This team has a lot of cap sitting idle. Portland is not a destination - trades/draft are the only options. Neil has assembled a frontcourt with similar players -- Hustle players who can't create their own shot. At best, their jumpers are streaky. Neil either knows what he's doing (plan is to suck most heinously) or he's incompetent.
One of the worst things you can do is have high turnover in executive positions. Neil has done a pretty good job given what he started with when he joined us. Give him a few years through this process to figure it out. Reggie McKenzie the raiders gm, got multiple years, with fans constantly calling for his head, and look at him now? The raiders are finally climbing out of that hole.
Pros Dame draft CJ draft Rolo trade Plumlee trade Cons Stotts hiring Stotts extension Hawes #1 option Batum/Vonleh trade Wright signing LMA - no matter what side you're on, Olshey was wrong Mehs Hibbert max contract Champ/Afflalo trade Leonard draft Kaman signing Davis signing Aminu signing All told, his history here hasn't been great. But I still want to give him 3 more years, as long as he hires a new coach within the next two years.
I forgive him for that Batum trade tho, he tried to trick NY into giving us Porzingis for Von and Hendo, he tried to get something valuable, but he couldn't because Batum played like a french girl last season. -I didn't like him treating Lopez like dogs**t and i didn't find a good enough reason for not re-signing him. -I didn't like it when he offered Leonard a new contract. -That Hibbert contract could have been awful... -I can imagine Neil is somewhat handcuffed by mister Paul Allen. He knows he can chase some bargains like Markeef Maurice or Cousins, but what will Paul say about those "thugs"?
He actually signed a big man who can create his own shot but OKC matched the offer for Kanter (don't ask me why).
You don't have to choose between him and Plumlee. If New York was willing to dump that much money on Lopez then he probably had some good trade value. Look at Mozgov in Denver last year. a pressured contender WILL shell those draft picks for a decent Center.
That was before the trade deadline. We weren't going to trade him last year in the midst of a playoff run.
Of course not, i'm saying we should have re-signed him in order to obtain another asset this year\this coming summer.
Sure seems like your writing this with the hindsight glasses on. I think the Batum trade is okay because, like it was pointed out. NO aimed higher and was denied. How could he be wrong on LMA when LMA was so wishy washy? A GM can only do so much when its own stars are not straight up honest. The Champ trade was good at the time and what we needed. Leonard was also the best player available at the time of the draft and something we really needed. Kaman was a huge signing and has paid off big time overall. remember, he was brought in to be insurance/backup to Rolo and he was more than an adequate backup. great signing at the time. Davis signing has been a steal overall. He is the workhorse of this team so far. Leads the league in offensive rebounds off the bench get a meh? Aminu was and is a good stopgap at SF/PF. I dont think he was the long term starter, but is for now. When he settles into the bench for the future, it will turn out to be a great signing. As it is, He has played well for us overall considering everyone said he had no shot. I usually agree with most of your posts, but this seems biased based on new knowledge that wasn't there at the time of said trade/signing. I love what NO has been doing overall, considering the cards he had to play with. Also, Stotts was the perfect coach for LMA, being an Ex Dallas guy. He just had his team overhauled. I see some flaws in Stotts' gameplan now, but if he doesnt try things in a CONSISTENT fashion, then the experiments will fail due to lack of consistency. Stotts is fine, the team is fine. Things take time....
So you would have signed him to a 13-14 million a year contract just so we could trade him? His value is in the toilet. We dodged a serious bullet. The Knicks gave Robin a 4 year, $54 million deal. That's 13.5 per year. That's a HUGE overpay. He's currently averaging 7.2 ppg, 5.4 rebounds, and a PER of 12.5. That's not going to get you many offers with that contract.
Neil is far from incompetent. He knows what he's doing. He plans ahead, right now its good to have these guys that will make great role players on a good team. He may have a good draft pick and tons of assets and cap space to work with this summer. I think the plan is to try to get a good draft pick and build from there. If he gets a top pick, he uses cap space to overpay a young player with potential with a max contract. I think he goes after an Adidas guy since Dame and JR Duperrier are in Portland and have a lot of influence with the brand and athletes. Think Harrison Barnes or DeMar DeRozan, not sure who else is out in that space, John Wall is as well but he's a cornerpiece of the Wizards.
Barnes would make a lot of sense. He would fit next to CJ or Crabbe. I still think we need to trade CJ.
If I had to guess at Olshey's plan, it would probably be to try to pick up one significant veteran player this season in an unbalanced trade, but not until the trade deadline so that it doesn't mess up getting a top-10 pick in the draft. I think he wants to retain enough cap space to chase one max player this summer and wants to build the roster up enough that the Blazers will be a desirable destination. I don't know if it will work out, but I think that's a reasonable plan. I think he gets props for bailing on Lopez and Matthews once LA walked. I'd have preferred him retaining Nic rather than trading for the package he got, but he may know that Nic wasn't going to re-sign here.
I haven't really looked at the numbers, but I'm assuming that he uses some of that money in an unbalanced trade this season.
