Giving them for shit makes no sense, it needs to be shit + prospects (in the form of young players or draft picks). I suspect that this is where the issue is. Getting a return that is deemed worth it.
Huh? Simons is a MUCH better scorer than Stoudamire was. Damon's TS% with the Blazers was like 51%. Which is better than Scoot's last year. But really bad. And even though Scoot is 6-3 and very athletic, he was just as terrible a finisher at the rim as Damon.
The only way the Blazers would not be near that tax line is by not giving these players contracts and letting talent go out for free. This would leave them in an even worse situation, just perpetual tank (See Wizards, Washington). The Blazers are trying to run a very tight line of accumulating assets while having options and retaining talent. This probably means that in order to "tank", they need to have "injuries" or they will have the perpetual purgatory of near play-in team with no upside (See Bulls, Chicago). I do not buy that "let's worry about the minimum when we get there" - that's the wrong approach imho. As I said, I believe the Blazers are going about the tank the right way, they are retaining talent on tradeable contracts and tanking with "injuries". Because they are also tanking they are not in a hurry to take any shit trade out there, they take their time and when they have a trade that they deem worthy, will execute it (as they did in the Brogdon + lesser picks for a high-upside prospect in Deni). Again, that's just my opinion. The Blazers basically have the luxury of time and they decide to use it while rebuilding instead of recklessly (imho) trading the vets for the first garbage offered.
Absolutely agree. However, there is a reason for the madness, imho. The Olshey regime left that cupboard stacked with an ill-fitting sub-standard roster around an aging superstar. Once the superstar lost the patience to wait for a proper rebalancing of the roster and talent accumulation - the Blazers went about a rebuild. Their path seems reasonable to me - long term gain for short term pain.
I think fans get impatient because the product, let's face it, is garbage. We all know it and it is understandable why fans are impatient. But, I think I can see the reason for that path. Maximizing options for talent acquisition. You either get lucky with pingpong balls when a generational talent is available or it's a methodical approach until you "get lucky" and it is going to take time...
100% agree. Thats why i think its foolish for some to have the opinion that Cronin has messed the roster up or is being foolish by not making hasty moves with the vets. Like he has some magic wand and can poof us into a lotto filled contending team in such a short time.
You will need new ownership for that. Teams that are under the minimum are not getting tax distribution per the new CBA. I would suspect that that's a management directive.
Well, if no one offers him more, he won't have a choice. The market will dictate his next contract and according to many of our posters, his skill sets are easy to find. So signing him to a contract worthy of a 6th man......... doesn't seem too far-fetched.
I want the Blazers to intelligently and aggressively rebuild, as many other teams like the Thunder and Rockets have done. Or make smart trades with cap space like the Spurs did this summer. Not acquire overpaid contracts then send out a possible lottery draft pick to ditch that same contract. There is zero strategic reason for the Blazers to have built to a spot the last two years where now all FIVE of these mediocre overpaid veterans are still on the Blazers roster today (Grant/Ant/Ayton/Timelord/Thybulle). All of your arguments of having patience with overpaid contracts, how we can't "lose an asset for nothing", and how the cap must be spent were the same stupid justifications used to defend Neil Olshey signing Evan Turner, Meyers Leonard, and Allen Crabbe. That ended up harming the Blazers ability to ever build a team around Dame, just as we're doing now to harm the ability to build a team around whoever a hopeful stud Blazer might eventually be. I'm plenty patient - but I want to be on a path to eventually improve. The problem is that we might still be 5-10 years away from finishing up this rebuild - just as we were back when Olshey was leaving the team. That's not the path to progress that we should be patient for.
Agree, but as you say the ones you're still not sure about? that the team thinks about building around, Shae & Scoot they could bet on themselves and consider a change of scenery.
Nobody said we would be under the salary minimum in October when the season start. No NBA team will ever do that going forward. I'm not sure if you legit think someone is arguing with you on this or your being intentionally obtuse. People are saying that its beneficial to be under the minimum at the end of June - then use that space to add assets around the draft/free agency. Instead the Blazers were in the luxury tax and had to send out a possible #2 overall pick to cut salary. The rebuilding Blazers don't need to hold onto overpaid veterans like contenders do - they should be doing the opposite of flipping space for assets.
