As much grief as Olshey gets ... and a lot of it has been self-inflicted ... what he managed to accomplish in the last couple of weeks with next to no wiggle room kind of amazes me. With the addition of Hood and Kanter, we legitimately have eight-to-ten players who I think have shown the ability to be capable starters on a playoff caliber team. That's not even counting Zach and Meyers, who have been very solid role players this season. You could argue that we have better players coming off our bench than two of our current starters. Kanter gives us the rare luxury of a low post scorer who isn't much of a drop-off from Nurk in that regard ... how many teams have that in this day and age? I like the Oakland A's in baseball, and if you are familiar with how they try to compete, they take advantage of market inefficiencies. They find positive skills that just don't get the attention from other organizations. I've often thought in basketball a team like Portland could succeed in a similar way. They might not have the star power in the starting five as the Warriors or Rockets or the Spurs of past years. But, as long as our starters can keep us in it, if our bench was much better, it would be enough for us to beat those teams. The other thing was in this new style of game where all the emphasis is on perimeter play, a team that could guard the 3 and dominate down low on the other end could thrive. Still remains to be seen how the chemistry works, how Stotts handles the minutes, but I am very comfortable now with the talent we have. With the additions, the way Layman has come on and the way Curry has turned it up after a so-so beginning of the season, I feel really good about our guys from 1-12.
I honestly have some complaints about the Top end talent, but why complain. We just beat GS, its the all star break, they are at 4th. So overall it could be much worse, hope they have a good rest of the season and I do like the moves they made with Kanter and Hood.
What many don't understand it takes a while to work a plan and he and Paul started this rebuild 3 1/2 years ago, and at the time I think most agreed it would take a while. How we do in the offs and what we do in the offseason will determine one way or another if we CAN become contenders. Even teams like the wolves and sixers have gone through the fire and only one so far looks to be in a good position after what 9 years. And even they are not guaranteed anything.
great post! also, it took GS a couple years to engineer the team before the championship. Once they got Green and built their bench with seasoned vets it came together and they've been using different topping (new players) each year.
The one thing GS did that I feel like the Blazers will need to do eventually is trade one of their good players to fill up on assets. Is CJ our Monte Ellis? maybe Im not sure. Anyways happy thoughts today!
Still not nearly as deep as Golden State but probably as close to even with everyone else as you ca get. The problem lies in top-end talent. We have no one near Paul George level right now.
Portland probably has as much 1-12 depth as any team...not much doubt about that. At least 3 teams in the West have better 1-3 talent, and the Blazers have a significant drop down to their #2 from their top player. Usually though, it's not 1-12 depth that wins a playoff series, it's 1-8 depth and top end talent. Portland is lacking there ok then...say the Blazers win 50 games this year. In the first year of the "rebuild" Portland won 44 games. This is the 4th year. That would mean, the Blazers have improved only 6 wins in 4 years. LOL...at that rate, Portland would top 55 wins in the 8th year of the rebuild, and hit 60 wins in the 11th year. That sure seems like glacially slow progress. And that doesn't touch on Portland's playoff record in that time which as we all know, is pretty discouraging I'm not impressed with the idea that the "plan" is on course. If there was any plan to begin with, it was derailed and incinerated during the 2016 spending spree. Any plan that justified those decisions was a bullshit plan
honestly I feel this part of your post is buzzkill just for buzzkill sake...the whole league went through 2016 offseason (Mosgov) and we're way ahead of a Philly or Wolves rebuild if you factor the timeline in...credit where credit is due..and he's drafted pretty well...I'm pretty optimistic at what we're starting to see unfold here these days. Paul Allen had a value system that didn't line up with a lot of folks viewing from the cheap seats....most posters here were actually angry when we kept Jake Layman last summer.
Oh come on, there is no way Paul Allen wouldn't require a 3-5 year improvement plan. What gets measured gets done & if you don't know where you are going, you WILL end up somewhere else.
We’re deeper but it would matter more if it were the beginning of the season. Won’t be long til the playoffs and then the rotation shrinks.
