trading LA.

 

Everybody has a boss.

No, I think this was a clever plan given his obvious constraints. Why be mediocre with three lost starters (holding onto Dame and that guy you traded for who might be on the books for another year or two), when you can be bad and young when you blow it up?

Neil set the charges on every strut of the bridge, just in case. No sentimentality there. When he blows it up, he blows it up.