Unless he's had a change of heart, I think no team offering him a starting role is the reason he was out of the NBA for a year.
He shines with Portland because he fits in well with the team. That's hard for a person who loves basketball and the NBA to give up.
At his age and reputation? Yes. As we've seen the past few years, centers are drastically losing value in the free agent market. I think Hassan will have trouble finding an offer of 12 mil per year.
You may be right. The disconnect I'm having is that you're now saying you think a guy at his age with a bad reputation is better than Nurk. Maybe I missed it earlier in the thread, but do you not think very highly of Nurk? You think he won't be able to fully recover from his injury?
One thing to keep in mind for people talking about cap space. The absolute most we can get is around $12 million (unless Hood leaves in which case it could get up to $18 million). Meanwhile the Mid-Level Exception is expected to be over $9.7 million. So as long as they don't go too far over the cap with a trade and can still use the Full MLE the difference in player between having cap space and not isn't really enough to warrant wanting to preserve that cap space.
GS seems like they will go for another title run next year so i i suppose Draymond is not available. Report by Woj said that not even Russell is available or at least not currently on the block. I think they want to see first what player they get in next draft and then make their moves. All players locked in contracts so they won't lose value till summer so they have to wait till then.
What team is building their center spot around Whiteside earning 20+ million a year when he's on the wrong side of 30? His last two teams had him second on the depth chart. He may not want to be a backup but with all the cheap effective centers he may not be guaranteed anything more. I'm fine keeping Whitside this season and sign him for $12 ish million in the summer. We dont know if Nurk will even be worthy of starting in 2020-21 and then he will be a free agent too.
Depends on our position in the standings and our play at the end of the year. If the Blazers think they can make a run they will keep him.
Nurks not a FA til 2022. Whitesides not gonna get 27M again but I highly doubt he’s getting 12, and also with as much as I would like to see Nurk / Whiteside. It seems so unrealistic to keep him, people are basically on one hand saying he’s great on then other hand saying he’s going to be ok taking a massive paycut and playing from the bench. I get that your argument is he’s got no choice theres no market for him. Neither he or Nurk have done well in the past coming off the bench. If the Market for him is that bad why do we want the Blazers to be the team that over pays him? I dont know where Nurk will be at in his recovery but by next season he should be back to normal, clean break with no nerve damage it should be ok. I really dont think they have a shot at going on any type of run this year unless something crazy happens and Zach, Nurk are both playing and playing very well by the time the playoffs come.
I agree with your first paragraph. I don't see the Blazers carrying both Nurk and Whiteside beyond this season. Zach is going to develop into more of a center as he goes along in his career, so tying up too much money in two other centers wouldn't make much sense. The Blazers will be in a position of being able to either keep Nurk and let Whiteside go for cap relief, or potentially working some kind of sign-and-trade deal with Hassan. I suppose it's also possible that they decide to re-sign Whiteside and trade Nurk. Given Hassan's age, I'd see that as a statement by the Blazers that Zach is their center of the future and Hassan is filler while Collins develops. The second paragraph I think is premature. I think that it's pretty likely that Nurk is playing well by the playoffs. A rotation of Whiteside and Nurk is going to be something that's going to cost opposing coaches a lot of lost sleep. There's also the Hood injured player exception that could come into play since it will allow the Blazers to outbid other teams over the cap as non-playoff teams start waiving guys prior to the playoffs. Picking up a guy like Iguodala or another seasoned vet could really beef up the second unit.
It all depends on the impact Portland has on Hassan. He came here for a career resurgence. If that happens in the playoffs and he deeply bonds with the team you have the makings of a bargain signing IMO, he's already made bank. Let's say the market is about $16M a year for him, 12 is only $4M less year.
He's not that old, but there's a lot more that goes into it than just the number. Love was never exceptionally athletic... however with his injuries and age, he's now in the bottom 25% of the NBA in regards to athleticism. Watching him play, he appears SLOW. He's talented, but it's been a steep decline for him. Whiteside has the athleticism to keep up with the rest of the NBA. Even though they are roughly the same age, there's a drastic difference when watching them play.
