Neil Olshi**y's Summer

I think Wade Baldwin will be an upgrade right away...and he's bargain basement cheap...Bazz will make way more his next deal.

 

I’m hopeful Baldwin is better, I like his tenacity on defense, I’m just no sold oh his offensive games, specifically actual PG duties.

 

That's very probable. But if that's the case:
1) don't set public expectations higher by saying that you have the TPE & are going to be very agressive in the offseason.
2) take ownership that your own bad decisions put you in that position

 

Incorrect on so many levels.

Pat is a better player, so it's a downgrade.

Pat could have been easily resigned for the minimum too - so there's no cost savings

 

Those aren't clear cut facts like you are making them out to be.

 

I don't agree that Pat is better, but I do agree that it's puzzling, regardless.

 

Here's a summary:

April 22, 2018-- exit interview

It's draft, trade, player development, free agency. People get caught up in financial restrictions. First of all, half the league is at or will be ... (above) the salary cap next year. And it's a result of the cap spike from two years ago, increased spending. That's the way it is. But there's a million ways to build a team and I think everybody gets caught up in thinking there's some magical solution because you have cap room or you have an exception. That's not necessarily true. If you look at how many teams got better this year because of trade or draft-related moves versus teams that got a free agent to come into their cap room, the teams that did the former improved greater than the teams that just signed the free agent.

May 17, 2018

I think probably one of the things we were a little too conservative with this offseason and at the trade deadline was, we were probably far too protective of our draft pick and our trade exceptions and the tools we had to continue to build the roster long term and maybe lost sight of the fact that the first round was going to be more competitive that we expected,

I think this offseason we shift our focus to playoff-caliber guys, guys that hit the right benchmarks or the body of work that can really perform come April knowing the rebuild got done quicker than we thought and it’s time to start thinking of playoff success over whether or not we can or can’t make the playoff while retooling.

June 6, 2018

One of the advantages, when you look at it cap-wise... you've got 15 teams that are either in or within $5 million of the luxury tax, so there isn't a lot of financial flexibility to make deals with those teams," said Olshey. "But one of the advantages we do have, we have an incredibly aggressive owner in Paul Allen. He believes in the core of this group, he wants to improve the group and we've got two really good trade exceptions. We've got a $13 million trade exception from the Allen Crabbe trade, we've got one at $3.5 (million) from the Noah Vonleh trade and we're viewing those trade exceptions as if they're room when it comes to making deals and acquiring players. It's an advantage we think we have relative to the marketplace where we don't necessarily have the cap room but we have a lot of liquid contracts and we do have two major trade exceptions where we can absorb players that we think can fit into our group that can advance this group going forward come playoff time next year."

Draft day: June 22, 2018-- narrative starts to change

"We were trying to look for teams where (the 24th pick) would get us an impact rotation guy (using) the trade exception," Neil Olshey, the Blazers' President of Basketball Operations, said. "We were really aggressive leading up to the draft. But it's got to be a very specific fit. It's got to be a very specific guy in terms of skill-set. And it's got to be a guy that we believe can make an impact. Tonight wasn't the night to do that."

"We're going to have to be judicious," Olshey said. "We don't have a ton of tools at our disposal without conveying players on the roster in terms of adding veteran help to the rotation. But we've got the next two weeks now to kind of shift focus and address that."

July 6 - Announces signings of Seth Curry and Stauskas, but still spouting off as if he'll do something:

We had limited tools in terms of all we had was the Tax Payer Mid-Level [Exception] and minimums [exceptions]. So at this point, what we wanted to do was make sure we secured players we know would fit into our system, that can translate immediately in terms of skill-set and produce on the court. We’ll get to Summer League, we’ll be with all of our colleagues, we’ll start generating and being presented with different deals to kind of upgrade the roster, and we’ll pursue those as diligently as we always do.

July 11 -- what trade exception?

"Hopefully we’re not done building the roster. We’re still trying to be very active. Even to date, it’s been very slow in terms of trade transactions. A lot of it has just been people handling their business with free agency. Hopefully, things like trades and bolstering rosters with players with a longer track record come into play."

