[ official ] 2016 summer moves

You need to let go of the Conley dream. It's not happening. I've always been a Conley fan, going all the way back to the 2007 draft, but with the cap at $92 million and a ton of teams with cap space to burn, he's worth, and will get, WAY more than $10 - $12 million.

He was severely underpaid on his last contract. This will be the biggest contract of his career. He will follow the money and not take less than market value to be somebody's backup. He's a borderline all star who plays great defense. He will be in very high demand. There will be a bidding war for his services.

You're completely overselling the injury prone angle. This year, was the first time in 8 seasons he's missed more than a dozen games due to injury. He's never had a significant injury, or even one that's required surgery. With soreness in his left Achilles and free agency looming, after watching teammate Mario Chalmers rupture his Achilles and immediately get waived by MEM, Conley wisely shut himself down for the season rather than risk more serious injury and cost himself the biggest contract of his career. He is now completely healed, cleared to play and lobbying to play in the Olympics this summer.

In last October's ESPN consensus NBA player ranking's, Conley was rated as the 7th best PG (trailing Curry, CP3, Westbrook, John Wall, Dame, and Kyrie Irving) and 20th best player in the entire league. A sore Achilles than heals on it's own without requiring surgery does not bump a player down from top 20 status in the prime of his career to an underpaid career backup. Shit, Wes Matthews was nowhere near a top 20 player before he tore his Achilles and even with salary cap over $20 million less, he still got $17 million last summer. The idea that Conley, with the cap at $92 million, will only get $10 - $12 million and will settle for a backup role is insane. He will have multiple offers to choose from in the $20+ million range.

BNM

 

Aminu, Davis and Plumlee are on contracts teams will never see again....they are a lot of value for the dollar..it's the restricted free agents that will be expensive to re-sign like Crabbe or Leonard....there's really no reason to trade guys on friendly contracts when you'll have to replace their roster spots at a higher price tag. I say if they go for Horford, they let Leonard go elsewhere and probably Henderson as well. Kaman will come off the books but Aminu, Plumlee and Davis all 3 combined make less than you'll pay one role player to replace them

 

here's my ideal offseason:

Draft:

- Trade Plumlee and Connaughton to get into the middle of the first. Let's say to Boston for #16. Plumlee's game fits Brad Stevens' creativity. Connaughton is a local kid that in theory gives Boston some outside shooting. This move would require some foresight by Olshey in landing a big man in free agency.
- Draft Malachi Richardson or Damian Jones or whomever. I'm not that familiar with the prospects this year but I've heard it's a deep class, and I think the Blazers will find a way to get involved

Free Agency:

- Pretty safe bet that Portland will make either Whiteside or Horford their number one target. Someone like Howard would be secondary. If you follow Whiteside on snapchat (lol) you'll realize he REALLY likes living in Miami. Is that enough for him to stick around? I think so. I don't get the feeling he's at the stage of his career where winning is the number one priority. So with that being said, Portland lands Horford. He fits the system, the culture, and fills a big need. He checks all three of those boxes better than anyone else in my opinion.

- Sign DJ Augustin. He excels out of the pick and roll, can play on or off the ball, shot over 40% from downtown, and showed an ability to finish in the lane. He's massively underrated and will interest any team that's into analytics cough Portland cough.

- Sign Lance Thomas. Another underrated player, can shoot from outside and defend wings.


In-house Free Agency:

- Match on Crabbe, Harkless, and Leonard, even if one of them isn't part of the long term plan. They could always become trade chips later.

- Renounce Henderson, Roberts, and Kaman


2016 Blazers

PG- Lillard
SG- McCollum
SF- Harkless
PF- Aminu
C- Horford

Bench:

Crabbe, Davis, Augustin, Leonard, Thomas, Vonleh, Montero, Alexander, Richardson/Jones, Filler

------------------------------

Now I'm sure all of this this isn't realistic cap wise, but whatever it's my ideal scenario!

 

Horford is not signing here. I guarantee you that

 

I'll believe that when he signs elsewhere

 

All three of those mentioned are little combo guards. That's one thing I thought we were good on.

 

I think we could still use another combo guard to pair with CJ with the second unit, because ideally you'd like more than one ball handler on the court.

 

Gp2 please.

If he pans out he would be a perfect 3rd-4th guard for us.

 

I hope those guys are just for the summer league team and preseason, none of them seem like they're good enough to be more than the 15th man on a regular season roster. Of course, I want to bring in CJ's brother, so what do I know?

 

Does anyone know WHEN these FA can be signed? Do you have to wait until the new NBA season (July 1) or can they be signed now since they are not under contract & are not in the draft?

 

Russ Smith is an NCAA champion (or at least finalist?), a small shooting guard, pesky and a good scorer, kind of a very poor man's Allen Iverson

 

Likely not, but it's still very possible.