Hassans pretty slow too. He’s exceptionally long though and that helps a lot. Love is definitely not my first choice, though I think his skillset is interesting. I just think its strange that age of the two keep coming up,
a contender doesn't get swept in the conference finals...they actually contend. Portland was a pretender, and they had a advantageous track to those WC finals. As for Nurkic, he was fully healthy and playing well the year before when the Blazers got swept by the Pelicans. I know it's an unpopular opinion but my opinion is that Nurkic is not the key to Portland elevating over opponents selling out their defenses to stop Dame in the playoffs. Portland needs a guy who can take the ball from Dame when he's doubled and trapped, someone who can run the offense as well as consistently score. Another all-star level player and ball-handler. They don't have that. CJ can't run the offense and his scoring ability in iso-mode is overrated and often inconsistent. you're low-balling what was spent that summer: CJ - 106M Crabbe - 75M Turner - 70M Meyers - 41M Harhless - 40M Ezeli - 10M 342M....and not an all-star in sight. And truly, only one player with starting-level talent, and he'd arguably be better as a Lou-Williams type 6th man. It was lunacy and beyond stupid I don't really care what Jaynes says; he was canzano before canzano. To me, the failure would be throwing more good money after bad, trying to salvage anything from that 2016 idiocy. Let that 2016 summer just die and become an object lesson about the foolishness of throwing all-star money at role players. Converting the expiring years of some of those contracts into a constantly injured player like Kevin Love while forcing Portland into the repeater tax would be failure. Love or Aldridge aren't going to turn Portland into a contender, especially if Portland is sacrificing the things that Whiteside is doing tor them, and he's doing a lot right now sure, that would be interesting. But you'll notice I said "realistic trades". Boston would not do that deal. I'd bet they wouldn't even do Whiteside and Portland's 2019 first for Hayward. You should be thinking Whiteside + Little + the 1st....this is Ainge Portland would be dealing with converting Whiteside into Hayward or Bazemore into Smart are the kind of Blazer pipe-dreams I was referring to. Portland's 2 big expiring contracts are just a small part of the ocean of expiring contracts out there right now. You have to lower your sights, IMO, in order to really gauge the value of Whiteside/Bazemore trades
Yeah, I thought Kanter would for sure get paid in the summer, and he’s three years younger with considerably less baggage. So if no one is going to pay Whiteside, he may as well stay where he’s happy. I also believe Portland has his bird rights, and considering the volatile nature of the position and how much the Blazers rely on their bigs defensively, I think he’d be worth dropping good money on, even as a backup.
I never said Boston or Portland would do that, just making a point where a GM’s job is to be creative with that stuff and there are possible moves out there. If I get your point though, the Blazers are basically hopeless. Whiteside / Nurk arent winning them a title, Dame’s the only good player on the team and they literally dont have the pieces to bring in a top 10 player, because no one is giving them a top 10 player for what they have. So why does it matter if they keep whiteside or not?
I just want to address one thing, the whole they had a “easy road to the WCF’s”, does that negate every one seed who wins a title since they get home court vs worse teams? The narrative that well they kind of fumbled there way into the end zone is just so people can be negative. No ones saying oh man GS only made the finals because they had easy roads there every year. You honestly think a healthy Nurk or even a Healthy Kanter doesnt make them good enough to pull out even a game or two of the 3 they were up 15+? GS had injuries too and they were ready to be taken out as we saw a “good” but not great Toronto team won last year, of course by then they GS was missing Klay and KD, and DMC. Is Denver a bad team? OKC had PG13 and WB, are those bad players? Would you be mad if the Blazers got PG13? He’s a top ten guy... I just don't get the constant lets pretend they sucked last year and somehow beat a 48 win team and a 50+ win team by sheer luck of the draw.
