? How is that a good point? We have Harkless and Aminu. Even Crabbe has "length" though his defense may be overrated.
I think he'd be better off saving that cap space, and hope that we get someone in a salary dump. Portland is a great market, nothing like a "wasteland". Nike and Adidas are headquartered here, the fans are great, the owner spoils the players, no prima donnas on the team, Terry is often described as a "player's coach". So why did Chandler chose Memphis? Who knows, he can go fuck himself and break his knee again.
Today I learned that Tennessee has no income tax. Memphis's offer was thus 4.95% (half of the 9.9% difference) higher than our offer, which amounts to 4.65 million dollars over the length of the contract.
Oh I agree. I love Portland. Born and raised its my hometown. But unfortunately NBA players don't look at it the way you just described. It's just a rainy trash city to them. I can't blame Olshey. The guy excels in the hardest part of his job which is evaluating talent. Look at his track record. The "easy" part should be to show free agents his resume. So I can't knock him on that. We're lucky to have him as a GM and I have no doubt he will have great success at his next stop
So thats why we have to overpay. I imagine it's even worse for Toronto. In the interest of fairness and parity, I would like it if the NBA would find a way to even the playing field in this regard. At the very least maybe give each team a different pro rated salary cap based on local taxes or some other mechanism to account for the difference.
Turner shares the ball. Turner can dribble and handle the ball like Dame and CJ, maybe better. I think its obvious that Olshey and Stotts determined that ball movement played a part in our not being more successful last year. Plug in Turner in place of Henderson. More team facilitator and ball movement. He can't shoot. We know. But he can drive the ball. There is always space in the middle (where CJ works) and this is where ET will take the ball. He is also as good or better at postups than Wesley Matthews is/was. We've missed LMA in this way last year. We need to slow it down and postup sometimes. Let's keep waiting to see what the roster looks like at the end of July. Then, either cry in a corner or dance in the street. I think there's more to come.
Turner definitely handles and passes the ball better than Henderson, Aminu, Harkless, and Crabbe. His mid range game is very good, better than Henderson. No question Turner is an upgrade, even if he isn't the top 5 (or 10) free agent we all wanted.
I don't want Gasol. As somebody said on that thread, it makes no sense unless you think that makes us a title contender right away. want somebody younger; makes us more flexible as far as moves in the future. I wonder if there is still any chance of getting Okafor or Noel? Sign and trade one of our RFA's.
Couple of options still in play, I guess. 1. Though I don't love it, the Turner signing DOES open up selling high on CJ for a legit big. To PHI for Noel + (picks?!), or with someone else for Boogie? We'd then need a backup PG with the room exception (Sergio? ), which is difficult if Bayless and Ish Smith are getting paid 2x/3x that. Frazier might be available for that. 2. Gasol on a contract b/w Mozgov and Dwight allows us to keep basically everyone except for the PF RFAs, and allows us to then stand pat pretty damn competitively unless blown away by an offer. A big rotation of Gasol/Plumlee/Davis/Aminu/Vonleh (?)/Alexander (??) can work. 3. Biyombo/Mahinmi on a similar contract does less for me, but kind of like Option 2, except that you get two relative black holes on offense. Recreating the Przybilla-era Blazers offense, except that I don't trust Mahinmi in a P&R. (Biyombo seemed to do well in it against MIA)
Just a thought: w/ Turner joining us (when it was CLEAR that we needed/need a center), yes it pretty certain Neil's not done (IF Turner was all he did... Neil would b done in Portland). Orlando's made some questionable moves i.e. bringing in Ibaka & having Gordon & Jeff Green play pf? Gordon & Green play better @ pf, however they u can put them both out there & have them both as pf/sf for whatever's needed @ the time; where does that leave Ibaka? Ibaka's a pf/c, so w/ Gordon & Green @ pf/sf... Ibaka's the 5; well... that brings us to where is Nikola Vucevic going to fit? W/ all this ^, Vucevic doesn't. So... could Neil have a way to get Nikola Vucevic? Remember, we "helped" Orlando by "taking" Moe, don't they owe us?
Orlando will start with Gordon and Ibaka at F's and Vucevic at C. Green will be the main sub at F. Can play a little of both. They didn't free up anyone for us to take IMO.
Damn! I personally don't consider Green a starter (he's got talent but so inconsistent) in this league; I wasn't sure/don't know what Orlando was thinking w/ him
