Because you didn't fucking trade Davis and brought in a new center who may not even be as good as Davis has been this year and who sucks balls defensively. On top of that you would play Davis at PF, which would be a fucking disaster. Then the one guy we need to force minutes to is Collins and because if these stupid rotations he wouldn't have a path to more playing time as he got better.
It takes time to fucking build a team properly. Sure, he made some bad mistakes along the way but despite that this team is still improving and has young bigs that will only get better. It's clear he was told to get under the tax this year. Yes, that fucking sucks as a fan but there are basketball advantages to it. If he fails to make a move this summer when the moves will be about on the court not off the court then I will be right there with you saying he needs to go the fuck away. You can't just completely discredit him because you think we are stuck.
The Leonard/Turner/Crabbe contracts probably are fire-able offenses in the aggregate. But he's got a lot of positives that are easy to overlook. The jury is still out on Nurkic and Collins, but both will at least be at least serviceable bigs long after Plumlee is out of the league. He gave up on Wil Barton too soon, but he was the guy who also sniffed him out at 40th pick. He also found Connaughton at 41, and got Napier and Harkless off the scrapheap for nothing. And he's the reason we have Dame, CJ, Ed Davis, Collins, Nurk and Aminu. Aldridge left us for nothing 3 years ago, along with Matthews having his ankle blow out. Lopez looking at a ridiculous salary rise that we didn't want to pay during a rebuild, so we had to let him go. So we had to watch a pretty major exodus of talent that couldn't yield us anything. Yet despite all that, we never missed the playoffs. Looking back at the futility of the early 2000's, I gotta say this rebuild isn't looking nearly so painful. A lot of that is because of Lillard, but I have to say Olshey has been pretty solid too.
right on Mook....2/1/2 years into a 5 year plan and I think we are tracking pretty well. Where have the Knicks, Lakers, Sixers been the last 5 years?
Exactly this. However, I would add that pretty much all of the GMs who had cap space in 2016 screwed signed bloated contracts, and are paying for it now. It was a "now or never" year for blazers cap space, and it was the worst time, maybe in the history of the league, to have said cap space. It's apparently fashionable to blame Neil right now, not that he deserves zero blame or anything. I blame the players. The players weren't "assets" because they didn't get better. Vonleh's job was to get better... he sucks. Bieb's job was to get better... he sucks. Crabbe's job was to get better... he sucks. Jake's job was to get better... he sucks. Harkless's job was to get better... he's mediocre. Aminu's job was to get better... he's mediocre. The De-Beastization of Nurk this season is well documented (if he played like the last half of last season, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now). I don't think Neil's the problem, I think Neil being proud of our so-called "Player Development" is annoying, because obviously it's very hit and miss.
Alternate perspective: Neil traded for Vonleh Neil drafted Meyers Neil drafted Crabbe Neil drafted Jake Neil traded for Harkless Neil both drafted (in LA) and signed Aminu Old management axiom--if you ever have to fire someone, either the wrong person was hired, or the right person was improperly developed. So unless you're blaming the coaching staff for not developing these guys into the players we needed them to be, then you have to put responsibility on the guy who acquired them.
Of the available targets: Only Donovan Mitchell sticks out. EVERYONE missed on Kuzma. He was NOT spectacular in college.
Mitchell, John Collins, Jarrett Allen, Anunoby, Kuzma, etc all have looked better. Collins has shown flashes, but not enough to say he was unquestionably the right pick.
Can we all agree at least we aren't the Kings? They are waiving Papagiannis less than two years after wasting a lottery pick on him. Now that is an utter failure!
Agreed that Collins needs to become better. But, Collins WILL become better, and indeed will be a 2-way player. Collins responsibility is to blend in with teammates on a playoff team. These other guys, not so much. Regardless, I really like some of those guys.
No GM in the history of GMs "wants to get under the luxury tax" as a career goal. Its something that he's told to do. We all know Neil makes some decisions, and some are made for him. All Neil wants to do is win not save money. He also has to do both.
We're 5 games above .500 du3 too our soft early season schedule and the luck we've had with other teams having top players injured. We've preformed at a .500 level.
Davis has played more PF in his career than C, so what the fuck are you talking about. Ideally, in the off-season you get rid of Aminu for assets, Davis if he gets too expensive, or Turner and play Aminu almost strictly at SF. That saves at least $6M plus.