Will the Blazers use the trade exception?

"We’ll see. I think, part of the frustration is, we spoke with a lot of teams about utilizing it before the draft and teams weren’t ready to move on their established players at that point. They wanted to see what they drafted and then got into free agency.

"I’ve got multiple calls about it in the past few days, but the calculus has changed a little bit because we have added some perimeter players which was clearly the need. We extended Jusuf Nurkic’s deal. There are major cap implications and tax implications [that] Paul [Allen] is never going to shy away from, it’s just right now, the bar is that player is going to have to be good enough and have a high enough impact on the roster to justify, basically a 3X cost, you’re going to end up tripling the salary based on the tax.

 

How much do you want to bet that we will try to duck the tax come deadline and make that our primary objective?

 

Soooooo, basically we are fucked?

 

Zero. Prefer to keep my money.

How much are we above the tax? Aminu seems like the next sacrificial lamb.

 

Today's most depressing post. Holy fuck, it's like watching the sparkle ebb away from a new romance...

 

About 8 million.

 

Oh what do you know, Aminu is right around that range.

 

Reading through these grand proclamations and eventually ending with dying hope was cathartic. Kinda. Just interesting to see some of the spin some posters here put on an unequivocally shitty summer. Even by his own expectations, he hit on essentially nothing that he wanted to. No wonder Dame is so resigned to the fact that he has to carry this piss poor roster to the playoffs by himself again.

 

Neil is that dude that talks a big game, but never gets anything done.

He's always "I'm so busy! I'm so busy! I don't have any free time because I'm so busy!"

And then you ask him what he got done at the end of the day and he sorta pauses and says, "well I spent a lot of time on the trade machine!"

 

The worst part is I don’t even see any moves he could make now that would really make a difference, short of trading CJ.

We also have a roster full of guaranteed contracts, so a free agent is out the window as well.

Fuck him.

 

And doing his hair...

 

- Ed Davis
- Pat Connaughton
- Napier
- PapaG
+ Trent
+ Simons
+ Stauskas
+ Curry

Kept Layman at cheap $$$
Kept Baldwin at cheap $$$
Extended Nurk for reasonable $$$

Good News: Guard Rotation
It will be much better than last year. Dame/CJ with Baldwin/Curry makes me very optimistic.

Good News: Reasonable Contracts given
Nurk, Nik, Curry, Baldwin, Layman all cheap contracts. Next year? We'll see.

Bad News: Front Court
Strictly Worse than last year. Davis/Collins coming off the bench was good last year, and would be better this year. Now we have Collins/Biggie which makes me nervous

Bad News: ET still in the House
Biebs is an immature Jr. Higher, but I don't mind because he doesn't play. From what I gather, ET is a net negative on the court (not even including his salary in the discussion). I don't think the coach is going to just stop playing him, either.

Bad News: No "Impact Veteran"
Neil talked on multiple occasions about getting an "impact vet", using the "TPE as an asset", and "being aggressive." Many are still waiting.

Bad News: Future Picks
I'm glad we traded 2 future 2nds for Trent, but at the end of the day, we still have 2 less future 2nds. This is a bigger deal for the Blazers than for other teams since drafting is our GM specialty.

My Hot Take
The 2020-21 Blazers with Biebs and ET coming off our cap, and our last 4 draftees maturing will be very, very good. But how much better will this year's team be than last year's? It all depends on the improvement of Collins, Baldwin, and Curry, and to some extent the consistency of Nurk. That's a nerve-racking place to be, and while I personally am OK with it, some fans are understandably "NERVOUS." The summer isn't over, though waiting for an Impace Veteran feels a lot like waiting for Godot. We only have until the end of the month before TPE expires, and it's really starting to feel like it won't get used.

 

At least I got a good laugh out of the playoff caliber guys quote. He added two players that have never been in the playoffs and two 19 year olds. You can’t make this shit up.

 

Hey don’t forget they let guys go who had played in the playoffs.