Exclusive Is Joe Cronin a good GM?

I consider two FRPs whether they're in a weak draft or not to be an overpay for what the value around the league for Deni was and still is. I try to be level headed about Malcolm and think of him as neutral salary filler.

Unless it was negative trade value then I think we missed an opportunity for a clean break and more reps (PT and/or usage) for the guys who we are still hoping to get a lot better.

Same deal as with Ant. If we could have got that one FRP we should have, simultaneously getting that same clean break and those same reps freed up. On both Ant and Jerami, Joe can prove me wrong and get good deals for him at the trade deadline. I'd love to be wrong about these two.

They won the fucking chip. We got one FRP and we'll see if we get any value from the players. His value to the Celtics has already been determined to be huge.

I hope you're right on this one. Fingers crossed.

I hope you're right on your line of thinking but Ant was still a restricted free agent and we didn't for one second make him prove that he could have gotten what we gave him and most reporters around the league didn't think he could have. We bid against ourselves I think we did the same thing with Nurk but won't quote to disagree with you on that one because he wasn't restricted. Ant would have more value the lower his salary would have been.

Damn I think he is a helluva lot more valuable in the NBA today than Deni is. So more than a first and I'm not sure we got more than a first. If we get positive value in a trade for Tisse, I'll be happy to be wrong.

I liked NAW then and belly ached about only getting the bird rights to an injured Ingles wasn't enough if we intended to re-sign Ingles and the way Joe chose to take the franchise this move was fucking terrible. He had a lot of value as a prospect around the league at the time and just that next summer Cronin didn't re-sign Ingles and showed that prospects had a ton of value to him when he chose to draft and keep Shaedon instead of doing what he could to get a win now piece to put with Dame.

Overall I think all of the things you said are well thought out and my opinion on them just differs from yours. Nothing you said is necessarily wrong. Joe is still our GM, so I hope you are right and we get some good moves at the deadline and have a brighter future.

 

OMG -- Nate just stop your making yourself look like a tool cause defending Cronin is just garbage and it looks like the fans are starting to come around to this so your starting to be in the SS Cronin and it's sinking and the people around you are jumping ship ( realizing the truth ) but you have your bucket trying to stop the water from sinking the ship having Cronin's ass -- your so funny and kind of sad but you do you.

 

I mean, we had Dame when Olshey was fired. So yeah. We're far worse off now.

I think Dame was probably going to demand out anyway, so it's tough to use this as a gauge.

 

lol k

 

We had Dame CJ Nurk Roco Nance Powell Ant

It was 4 years ago so those guys were worth way more back then than today. But there was a lot of opportunity to trade most of them and get real value back for a quality rebuild.

Instead we now have Deni Grant Ayton Camara Thybulle Murray for them. Just a bunch of irrelevant shit. Don't see how anyone could consider this good work by Cronin over the last 4 years.

 

I'm not sure their has been opportunity to do much else. Maybe draft differently... We couldn't keep those guys, and everyone knew that. I simply don't think there were better options available and keeping them would have prevented us from tanking and getting the opportunity to draft as high as we did.

Once Dame demanded out that's the path we were on. There wasn't much else to be done.

It was just a shitty situation to put all of those short guys around Dame. It hurt all of their value.

 

Yes. First GM in Blazers history, really, to full out tank 4 years in a row to get us the young talent needed to put together a truly competitive team. He also finally added size. The people who say no aren’t aware how good Scoot/Sharpe/Clingan are. The only way to get players like that in Portland is to tank.

 

Deni, Grant, Camara, and Thybulle aren’t irrelevant. They could all be key players on a contender (hopefully us in a couple years). Ayton was a misfire, his only really bad move.

 

Ayton brought in Camara. And we only had to give up an older, arguably less good player with the same contract length.

I'm not sure how that's a misfire.

 

I don’t think he’s a bad GM, so…sure

 

If we really wanted Camara, we could’ve gotten him without swapping centers.

 

Why not swap away an unhappy old and oft-injured center for a younger guy who has contributed significantly to a deep playoff run? Especially when their contracts are the same length?

Maybe they wouldn't have sent Camara if we wouldn't take that big contract off their hands?

I still don't see how any part of this is a negative...

 

Agreed. While I don't think Ayton worked out, it was still the right gamble. Camara was included and he's a part of the core so that part is a success.

I actually think the value given for Deni was pretty good. Could you get Franz Wagner for 2 firsts and Brogdon? No. I think they are pretty close in terms of value. Of course, that Bucks pick could turn out to be the 2nd pick and then it would bite us in the ass. No way of knowing. I think the value was pretty good, though I question if we were in the position to go for it.

It's not hard to be a bad team and lose and get high picks. Cronin did that. He already missed on Jalen Williams over Shaedon. And I'm a fan of Shaedon, but there's no way we can say he's better than J-dub. I like Scoot and Clingan to an extent, but it's too early to call those picks a win.

People are correct to say the two timeline thing is absolute trash. It is. If we never kept these vets, we could have gotten arguably equal or more picks with bad contracts to take back in trades. It makes no sense. Sometimes you have to learn to let go. Cronin doesn't understand this and with the new CBA, it will be much more difficult to offload these guys.

If he gets Coop, we'll all shut our mouths and go with it.

 

Agreed on all accounts.

 

Cronin is much better than blazers fans let on.

ant, Grant and da are just poo poo

 

Lol looking at some of these takes missing sooo much context….

 

Cronin signed both Grant and Ant, then traded for Ayton then held onto them all this time since when they obviously don't fit.

I don't understand how you can be strongly against those 3 yet support Cronin.

 

I think Joe has drafted more defensive talent than Neil ever did but the problem is, he lost Dame and maybe over valued Scoot and Shaedon a bit. We don't know yet. They both could make a leap, but the only guys left from Neil's reign are Chauncey and Ant.......I'd start there with a rebuild and wipe the Olshey slate clean. I think the front office is ok but Joe as it stands will go down as the guy who lost Dame, not the guy who discovered Scoot. I like that Joe made the Blazers bigger and added better bench players than we are used to.

 

I can't tell what is worse.

 

Joe would be the scapegoat for losing Dame. It was becoming a toxic relationship no matter who you want to blame for it.

We were always disappointing as a product with Dame, at the end of the day. Making the playoffs each year means little when you get dominated once you face a team who actually has a team plus a strategy.

Mind numbing iso ball was the peak of what we got in this era. I think people just need to let go that Dame was never going to get us anywhere and we held on to that dream way too long.