maybe I'm confused....the way that tweet is formatted and the quotation marks makes it seem that's a quote from Payton. It's from Quick?
I agree with Quick's take. It's one @BonesJones and @hoopsjock and I share. He used us to get paid, was medically cleared but didn't want to play, and expressed desire for Cronin to trade him back to his team. He's a disgrace for that, and should be SOUNDLY booed when he comes to town.
There's a whole lot of sketchy narratives floating around this organization right now, and, in fairness, with the way this organization has performed it's earned a healthy serving of cynicism. A few things, though, are undeniable, if one is being realistic. -- Dame's "timeline" or "prime" years being wasted is overstated. He's having one of his best years coming, keeps himself in fantastic shape and is different breed in that he would rather die trying on his earn terms than win it all as part of someone else's supporting cast. If he's scoring 25 ppg in 3 years and efficient in doing so and the Blazers have used the assets they now have ton construct a better roster around him, was he really "wasted"? Is the following an out-of-line expectation? -- The Blazers have a better roster today than they did at the beginning of the week. Hart's rebounding and his attack on the fast break will be missed, but Payton barely played and the only thing he did was defense and that was spotty. Thybulle should be an upgrade on Payton performance-wise and could be a decent replacement for Hart, who only was going to be a Blazer for a couple of more months. No one talks about Arcidiacano, but he's ideal as a 8-10-minute-per-game point guard -- he doesn't turn the ball over and his 3-point shot has to be respected (yeah, he's awful on defense, but ....). And Reddish, if he can figure it out or has a coach that can define his role for him, has an extraordinary level of upside. If he even scratches the surface of that, he makes the Blazers better. We gave up Hart, Payton and GBIII for Thybulle, Reddish, Knox and Arcidiacono ... better roster fits, more upside and I think cut salary and got back six to nine draft picks along with it. -- Right now, the Blazers are 2.5 games out of the fourth seed in the West and have a pretty good record against the teams ahead of them head-to-head. They are as far out of HCA in the first round of the playoffs as the Lakers are behind them just to get into the play-in. They have three players combining for 73.4 ppg and a fourth player almost averaging a double-double and one of the best rookies in the NBA. They've done this with several players missing considerable time with injuries and a key rotation player still out. They've done this with one of the youngest rosters in the league. The Blazers are a dangerous team that might not win a seven-game series but still can win enough on any given night even to beat the very best teams in the NBA. -- The Blazers now have cap space, tradeable assets and draft resources to significantly upgrade the roster considerably over the next couple of years and a scouting department that has can take advantage of those resources. If Portland makes the playoffs, that's the goal, that's the chance and it's also an opportunity for all the young guys to get that under their belt. If they don't make the playoffs, the Blazers probably are going to have two draft picks in the top 20 in one of the deepest drafts in years, and one of those picks will be in the lottery. Of course, it might not come together, but all the gloom and doom and darkest timeline talk is out-of-line with actuality.
... and Mike Schmitz is supposedly very fluent in knowing young prospects. The fact that the Blazers have him as an assistant GM and decided not to pursue this option is pretty telling as well. If you actually look at what he used to say about him as an ESPN analyst - it is pretty clear he had questions about him and was not a huge fan, although it seems like he was always rather diplomatic about it. https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/w...-one-nba-rookie-mike-schmitz-watching-closely "Will Wiseman show flashes that he is indeed the Warriors' center of the future, like his impressive tools suggest?" Schmitz wrote. "He'll get his fair share of lobs, putbacks and highlight blocks, while being in an ideal development situation to hone in on a few elite strengths and expand his game from there. But Wiseman hasn't played a competitive 5-on-5 game since Nov. 12, 2019; and like most young bigs, he still has quite a bit of room to grow as a pick-and-roll defender and a decision-maker." https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/w...snt-have-james-wiseman-making-top-100-2021-22 "There are prospects I'm higher on long term than some of the names listed -- including the Atlanta Hawks' Onyeka Okongwu -- but projected playing time as a rookie plays a sizable role in breakout potential," Schmitz writes. "That's one reason the Golden State Warriors' James Wiseman doesn't make this list, too."
