A line up of: Lillard Wes Aminu LMA Plumlee w/ CJ, Henderson, Davis, Meyers, Moe, Crabbe, Kaman We would have matched up well with Golden State. Even if we didn't keep Wes that would have been a good team.
I think we would be a solid playoff team but still would be first round fodder as we would feed LA over and over. More of them same with a few different pieces.
Interesting in the way beige is an interesting color. I think it'd be far more interesting with Nic, than with LMA. The passing of Nic/Plums, in combination with Dame, would be far more interesting than the ball-stopping, mediocre mid-range shooting we'd have with LMA back on the team. I think Nic/Plumlee would have taken the Nic/Rolo connection to another level.
Batum needed to go, I think the heart and hustle that Aminu brings would have been an improvement over the superior talent that Batum sometimes decided to bless us with.
That's something I didn't consider, idk if it would work well that way though. He'd probably cry and become a bigger malcontent than he already was. Although the Manpon sponsorships he'd receive may have finally got him on his beloved billboard.
Would the Blazers have paid to max out Wes if Aldridge was interested in returning with him? I'm not so certain. The Blazers were going very hard after a Monroe/Aldridge duo after agreeing to a deal with Aminu. Wes was always one of LMA closest teammates. The Blazers failed at getting Monroe before Aldridge decided. Neil had been vocal about watching Elton Brand never fully recovering from an Achilles tear with the Clippers. For all we know it was Neil who broke up the Aldridge/Wes duo here in PDX and not LMA. If the Blazers said "we'd like to bring both of you back but only pay Wes $8 million" while other teams are offering Wes $13-15million that could have understandably rubbed LMA the wrong way.
If we kept both LMA and Wes we couldn't have signed Davis nor could we have traded for Moe. Thats why Davis and the Blazers agreed to a contract hours after LMA informed Neil he was leaving; LMA leaving opened up a huge cap hole. We would have Aminu though; Neil opened up enough cap space for that in the Batum trade so we agreed to him the first hours of free agency.
Just another treadmill team - probably win 50 games, get bounced in the first, wash, rinse, repeat for the next 3 years.
What I'm getting at and what some of you are refusing to look at is that Olshey did a great job of finding and targeting players that would have fit either scenario. LMA staying or leaving. We would have been a better team if LMA had stayed.
There's a myth that if you're a middling seed, you'll always be a middling seed. Warriors were 6th seed two seasons in a row and got bounced out in the first round in 2014. One year later, they won the championship without adding a player. They win the championship with the same lineup that got bounced in the first round.
And got a 6th man? And their core player(s) were all young and improving - not something that could be said about anyone on our roster except Dame and maybe 1.5 of our bench guys. Our main player was an inefficient volume scorer who had zero interest in helping out on defense, or really playing any semblance of team ball.
He did a fine job of it; but I wouldn't call it "great". Great would've been more than one NBA starter on the roster. Great would've been having the team locked up or traded before they all hit free agency and walk. Great would've been using all the cap space in free agency instead of now where we have it available at a time its almost worthless. I think Neil has done a good job as a GM overall but I wouldn't call it great and I certainly wouldn't call a two time 50 win team being turned into a lottery team a great job. If Neil had a better read of LaMarcus leaving the team July 1 would we have signed additional free agents? Did we lose out on those players because Neil was keeping both options open? Maybe that was the best strategy at the time but I wouldn't say it worked out great. The team would currently be better off if Neil was able to add more talent to the team that what we currently have.
Just because you have an Aldridge, you still need shooting forwards for spacing. This article explains the success of Drummond and the failure of Cousins. http://basketball.realgm.com/analysis/239844/Drummond-Cousins-And-Why-Coherent-Visions-Matter
