Utah's move is to have Gobert healthy. Gobert missed 26 games last year and the Jazz finished 1 game behind the Blazers. Kawhi missed 73 games and the Spurs finished just 2 games behind the Blazers. The Thunder were missing their best defender for 43 games and they finished 1 game behind the Blazers. Those teams didn't need to do as much if they stayed 'status quo'. If they are healthy, they all finish in front of the Blazers last year.
Ocean's 11 Ocean's 12 Ocean's 13 Olshey's 15 All four are about the long con, only one ends where no one wins.
Hey man the season has started yet, who's to say there won't be a trade coming. When trades are made in the NBA usually teams give up more than they get in return.
The lying part, I’m not cool with that. I think the move is great for Toronto though. They got swept in the playoffs. There guards were getting older. They had an even worse cap situation than Portland. They probably felt like they were going no where fast. Even if Kahwi leaves there. So situation starts to get better. Kahwi could be the best player in the conference next year.
Gees Louise....the team finished the season with the 7th best record in the nba. I know they laid an egg during playoffs but they have improved some each of the last few years. Plus its possible he did well in the draft this year and even took a risk with Simons. Hell GTjr. could end up a Terry Porter/Jerom Kersey type 2 round selection. He's going into the 4th year of a 5 year rebuild and I agree the weighting for next year is way up. Lets see what happens. I'll be on board with a change if we do regress this year, including replacing Neil, trading Dame CJ or both no sacred cows.
Actually I bet if you asked all the GM's in the league they would project Derozan and CJ as pretty close and seriously, because Poeltl was taken 9th that means he is better than a 10 selection? To me they are probably very similar and Poeltl has played 2 seasons where as Collins is 2 years younger and only played one season.
But do you think that success last year was because of Olshey or because of Stotts and the players taking defense more seriously? The roster didn’t really change.
You may have a point, except that our top 7 guys were 27. 26. 27. 23, 23, 29 and 19. If you think they've "peaked", when LAL just brought in a 33y/o and HOU signed one to a 4/160M contract, I guess we disagree.
I struggle with this one. When do I become grins and just go ok screw this get him out of here. I’ve put this TPE thing in my head that, that is his deadline but reality is even that’s not even close to the end of summer... The Blazers always seem to be a team “interested” in the big names but never land them. Now to be fair that’s true of a lot of teams.
Everyone said this last year and then we went from 8 seed to 3 seed. We are bringing back core that won 49 games. It's more likely that we win 50 than it is that we miss the playoffs. We have a fucking All NBA First Team point guard!!!
Yes we did....but not NEARLY to the extent of losing someone the quality of Kawhi all season or the defensive impact Gobert had.
Did you expect more than 49 wins three years after losing Aldridge for nothing? Neil has been great. Gets no credit for bringing a guy like Ed Davis in and then gets crucified when it's time to let him go now that he's brought in young talent to take his place. Aminu was a great signing. Nurkic trade was the best trade in the NBA two seasons ago. He's made some good draft picks. He picks up people like Harkless and Baldwin IV off the garbage heap.
