Personally I liked CJ/Roco/Powell/Nance much more than Grant/Hart/Winslow/Didi. But I can understand why some would be rather indifferent or complain that some of those prior guys were overpaid. Fair enough. I could understand moving on from those players, but it should be for veterans that helped the team win now, or assets that helped the future long term. Instead we got "flexibility" that very predictably ultimately led to garbage in GP2 and a hard cap. Since all of CJ/Roco/Nance got fat new contracts it's evident the rest of the league did not believe they had little value or were overpaid. They were paid as great bench players or in CJ case a key franchise starter. Regardless; none of the moves post Olshey have improved the Blazers chance to contend soon, increased the talent, increased the future assets of this franchise. Nurk and Simons are average role players paid even more than the outgoing "overpaid" former Blazers. The only possible bright spot this franchise has is the gamble on Sharpe.
What is going to be hilarious is seeing folks that kept saying "wait until the trade deadline to see how this team does before we consider anything with Dame" holding onto their binkies saying "fuck you buddy" when we are barely a play in team in response to posts from people exploring Dame trades at the trade deadline.
Grants a big step up from RoCo, Hart better overall than Powell, Winslow and nance a push. What we need is for Anf and Dame to have great seasons and Shaedon to be a factor even in his rookie year. Lets let the first 20 games or so play out and see how well this team is gelling.
You conveniently missed including CJ here. Grant is not a better player than CJ (he arguably could be considered a better fit with Dame, but that remains to be seen), Hart at best is considered a wash with Powell, Roco and Winslow are at best considered a wash.
CJ is better than Ant right now, no doubt about it. Ant is gonna have to step his game up bigtime to be at CJ's level. We will see.
it's not misleading unless you have an ingrained bias against the moves made. Blazers would not have Sharpe if they kept those three veterans and of course, it would actually be very misleading to believe that Portland would not have re-signed Ant & Nurk even if the trades hadn't been made and olshey was still there being the captain of the good ship Purgatory * if you want to look at it another way, in that 4 year window you mentioned: CJ 133M Nance 32M Powell 74.5M 239.5M Simons 100M Nurkic 70M Shape 27M 197M but again, that's deceptive because that Ant/Nurk contracts would be there either way. They really aren't part of any comparative equation * if you wanted to talk about just this season in a with-trades/without-trades comparison: CJ + Powell + Nance = 60M Grant + Hart + Wisnlow + Sharpe + Keon + Louzada stretch = 46.9M * again, Ant/Nurk would have almost certainly been there regardless. So then, the question would be if Grant + Hart will be resigned for the 240M that CJ/Powell/Nance are signed for. That's 60-80M year depending on where you draw the out-year line. Is there really any chance that Grant will get 40M/year and Hart 20M/year? so there it is. No matter which angle you come at the situation from, Portland's supposed "cap hell" is much better after the trades, not worse as asserted now, if you want to talk about the advisability of signing Ant/Nurk to those contracts, and keeping them long term, that's a different discussion
I want my team to play to win. I want them to leave it all on the court every night all season. Yes even if that gives them the 10th seed.
The veteran players could have been held out with "injuries." I've heard enough here that those players were garbage anyways so they would have lost. I'm not entirely sure where people are going with cap hell, but for all the flexibility talk we heard about, being hard capped is not flexibile at all.
I didn't conveniently miss CJ as Hart and some came in that trade. If Anf plays like the world expects him too, that would offset CJ being gone and should actually be a plus if/should Simons be a much better defender. You go with who you prefer, thats cool.
I'm not a big Cronin fan. I think he made some significant and absolutely necessary changes. He may have been able to get a little more in return in those trades but that's not certain. And I suspect he had instructions from Seattle to cut current and future salary I didn't like the size of the Ant and Nurk extensions. But they are not egregiously higher than what the market probably was which at least would make them tradable assets by the deadline. If Cronin would consider trading them I don't know. I hope so I hated hard-capping the team for a 6'2 player. I thought that was stupid
Saying we traded CJ for Sharpe is like saying we could trade Dame now to the Lakers for Wembanyama. Even if so; shouldn't the Blazers try to get something back in return for Dame too? The Blazers ultimately ended up with Grant (raise expected) Hart (risk to walk or raise) Scrubs (Winslow Keon Didi space to hard cap GP2) Prior to the trades the Blazers had CJ Norm Nance Roco (risk to walk or raise) For a franchise desperate of talent thats a horrible change. Its a big reason why the Clippers and Pelicans are projected to greatly increase their projected win totals vs prior years; while the Blazers are towards the bottom of the west. Blazers were a 3 seed twice during the "DameCJ" era; they are very far from that now. This analysis also ignores the value those other teams got last year; where useful rotational players on expiring deals at the trade deadline are worth low first round picks or better. It's amazing the Blazers traded away that veteran talent, got worse veteran talent, and received no picks or youth. Yes it saved Jody some luxury tax. It didn't lead to the team having flexibility to add talent or reshape the roster as many stated back then. Instead it predictably got the Blazers irrelevant additions; ultimately being hard capped for GP2.
ok then, take Sharpe out of the equations and substitute Winslow. That's 2M less salary than Sharpe and keep in mind I was comparing salaries, not really getting into the talent equation right...after all, Dame's talent and impact is really similar to Nance, CJ, or Powell
Then your a very different fan from many here. Personally if the team is the 10th seed and towards the bottom of the west I'd rather see them rebuild; possibly just bottoming out. The 2006 Blazers were the worst team in 50 years with Juan Dixon, Steve Blake, Ha Seung Jin, Sergei Monia. But it led to a draft of Roy and Aldridge. A few years of those types of drafts and the Blazers might have young assets to consider building something exciting. I'd much rather follow a team I expect to lose and look for the young potential than an old team trying to win with little chance to improve in the future. This failed attempt to build a winner around Dame with overpaid role players such as Nurk/Simons/Grant is less exciting then winning 21 teams with a bunch of rookies IMO. I'm fine at this point of waiting 10-20 games to see what happens though. I don't see how this team will be anything besides a bottom half of the west team. If Dame looks good maybe he would have some trade value. If the team is set on Dame as a Blazer for life; fine then just do a Kobe style tank/rebuild as those latter Lakers teams did.
At this point, the best possible scenario for the fanbase would be for Dame to fully embrace another losing season. Dame will pass Drexler in scoring, and you at least do him the courtesy of playing till AS break so he gets to be an AS again, then sit him. The Nance deal continues to hamstring us and it doesn’t even make sense to unprotect the pick this season. I’ve always been against trading our 1sts. But if we get a top 10 pick this season, I would be all for making an all-in move by unprotecting that pick and trading Ant + those 1sts as a consolidation move.
the protections olshey allowed Chicago to put on that pick are fucking ridiculous. Locking up Blazer first round picks for 7 years...for Nance. geeeeeezuz