And yet, the Warriors aren't setting the world on fire and he can't even get into their rotation. I think your take is the classic "grass is greener." I'd have loved to have another actual big to play instead of Eubanks and even to push Nurk. If that was Wiseman, I'd be happy with it. That being said, Wiseman is even a bigger reclamation project than Reddish, and I don't see that much of a difference between Wiseman or five draft picks in the hands of one of the most-respected scouts in the business. It's far from a given that the improvement Wiseman makes for the Blazers immediately is even in the zip code of what the Blazers could do with all the draft resources they got instead of him for years down the road. To be fair, the reserve might also be true, but that doesn't matter because the only important thing is that Wiseman isn't the clear-cut, home-run better option. He's just an option that some people preferred for their own subjective reasons.
I think it's Quick quoting what he (may have) heard Payton say, unless I'm interpreting that incorrectly.
Sure. But what if the people who've scouted him think that you can get at least two players better than him gambling on those second-round picks OR they think they can use those second-round picks in a trade to get a player much superior to Wiseman? I'm not saying Cronin had a perfect trade deadline, but I don't know if he could have won. He gets blasted for acquiring Cam Reddish and Kevin Knox for absolutely nothing but he also gets blasted for not acquiring the same kind of player in Wiseman. If people want to be upset, not getting Mo Bamba would be the one to be upset about, not missing on Wiseman.
Every single player we get from any of those picks is going to be a guy with high upside. More than likely Greg Brown type players. Not understanding why you're using the grass is greener analogy here. It doesn't apply IMO. You take a flyer on a guy like that. And we will never know what the "clear-cut, home-run better option" is until we see what we do with those 5 2nds... NEXT year.
The grass-is-greener analogy is because I think you're assigning Wiseman more value than he actually has because he played for the Warriors, not the Blazers. Like the Warriors, with all their experience with him, somehow missed something Blazers fans see. You didn't see enough of Wiseman to assess what kind of player he might really be right now. That's why it applies. At this point, Wiseman's just a guy. He might change that, but .... That all five of those second-rounders are more than likely Greg Browns doesn't really hold up, because Brown wasn't considered even a second-round pick in most mock drafts the year he was picked. He was a guy without a position who jumped high. He was a real gamble, and, IMO, a worthwhile gamble, because of the athletic ability, but, truth be told, he was more of a reach than most 2Rs. That's kind of besides the point, anyway. The big points I mentioned that you ignored was that all you need is two or even one of those 2Rs to be better than Wiseman to justify the trade, or that those 2Rs could be used in a trade to acquire an undeniably better player than Wiseman, or that there's just so much similarity in the potential of Wiseman vs. 5 2Rs that making a mountain out of it just doesn't seem a worthwhile allocation of emotion.
Actually, I see it a bit differently. I see it as a win-win. Point #1, we were doing jack squat this year. Point #2, we had the cap space to sign him, and even if he triggered the hard cap, see Point #1. Point #3, we paid him for half a season and received FIVE second-round picks for the trouble. As I said, win-win. Gary got paid and got to return to GS, and we got much-needed draft stock.
I guess maybe one other way to say this is you seem to be arguing against your own argument. "We should talk a flyer on Wiseman even though he's just potential at this point" but "We should not have taken all the draft capital because they're just potential."
Yes--the hard cap was based on us having used the non-tax-MLE at all; trading that player away has no effect on that.
I get that the Warriors like to play small and are better at it than anyone. But still, you would think that they would want at least one center on their team over 6'9" 227.......even if he barely played. Why did they want to dump him so badly?
So just to be clear.... If someone else has them, they are better than what we have or what we acquired. If we didn't sign someone, it's because we didn't even try. If we did sign someone, we paid too much. If someone is let go by a team for cheap, they just didn't realize their talent and we will. Second rounders have no value. I checked on that, and sure enough....the league is made up entirely of first rounders. So is it time to just refer to him as GotPaidII?
