Venting

I haven't seen one poster complain about our young talent or express the concern that, on balance, our young talent will get worse.

What folks are worrying about is the lack of clean, quick and easy contract extension for Roy and LaMarcus; the very public failure to close the deal on the team's stated number one free agent target; and the failure to convert the assets of the last year (RLEC which is now cap space, picks, cash, young talent, etc) into a powerful addition to the roster, or even a sensible consolidation trade.

What you are telling people is so great is ASSUMED. We already have that - and have had it - and all the fans know it. Things are relative. Fans of crappy teams want what we already have - a great young roster. Fans of winning teams want to add proven, quality players to take them to contending status. That would be us right now.

So far, the FO has accomplished zero in that regard. There is plenty of time to still get some things done, but the implied promises of something truly great, seem far, far out of reach at this point.

Hell, just the big push to get Turkoglu shows that any big dreams were tossed in the trash.

I am hopeful that the team can turn this thing around and get some good things done.

 

I think Pritchard's main sin is that he talks too effusively in the press. He hypes up assets like RLEC and cap space to the point that if they don't yield fruit, fans feel cheated. Even though, in my opinion, neither was ever all that likely to yield an impact player.

I don't think Pritchard has failed particularly--it was always a long-shot that cap space would land a big-time player, because it rarely does. But he talked it up so much, a great deal of fans assumed that it was a fait accompli that the cap space would be bringing in a major piece and now, if it doesn't, it strikes them as a stunning failure. The same, I would say, is true of RLEC. I always had hope that either of them might bring in a major piece, but I never thought it was likely based on history. In that sense, Pritchard sold fans a bill of goods.

On the other hand, I suppose you need to market what you have, like RLEC, in the hopes that it will raise its perceived value to the people you want to sell it off to...other front offices. So perhaps it's unavoidable.

 

For my own part, I don't want to "stand pat" on philosophical grounds, nor do I want to "make a move" on philosophical grounds. I want the team to make a move if it's good for the team.

I think just about any above-average player would be a good signing, because it's more talent with little opportunity cost (since the cap space has only a limited window and then there won't be any non-MLE signings ever after). But average or below average players aren't worth the opportunity cost--the chance to make a lopsided trade later this year.

For trades, it obviously depends entirely on what the terms are.

So, I really don't relate to the "let it bake!" camp or the "why isn't Pritchard DOING SOMETHING?" camp. Both seem bound to a rather inflexible desire. I think the best approach is to evaluate each possible move that one can find and go after the ones that benefit the team. Let it bake until a good opportunity is available and then do something.

 

I agree. And he's already talking up the cap space we've got until the trade deadline if we choose to keep it, saying teams are going to be desperate to unload salaries.
I can already sense the disappointment and meltdown once again if he continues to talk about it. We need our fruit!

 

That sounds well and good - but I have two problems with it.

First, pretty much all trades/FA signings carry an element of risk. Grant Hill was a great player and a great "character" guy...and his FA contract still turned out to be one of the worst in history because of an injury. You will never make the "right" move (or "investment", if you prefer) if you are constantly paranoid about making the "wrong" move.

Second, there is way too much revisionist history/sour grapes at work here. Everytime a rival team trades for a player, or makes a FA signing, some Blazer fans start proclaiming "that guy is a bum, and we don't want him anyway!"

Just because we missed out on an opportunity, that doesn't mean it was a "bad investment". Not every move KP makes is brilliant - and not every move made by other teams is a mistake.

 

No, but that's not the point. No one really wants to acknowledge that they will get better. It's that people are ignoring this when saying we're doing nothing to improve. That's just not true. Portland is in a different position than the teams that are making the big splashes so far this summer. We could make the same splashy moves, I'm fairly sure, but have chosen to take a more calculated approach.

Well in my eyes, that's just not true. There are other ways to improve our team: internal improvements. This summer having our trainer and other teammates workout with Oden, Batum competing with his National Team, rehabbing Martell Webster back into game shape, opening up the reserve point guard spot for Bayless, and having Bayless both workout with Oden and be a part of Summer League are all ways we're improving the core of the team NOW.

