He's always said the way we improve the team is through player development....he's right...CJ was on the bench for 2 years...so was Crabbe...now they're both making bank...the front office has a long term mindset and the fan base wants instant gratification...those two things aren't going to settle into a comfort zone anytime soon...we're 7 wins ahead of last season's record at this time..that's improvement...we're on pace to make the playoffs again without a roster of superstars...and we're young...healthy...they'll say trust the process....if you don't..you're probably going to be pretty unhappy
We're no better than the last 2 years though. Our 7-win improvement is due to a very easy schedule as well as luck with having opponents' best players be out due to injury. Crabbe isn't a good rotation piece. We developed him into a mediocre spot up shooting who can't do anything else. Zach is our only C.J. Nurk counts two but other than those guys' development, we have nothing. And banking on those two guys to develop is risky. They aren't sure-fire prospects. "We're young". There's a difference between being young in general and having young players with high potential. Harkless is 24, but he is what he is. He's not going to improve. We have many 26-28 year old players (Harkless, Turner, Davis, Aminu) that aren't going to improve anymore, even though they may be considered young. CJ isn't improving, Dame is but don't expect much more from him, he's 27 years old. Nurk and Collins are our only young players that have a chance at being anything special. You have guys like Swanigan and Layman helping keep our average age low instead of them being vets, but they aren't going to develop into anything.. Trust the process works when you're getting top 3 picks and rebuilding around generational talents like Embiid and Ben Simmons. Fultz will be one if he gets his shoulder right and his shot returns to previous form. Our process is nothing like their process.
Neil reminds me of the guy that sold me my first car, it was at a used car lot on hwy 99 (you Seattle guys will know)
I told everyone this back when he was first hired he is just a former actor who can talk but makes stupid basketball decisions. Years later he is still here only god and Paul Allen know why and nothing has changed.
Hernangomez. 4.3 PPG/2.6 RPG! He'd certainly put us over the top. We'd be paying the LT (even after dumping Noah's salary), which is strategically a bad basketball decision. Gomez for Ed Davis? That's not making us better at all. I'd rather have Davis.
The only second round appearance that I count is the Houston series, getting past the Clippers was 90% lucky break because of the other team's injuries. The trajectory this team is on, is very similar to those 80s teams that always managed to just squeak into the playoffs and quickly bow out, but the team could always fall back on, "hey we made it!" and then wash, rinse, repeat year after year. This team looks close to maxed out in terms of potential. Maybe Collins will develop into a quality rotation player, but I don't see a star in the making there, Nurkic has mostly regressed to the same inconsistent guy he was for the Nuggets and I'm sure he can get marginally better over time, but I don't see a star in the making there either, and with the boat-anchor contracts they have in guys like Turner, and Meyers, they are going to have a very difficult time getting better in the next two years, which they absolutely need to do to convince Damian that they aren't just stuck on a treadmill. This franchise looks like it's painted itself into a corner, and if they are serious about building around Damian and/or CJ before Damian has the power to decide where he'd like to go, it's going to take an incredible stroke of luck in the draft or some miracle trade to get them out of this holding pattern. So while I don't have a crystal ball, it doesn't take a psychic to see where this thing is probably headed (and it isn't to the Conference Finals or beyond).
I really like Neil, but he didn't say what I would have liked him to say. Something like: We were willing to trade our 2018 1st rounder for several players we had targeted that were in the rumor mill, but found out that the rumor mill was wrong, they just weren't available. Without saying that, we don't know if he values the 1st more than he values improving the team.
Yes. Which well-run organization do you know of that routinely has to take on long-term debt and give away assets for free?
I hate the term “assets”. Turner is an asset as is Leonard yet if we could give them away for free I’ sure you, as well as the rest of us, would celebrate the move yet the logic you just used says that would be stupid. Really? All assets have costs associated with them, the problem is not the asset but rather the net value of the asset and the ROI it provides. All players present some risk, the Blazers just seem to have a poor asset valuation estimation calculation formula which leads them to acquire assets which too often have a negative net value.
It's not quite salary neutral, but we're more under the LT than I thought so it would fit. Hernangomez would add a net $150K to our payroll. Assuming the figures we know are accurate.
You can only make the playoffs as the 6-8 seed and get blown out in a 5 game series so many times before it doesn’t feel messy.
I think there's a decent sized list of players who were "given away for free." Greg Monroe was just bought out by the Suns. That's worse than for free, no? The Bulls bought out DWade - gave him away to the Cavs for free. Wade was basically given away to the Heat (for a 2nd round pick). &c From what I've seen of NO, his moves are textbook and almost predictable (like trading Vonleh to get under the LT). A lot of GMs do a lot worse.
Great! In those three years we can draft Greg Oden, Sam Bowie & Martell Webster. After those great lottery selections I feel confident we’ll be able to challenge for the title. Gramps...