this again....Simons isn't 24, he's 25, and has been 25 for 4 months. He's also entering his 7th season. He's not young by NBA standards any more. He's defined himself as a player and the rest of the league knows exactly who he is and what he is which probably explains why he doesn't seem to have much positive value I just picked this post to respond to some of the things you've been arguing one seems to be (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the Blazers are better off with tradable contracts than being at or below the salary floor. That may be true, but only if it's proven that Ant-Grant-Timelord-Ayton-Thybulle actually have contracts that fetch back solid returns. I don't believe they do and that probably means we've spent months debating trade returns that don't reflect reality....just like we spent years debating the trade value of CJ. Basically, the Blazers traded CJ + Nance for Grant + Thybulle + Murray. Then compounded the issues by giving Grant that big, bloated contract, and then matching a stupid offer sheet to Thybulle that's not progression. That's not improving the roster, short term or long term. It's just putting new paint on the same old car. There's no upside to that kind of transition. Just kicking the same damn can down the same damn road, in purgatory. The Blazers need to break the cycle by NOT holding onto veterans like Ant and Ayton and Timelord, IMO. I mean, what transactions have the Blazers done in the Olshey/Cronin era that would lead anybody to believe they would re-sign Simons to a 15-17M/year deal instead of a 40-45M/year deal? Same for Ayton. Time and again, whether it's CJ or Turner or Crabbe or CJ again or Simons or Grant or Thybulle the Blazers either bid against themselves or match dumb fucking offer sheets. Bloated contracts on flawed average players don't fetch back solid returns ********************************************* I'm also not sure how the salary floor became such a bug-a-boo (not saying you view it as such) there are only two minor penalties to being below the floor. One is that a team loses whatever space they have below the floor once the season starts. Basically, the most space any team can have during the season is 10% of the salary cap. The other penalty is that a team below the floor when the season starts is ineligible to collect luxury tax payments at the end of the season obviously, that would be a big no-no for the Vulcans, but the solution is simple as can be: a team just signs some player to a one year deal for the difference. It's Christmas in September for some lucky scrubs. The irony being that those types of contracts may be more tradable than the ones the Blazer veterans have
I am not sure how I am intentionally obtuse, the Blazers chose the option of not letting talent going away for nothing which is the only way the Blazers could have been under the minimum, and at that point, to risk the Washington Wizards perpetual tank. Once they have decided that's not the way to go, there is no way of getting under the minimum other than getting salary back. That's the CBA. The fact that you disagree with this path they took is fine, but I said that I understand their reasoning. Now I think that the OKC argument is not reasonable, that team was built during the previous CBA which is a lot different than today and started with 2 superstars to rebuild with (vs. the Blazers that had only one). They also managed to get super lucky with the SGA / PG trade. But what they did was basically traded super-stars and good role players for picks and young talent, which is exactly what the Blazers are trying to do. OKC had a 2-3 year tank because they hit the SGA trade - the Blazers basically are trying to do exactly the same from a worse starting point, but their Deni trade is exactly the kind of stuff OKC managed to do with SGA. I also want to remind you that SAS are now going into the 6th year of their tank, they maximized their tanking to get lucky for Wemby, and after they managed that - they had the good luck of Wemby - so again, nothing quick about their rebuild.
I am absolutely sure they are better off with tradeable contracts, if the contracts they have are or not, I have no way of knowing - only time will tell. I think the Blazers believe they are and they also believe that since they are in a rebuild, they are not in a hurry to trade them for any shit out there. If they are right or not, only time will tell. I do not believe however, that trading them quickly for shit at this point is reasonable. We can argue from here to eternity if the signing were good or not, I suspect that like most things, some will be, others not. All I am saying is that I understand what their thinking is and I disagree with the idea that these veterans need to be traded for shit, quickly just to shed salary. We have seen what letting talent go for nothing did to the Blazers in the past...
wut? what have the Blazers done in the Olshey/Cronin era that makes you believe Portland would re-sign Simons to 15-17M/year rather than 40-45M/year? Blazer GM's don't go by the market of the year they re-sign/sign guys the market wasn't going to give Evan Turner anywhere close to 18M/year and it wasn't going to give CJ 30M/year. It wasn't going to give Nurkic 18M/year. It wasn't going to give Simons 25M/year; or Grant 33M/year the pattern has been to not only bust the market, but bust it by a lot. For a lot of us, the goal would be to get rid of Simons and Ayton well before Cronin can give them some idiotic new contract because it sure seems likely that he will
No Olshey and no Paul Allen. Both were the driving force for giving or matching big contracts. So the only deals that are relevant to your point are Grant and Thybulle. If they don't move Grant, you will be right. If they just get one 1st for him, you will be wrong. Thybulle's contract was matched so that was pretty close to his market value and the contract is not too crazy for trade purposes. Who am I missing?
* Evan Turner's tradable contract returned Kent Bazemore. Bazemore returned an aging Trevor Ariza on an expiring deal who refused to participate in the bubble. * Crabbe's tradable contract returned Andrew Nicholson who became a 7-year/2.8M burden on Portland's cap * CJ + Nance's tradable contracts became Grant and Thybulle plus a late 1st. And Nance's initial cost is still an encumbrance on Portland's ability to leverage their own first. It might even become an obstacle to swapping their 2028 first with Milwaukee there is no upside to any of those exchanges you're talking the theory of cap-management and tradable contracts. I'm talking what Portland has actually done with both, and your theories don't match Blazer realities under the management of Olshey/Cronin