You see things so black and white.

 

Or maybe all Black and no white?

 

I think this is my possible plan A.

Portland Gets: Eric Bledsoe, 26th Pick
Suns Get: Noah Vonleh, Nerlens Noel, 2018 CLE 1st, 24th Pick
76ers Get: Al-Farouq Aminu, Pat Connaughton, Tyson Chandler, 4th Pick

Trade Mason Plumlee to Detroit for 18th Pick

Trade 26th Pick, Cash to Boston for 31st, 36th Picks

Draft Taurean Prince 18th
Draft Thon Maker 31st
Draft Caris Levert 36th

Sign Marvin Williams 3/36
Sign Dwight Howard 3/50
Sign Errick McCollum for minimum

Lillard (36) / Bledsoe (12) / E.McCollum
C.J. (32) / Bledsoe (16) / Montero / Levert
Moe (19) / Crabbe (26) / CJ (3) / Prince
Williams (28) / Davis (20) / Alexander
Howard (30) / Leonard (18) / Maker

Small: Lillard/Bledsoe/CJ/Williams/MyLe
3Pt: Lillard/CJ/Crabbe/Williams/MyLe

 

OK, here is my most ambitious attempt.
1. If we want Durant or Horford or Whiteside: I think we have to get two of them to come. One of them will not come alone; he won't see the team as being strong enough to have a chance for a championship.
I think we would need to clear a minimum of $50 million cap space to try to sign two. We'd have to renounce Roberts, Henderson, Kaman, Leonard and Harkless. (If there was any chance to match offers on Leonard and Harkless and trade for draft picks, of course do that).
We would have to trade Aminu and Davis for draft picks.
That would create a little over 53 million in cap space. I would hope that two of the three would agree to sign for that even if it wasn't quite max for them. We could create almost 56 million if we got rid of the three guys at the bottom of the roster, but could we sign anyone else as good for that low of prices, we would need a backup big in Alexander, hopefully Montero could be a backup PG and backup SF, and Connaughton backup SG and SF. They could fill in the places we would need the most. Or we could jettison those three and keep Aminu and hope the two new stars would settle for less. That scenario would only leave about $48.3 million to sign them, but it would sure be nice to have Aminu to backup Durant and the bigs. But could then jettison Vonleh to bring that total up to $51 million.

2. If that doesn't work I would go for Dwight Howard. After reading the one article that he actually started working out right at the end of the season annd then another one a couple days ago that seems to show he is still a really strong player defensively and rebounding and could be more productive offensively if given a chance. http://www.blazersedge.com/2016/6/8...d-portland-trail-blazers-2016-nba-free-agency
This would be a really big risk. Would try to get him to sign for about $20 million a year and try to add someone like Ryan Anderson also. (I read that they have worked well together previously). This would probably still require renouncing Leonard, but not Harkless and still require trading Ed Davis (although just getting rid of Vonleh might allow us to keep Leonard or Davis). I would bring in Clifford Ray just to try to keep Howard focused, he is mentioned in the ESPN interview. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/15596878/dwight-howard-qa-superman-returns

3. If neither of those was possible, I think my main target would be Ian Mahimni. This is a guy who is above average on both defense and offense; something none of our bigs are. If we think that we aren't sure if Leonard is gonna hold up physically and mentally, ditch him and go also for a Ryan Anderson or Marvin Williams, otherwise just stick with what we got.

 

I don't like the idea of having a Lillard/Bledsoe/CJ lineup at all so that doesn't really work in my opinion.

 

Really wish I knew what Neil and everybody are gonna do. I think whiteside will be the target. He's young. We need a legit big. He can still develop offensively and defensively he's a monster. That's what we need. I don't think Durants leaving okc, I also think horford doesn't leave. Resign harkless, crabbe, and maybe Meyers. Hendo goes. While everybody drools over durant, try and nab whiteside and if that doesn't happen I'm sure Neil has smaller guys in mind that could make an impact. Very excited to see what we do in the draft if anything and then we hit free agency which will be very exciting around the whole league. Very interesting dame made that comment recently about wanting to go after durant though.

Also, not trying to look too far into it but whiteside follows both cj and dame on Twitter, rarely any other NBA players. Wonder if any DM's have gone down about joining the team. One can hope. Guess we will see. Excited though. Just a couple more weeks, one before the draft and then free agency.

 

Why not?

 

I think Lin ought to be a target as well.

He's a capable/proven scorer. He's a solid option - 12 ppg in 28 mpg.

 

Lin is Meh, IMO. He fits our need for another backup guard and he's ok, but if we need a 3rd guard for when CJ or Dame sit, I'd want it to be a game changer