yeah, Blazers have Whiteside's Bird Rights in fact, if I'm recalling the CBA correctly, the Blazers could sign Whiteside to a 1 year deal and there would still be full Bird Rights. That might actually be what they want to do in order to get to where they can use the tax-payer MLE so they don't get hard capped. (the CBA guys can chime in here, but I think if Portland uses any MLE over the tax-payer MLE they get hard-capped. And they won't want to be in that position) the Blazers may very well need that tax-payer MLE to re-sign Melo that seems like a false choice to me, or at least a choice lacking critical context: Damian Lillard $31,626,953 Kevin Love $31,300,000 CJ McCollum $29,354,152 Jusuf Nurkić $12,000,000 Rodney Hood $6,003,900 Zach Collins $5,406,255 Anfernee Simons $2,252,040 Nassir Little $2,210,640 Mario Hezonja $1,882,867 Gary Trent $1,663,861 (Andrew Nicholson) $2,844,429 (Anderson Varejão) $1,913,345 128.5M....when the tax line could be in the 132M range. And that's only for 10 players. Worse, is that the following season Portland would be at 128M in salary with only 6 players, and they be in the repeater tax that year. And keep in mind that with Love, we're talking about a player who has missed 32 games a year over the last 3 seasons. To me, Love would just be a repeat of the 2016 disaster, only worse because of potential repeater tax
that's a complete distortion of what I'm saying I'll make it easy: making a bad trade is worse than making no trade. Right now, I don't see any realistic Whiteside trade that isn't a bad trade
A slow center is fine, but a slow pf in todays NBA is not a good quality. Love's negatives aren't his abilities, but his ability to stay healthy as he is often hurt and a Love in street clothes doesn't help anything.
Ok, well Ive said Love isnt my personel preference. Youve said Nurk isnt making the Blazers a contender. Whiteside and Nurk, so what they keep Nurk and Whiteside they still arent contenders. You dont seem to have any ideas of ways to make them better. Say you’re NO do you actually have some plan to make them good enough or just keep harping there arent any good trade targets out there and the salary cap situation makes them screwed?
One important note: signing Whiteside (or Bazemore) to a one year contract would only retain their bird rights if they stay with Portland. Any one year deal with Portland in their cases gives them veto powers in any trade for the full season. Thus if Whiteside becomes a problem he might not be able to be traded easily.
I never said they just make a bad Trade. Though honestly Id rather they traded for Love then WS walks at the end of the year even if Im not a huge fan of Love. He’s better than what they’d get with cap space. Cap space has traditionally not been the Blazers friend.
Guys, Mr. Olshey had a talk with me. If we don't start beating good teams he will need to trade Hassan. We have both been surprised at how good he is. But if we can't use his talent to beat good teams then we need to think about the next step. I dont know if you noticed but centers have been playing well against the Clippers. I'm sure you know, but Mr. Olshey still has ties to the Clippers and they told him they might need Hassan in order to compete in the playoffs because their competition all have good centers.
in my view, NO kind of fucked up the roster last summer because he was still dealing with his 2016 summer. Whiteside and Bazemore are the last remnants of 2016 in terms of contracts. If Portland still had Turner, Meyers, and Harkless, everybody here would be just fine with letting those contracts expire in July, and then moving on with a reset of the cap. Sure, we'd be talking about what Portland might get in a trade(s) for any of those guys, but there would not be this giant hope of a miracle Whiteside or Bazemore trade. Like I said, less than 6 months ago, Bazemore's value was Evan Turner. It hasn't been raised from Turner to somebody like Marcus Smart 6 months later Whiteside is a little different as he's putting up some big numbers, but he does have baggage. The problem is that Whiteside has been a huge factor for Portland and he plugs holes the Blazers would have problems plugging. I guess trading him away for a weak return could be a form of tanking though
at this point in time? No so then, keep the powder dry and don't load up on any more bad contracts. Those never help. And don't make players "untouchable" in trade discussions
I think the problem in this conversation is that when past moves that screwed us are mentioned that does nothing to figure out where to go from here. Olshey can't change anything he's done from this point so to keep harping on previous decisions, even though it's mostly correct, does nothing to answer the question of what to do with Whiteside or what moves to make going forward. Bazemore's value was Turner without giving up any assets. Attaching a pick or a young player changes Bazemore's value.
The idea would be if Boston were to do something like that would be cap-space for them (let's face it Boston's chances of getting FA's is better than Portlands). They'd get rid of the massive overpay of Hayward who's a solid player but not a great player. I don't think they do that. I think the Blazers went after Whiteside because they knew they had no one else to hold down the Starting Center spot while Nurk was out. For as good as Whiteside's been, the Blazers are still struggling to beat good teams, could the recent success spill over into some confidence and lead to wins vs better competition. If I were the the GM it wouldn't be some "miracle" trade for a star. I'd be looking for a Backup PG type say someone like George Hill, and a PF/SF type to help solidify the roster going into next year. I'm not sure they can find one or both of those anywhere, but there may be some team desperate enough they want a few months of whiteside to make a run this year. I think the Blazers should scrap the idea of trying to make a run this year and be looking for players that have future value (I'd rather it not be some guy on a gigantic contract like Love or Blake). I think I have a different opinion than you on where the team is at though. I think they could contend now, everyone was healthy and they had a true 6th man type on the bench. Nurk / Zach / Hood / CJ / Dame is a good starting 5 (not great), but if they had Melo and one other solid bench player I'd think they could make it tough on just about anyone.
However, if the team can negotiate a 2 year deal, with a minimum guarantee the 2nd year ($1M) then they don't have teh veto power.
yeah, that's not going to work for me because part of my S2 entertainment is beating up on Olshey. I'm not giving that up, especially around Christmas it doesn't change Bazemore's value; it just adds another asset to the trade problem is deciding what value that pick has to Portland. By the end of the year, it looks like the Blazers will be about .500....maybe a 17-17 record. IIRC the trade deadline is around Feb 7...? Ok...just looked it up it's Feb 6 between Jan 1st and Feb 6 Portland has 17 games. 10 of the 17 are on the road. 11 of those 17 games are against teams with winning records, and the Blazers are currently 1-10 against teams with winning records....yeeeeeeesh! the Blazers could easily be 5 or 6 games below .500 when the trade deadline rolls around. That would give their 1st really good value, but it would also be good value for Portland. Lottery protection in a trade might mean Portland was giving up a 15th-19th pick. The last time they did something like that was the Afflalo trade, and I'd sure hope Portland got a better return than that
sorry fake terry, but the Clippers have one of, if not the deepest roster in the NBA and have a serviceable center. Do you not remember the Blazers trading away a young talent to get a center to compete against Shaq? Didn't work out very well did it?
We know Whitside can play well for the Blazers, so he is worth the $12 million we could pay him. Other teams would not know if their leader could get the most out of him as Lillard has. If the market isn't overpriced for Whiteside then offer to resign him. If bidding gets to $20 million then let him walk. It's the same scenario as Rodney Hood. We heard talk he would earn $20 million then he signed for $5 million. Maybe Whiteside leaves for nothing. That's how free agency sometimes works. Its fine for the Blazers to keep him past the trade deadline.
I love the numbers Whiteside is putting up but I think a lot of people are forgetting just how well Nurk was playing and how improved our defense was the moment he got here. At the end of the day our defense has been awful this year, regardless of the number of blocks we get. Since Nurk won’t be able to play full minutes the two of them could be great together this year, but after that Whiteside is obviously gone. So when the trade deadline comes it’ll come down to what our expectations are for the remainder of the year and whether we want to go all in. He’s been great though.
