You could also make the case it might be a good sign that he didn't have to cut salary either. Or maybe he was told to do so and failed at that too.
Look at how deep the Blazers were in the late 90's early 2000. Depth is a great problem to have as competition separates the worthy of playing time from those not.
"Depth is a great problem to have" only applies when your starters are of championship caliber. Put another way, we have a 10, a 9, an 8 (CJ), 10 5s, and Simons, who has lots of potential. If two of those 5 were 8s, then I'd be totally with you. However, Harkless and Aminu are not good enough starters for a championship team, as they are currently playing. As I said, I like the trades in a vacuum, but those trades were not what the team desperately needs.
What makes you think this is a finished product? We have 3 solid expiring contracts next year and our asset pool was improved other than 2 easily replaced 2nd round picks.
Totally agree, we're throwing this season away for hopes of expirings next season. Damian Lillard is 28.5, and will turn 29 before the start of next season. Tick Tock.
What needle moving deal would have magically made us compete with GS and we had better assets to offer?
when it comes to expiring contracts, next season won't be a sellers market like this season was: Kyle Lowry $33,296,296 Al Horford $30,123,015 Hassan Whiteside $27,093,018 Marc Gasol $25,595,700 Chandler Parsons $25,102,511 Harrison Barnes $25,102,512 Serge Ibaka $23,271,604 Danilo Gallinari $22,615,559 Ryan Anderson $15,600,000 Tyler Johnson $19,245,370 George Hill $18,000,000 Jeff Teague $19,000,000 Allen Crabbe $18,500,000 Goran Dragic $19,217,900 Kent Bazemore $19,269,662 Evan Turner $18,606,557 Tristan Thompson $18,539,130 Reggie Jackson $18,086,956 Bismack Biyombo $17,000,000 Derrick Favors $16,900,000 Pau Gasol $16,000,000 Jonas Valanciunas $17,617,977 Andre Iguodala $17,185,185 Timofey Mozgov $16,720,000 Ian Mahinmi $15,450,051 J.R. Smith $15,680,000 James Johnson $15,349,400 Brandon Knight $15,643,750 Marvin Williams $15,006,250 Eric Gordon $14,057,730 Michael Kidd-Gilchrist $ 13,000,000 Mason Plumlee $14,041,096 Jordan Clarkson $13,437,500 Miles Plumlee $12,500,000 Courtney Lee $12,759,670 Solomon Hill $13,258,781 Avery Bradley $12,960,000 John Henson $9,732,396 Maurice Harkless $11,511,234 Meyers Leonard $11,286,515 Jon Leuer $9,508,043 Andre Roberson $10,740,741 Dwight Powell $10,259,375 Matthew Dellavedova $9,607,500 Bogdan Bogdanovic $8,529,386 E'Twaun Moore $8,664,928 Fred VanVleet $9,000,000 Joe Harris $7,670,000 C.J. Miles $8,730,158 Shaun Livingston $7,692,308 Kyle Korver $7,500,000 Jae Crowder $7,815,533 D.J. Augustin $7,250,000 Lance Thomas $7,583,975 Langston Galloway $7,333,333 Davis Bertans $7,000,000 Marco Belinelli $5,846,154 Jonathon Simmons $5,700,000 Patrick Patterson $5,711,200 Josh Smith $5,331,729 Aron Baynes $5,453,280 Alex Len $4,160,000 I think 20 teams will be shopping expiring contracts hard. And that list doesn't count 1 year deals that will be signed this summer
I'm so tired of that - GS is irrelevant. We need to get more top-end players to get better, period. If you're going to make the GS argument, you're arguing that we should trade Lillard.
Why would i want to trade Lillard? You act like we no longer have the ability to improve this team where as i see the opportunity now opening up. Olshey may or may not be here next year either. I would rather wait and do the right deal than a deal that only improves us slightly but locks us into something. Only player moved i would have been interested in was Tobias Harris. The rest? Meh.
Whoever picked Hood and Skal gets free beers from me, I’ll have to look and see if anyone nailed it. That’s a joke, I don’t have to look.