You are correct, and I made a mistake. I have been warned before about posting without the proper amount of coffee.
that's simply not true at all yes, Dame is responsible for the Miami-or-bust posture, or at least he's accountable; I'm pretty sure that Aaron Goodwin and Pat Riley have as many fingerprints on that posture as Dame * but it wasn't Dame who made max offers to Roy Hibbert, Enes Kanter, Greg Monroe, and Chandler Parsons. * It wasn't Dame who let Aldridge and Lopez walk for nothing. * It wasn't Dame who drafted Meyers Leonard when Draymond and Middleton were available; or CJ when Giannis was available. * It wasn't Dame who spent over 340M on CJ, Crabbe, Turner, Meyers, Harkless, & Ezeli in 2016. * It wasn't Dame who made CJ untouchable in trade talks for Paul George and Jimmy Butler. * It wasn't Dame who drafted Zach Collins when Adebayo, Donovan Mitchell, John Collins Jarrett Allen, and OG were available; or Caleb Swanigan when Kyle Kuzma, Derreck White, Josh Hart, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Dillon Brooks were available * it wasn't Dame who thought it was a good idea to build upon an WCF appearance by letting Kanter, Aminu, Harkless, Curry, Turner, Meyers, and Layman go and replacing them with Whiteside, Melo, Bazemore, Tolliver, and Hezonja * It wasn't Dame who invested 7 first round picks in Arron Afflalo, Zach, Swanigan, RoCo, and Nance * it wasn't Dame who thought that trading for 6'3 Norm Powell and starting him at SF was a good idea; or that the experiment was worth a 5 year contract * it wasn't Dame who decided to put together the smallest roster in the NBA and the worst defensive one as well I think it's pretty clear at this point that Dame expected Portland to trade the pick this year after keeping it last year. Cronin said repeatedly that he and Dame talked often so it's pretty hard to believe that Dame's expectations about trading the pick weren't based, in some significant way, on what Cronin said to him. If Cronin's private words to Dame were anything similar to Cronin's public words about being committed to building a contender around Dame it's pretty damn easy to see how some bad blood was created when the pick was used to draft a PG Dame's tenure in Portland, at least the first 10 years of it, were marked by major missed opportunities dropped regularly, like shit-packed cluster bombs, into the swamp of Olshey's GM malpractice and his blind idiot love of CJ, and an apparent delusion the NBA was a 6'3 and under league. The hole Olshey dug was so deep that Cronin hasn't crawled out of it 18 months later and probably won't for years. For chrissakes, when Cronin took over the Blazers were still paying dead salary to Andrew Nicholson and Anderson Varejao it's easy to understand how Dame was OK with the tank in 2021-22 when he was injured and headed for surgery, Olshey was fired, and the team was dismantled and primed to head a new direction. But he came back from that surgery and had the best year of his career, at 32, and still the Blazers ended up tanking, again...after trading away Josh Hart...for a draft pick...they kept...after drafting Scoot....when Dame wanted more veteran help so you're just wrong...Dame didn't "bring all of this on himself". That's malarkey. He's accountable for the Miami thing, and the NBA memo, and the trashing of his brand, yes, even though Cronin isn't blameless, clearly. But the situation just didn't start when Dame asked for a trade a few weeks ago. The path to that pivot was 11 years long.
coffee makes you less prone to mistakes? What I've found is that coffee, at least the high-octane kind, just makes me stupid at a faster rate
Again, I will reiterate that Dame tanked the value of the third pick when he went on his world tour, appearing on many tv shows, always saying if Portland doesn't do what he wants then they would have a different conversation. I also said Cronin should not have said the pick was available. Many disagreed with me. Some may still disagree with me. But the lack of results and reported offers for the third pick scream loudly. Dame has dirty hands in this subject as well. He had me convinced he was gone when he started the world tour. Then he went scorched earth. His ego was hurt.
I'm not going to get into one of the hair-splitting semantic arguments you like to engage in. Implying he'd be ok with 29 teams but would only resign with 4 means 25 of the 29 teams were out of the market
This is why I really want their unprotected picks. We made the WCF then three years later we have two high lottery picks. Yeah they're a glamor market, but this happened with Kobe and Gasol on the Lakers in LA. Old teams always decline. Three years from now the Heat might be in a very bad spot.
That doesn't seem like an organization that will drop to the bottom. Kind of like Toronto. Not like the Nets.
every time someone does a recap like this of all of Olshey’s mistakes, it makes me sick all over again. What a wasted decade.
The writing was on the wall that Neil was going to waste his prime back in 2017 when he wasted two picks to get Zach Collins.
I’d register here with a new account to give this an extra like except for the fact that I have to go hurl after being reminded of all that Olshey incompetence.
The thing that excites me most about this rebuild is that we (hopefully) won't have to talk about Neil Olshey anymore.
