The AD to Portland trade thread....with absolutely no fiber whatsoever

When their best players are all healthy, they're still a very good team.

Their depth is a bit of a mess but that matters less in the playoffs.

 

The other side of that is this. NO’s job is making the Blazers roster better. Sure I know he’s not getting AD. He’ll need to eventually make some moves. To get better players...

 

Thanks for the breaking news.

 

Why do people say NO never makes big trades when he got us Nurkic?

 

Keeping Nurk at a reasonable price was a great move.

 

lol. That's because it wasn't a big trade. It was a trade so we didnt have to pay Plumlee.

But, you know, details and such.

 

Kingspeed loves questioning everyone else. "Toronto got blown out, are they trash? Everyone said that about the Jazz game."

"Why do people say we never make big trades (references the 1 meaningful trade weve made in 4 years, and it was for a backup big)"

Could add but too lazy.

 

Don't forget Stauskas. Now that Lebron has opened the door for players to go around and recruit other players we might as well start sending out Dame since N.O. cant do it.

 

I like Nurk but he is not a superstar player.

 

Which brought us our best big since... Zach Randolph? Nurk is really good.

Most teams in the league never trade for superstar players... Olshey traded for Chris Paul in his prime. That's probably a better trade than all but 3 other active GMs have ever made.

 

That was about Plumlee and the pick. Nurk was a great surprise, but not the reason.

Stern gave the Clippers Chris paul.

 

It was so much about the pick. Nurkic seemed almost like a throw-in/afterthought from Olshey's initial comments. He was also the 2nd choice as they had looked elsewhere but teams wouldn't through in a pick.

 

Most in here that wanted Nurk assumed that we'd have to include a pick with Plumlee in order to get him. We GET a pick, along with Nurk, but because of the press conference after, everyone assumes Neil is an idiot, and fell backwards into an upgrade. That just seems like some revisionist history to me. I'm annoyed at his lack of movement to bring in an impact player to go along with Dame, but that all seems like crap to me.

 

https://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/...zers_neil_olshey_were_probably_a_6_point.html

Gives some detail into what Nurk provides for them that Plumlee didn't/couldn't/wouldn't. As well as hitting on the cap ramifications of it. But, I'm sure he basically didn't know who he was, and just liked getting a 1st and a throw in.

 

There are plenty of other things for those people to discount Olshey for. This is not one of them, at all.

 

Why would he put undue pressure on Nurk by overly hyping him up?

That was a hell of a move, however you want to spin it. So was the Chris Paul deal. Another move like either of those would catapult this team into contention.

 

you can probably look at the Nurkic trade a couple of different ways

one way is that Olshey kind of stumbled into the trade and was quite willing to trade Plumlee for Jahlil Okafor. Circumstantial 'evidence' kind of supports that because Philly held Okafor out of a game or two thinking they had a done deal with Portland

the other way is that Olshey was using some basic GM 101, playing Philly and Denver against each other. Both teams had distraction C's they wanted to dump and Olshey was offering an option. At the last minute Denver added a 1st to the pot and Olshey 'backed out' of the Philly deal and accepted Denver's offer

the thread connecting those two trade options is that Portland would be able to punt Plumlee's RFA summer a year down the road with a different rookie scale contract. They were already scheduled to be over the tax line and that was before counting Plumlee's QO or new salary. Another thread of course is Olshey was trying to leverage a draft pick. Denver blinked 1st, but they seem happy with Plumlee

 

Philly did have multiple teams interested in Okafor so it's a bit of a stretch to think he was held out for Portland's sake.

Portland gave Denver a 2nd round pick in the trade too. What likely happened (all just a guess) is that Denver offered Nurk and a 2nd round pick for Plumlee. Olshey then tried to use Okafor as leverage that he was going to take their offer. Denver then probably agreed to add the 1st but only if they got back a 2nd.

What happens if a GM thinks a player is underutilized or would fit better on his team? If we say Olshey "stumbled" into Nurk then we are basically saying that no GM could foresee a player being better with a change of scenery. People are forgetting that Nurk came back from injury towards the end of his 2nd year and had some really, really good games towards the end of it. 4 of his last 7 games played he had stat lines of 18 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assits, then 19 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, then 21 points and 10 rebounds, then against Portland 11 points, 14 rebounds, 4 assists, 5 steals, 3 blocks, and 8 turnovers (ha ha). Are we to assume that Olshey didn't watch that game in Portland? That summer Nurkic and Jokic were considered untouchable by Denver. I remember lots of people being interested in them but Denver wasn't going to deal them. Then of course the season started and Malone couldn't find a way for it to work playing both so Nurk moved to the bench and then started getting DNP's because of his attitude. Just because some people had never heard of Nurk doesn't mean he wasn't thought of as a good player if his attitude could be fixed. It's completely short term memory if we are only basing the trade on a few months of that season. That is the only reason he was even available. He wasn't some throw-in to make the money work like when Portland got Alonzo Gee in the Afflalo trade.

 

Man, no matter how you slice it....

The Nurk deal has worked well for us. Got a first rounder with him, got extra years out of it (we got an extra “cheap” year because Nurk was on his rookie deal, then signed Nurk to a 4-year deal vs Mason’s 3-year deal, which, by the way, Nurk also signed for a lower AAV), and got the better and younger player.

Argue all you want about the “behind-the-scenes” things that we really can only speculate about... I’ll just be happy with the deal.

And Nurk has greater value today, in the event he ends up being moved for another player.

 

nope...no stretch at all


https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelp...for-because-trade-blazers-was-close-happening

the Nurkic trade happened 11 days before the trade deadline. So, if there were "multiple teams" interested in him there was plenty of time for Philly to go to option B. Instead, they had to thrash around for 10 more months before they found a taker for Okafor. In other words, the alleged interest didn't amount to much