All the while they're working on extensions for Roy, which in turn, once that's resolved, they can focus on Aldridge; and, they're exploring ways to bring in the best player possible using our cap space.

Some of you seem to think it's as simple as just snapping your collective fingers to maneuver through what has become one of the more complicated summers in Trail Blazers' history.

I guess some would be more satisfied that Portland quickly traded Rudy Fernandez for Vince Carter and signed Brandon Roy to a 4-year max deal with a player option for the 5th season. If you subscribe to the above scenario I suppose you're pissed. I don't. I have issues with Vince's age and contract size, along with Brandon gaining leverage over the franchise in four summers.

 

A player option in 5 years versus no contract (the Blazer offer is 4 years) and he's an unrestricted free agent as well.

How does Roy getting a 5th year, player option or otherwise, give him leverage over the team versus not being under contact at all that season?

 

Sort of a damned-if-you-do or damned-if-you-don't paradox.

 

Explain this? The idea of getting him medically retired was to remove him from the cap earlier. Had he simply "held onto Miles" and told him not to show up, Portland would be in largely the same situation now...Miles' salary would be coming off the books next season.

I find it pretty fruitless to criticize a GM about not taking advantage of a rumour. Yes, if it was on the table and he turned it down, boo Pritchard. But none of us actually know it was, and to keep trying to assert it as a fact, until it becomes a "fact" purely from the drumbeat of repetition, isn't terribly compelling.

All young players tend to improve. Portland just has more key players who are very pre-prime and thus have more of their development ahead of them. Including one supreme talent in Oden (as evaluated by the scouting community, not me) who was recovering from injury.

When all of your best talents are pre-prime and three or four of them are pretty far from their prime, yes, you can count on significantly more "internal improvement" than other teams can.

 

What's your point?

This was my take. My original thought. Why would I post this in another poster's thread? If I wanted to discuss their take, I'd do it there. I wanted to discuss my thoughts and not his, however similar they may be.

You weren't ecstatic with what the team accomplished last season?

Never said that.

Never said that.

No, your perception of history and observations are what make you believe you're right.

 

Sure they will get better, but how much better?

Despite some people in the forum thinking he is all of a sudden a first ballot HOFer, Webster hasn't improved very much. Outlaw is another guy who hasn't taken that big step in his overall game. So if Bayless, Batum, Oden and Fernandez all prgress at their rate then that would be a bad thing.


Portland had a chance to add a PROVEN NBA player for virtually nothing and didn't do it. They claimed it was because of the wonderful deals they could get after the year because more teams would be in financial ruins. Now they are saying if they don't sign someone it's no big deal because more teams will be in financial ruins at the trade deadline.

Another thing you seem to be bringing up when talking about the team is our young guys. There is no mention of Blake, Outlaw, Webster. Those are the players that need to be upgraded.

As for Carters contract, it is the same length as Webster's, and having it wouldn't have hindered us in any way.


Again, I think the reason some of us are mad is because we have been told for 2 years that this was the summer. So anything less than a HR is a big let down.

 

So Kerry Eggers' source doesn't count. Adrian Wojnarowski makes things up Vecsey-style now? Mark Stein? Is Canzano the only one we can trust to report now?




Outstanding find.


I would much rather have Jarre....er wait, I mean Channin....er wait, I mean Travis that Devin Harris and Brandon Bass.

Good thing KP doesn't overvalue his guys.

Then again, we didn't hear that directly from KP, it wasn't recorded or notarized, so it didn't happen

 

Getting Devin Harris and Brandon Bass for Frye, Jack and Outlaw... ugh. I try hard every now and then to forget that offer was ever on the table. Please let it not be true.

 

If you're not saying he should have foreseen it, why again is this relevant? Throwing as much stuff against the wall as possible, hoping something sticks? I thought the idea of this was to isolate the mistakes that Pritchard has made that fans should/could be legitimately frustrated about.

Did you read the Eggers' article you linked? Some sources said Portland was after Kidd, a Tribune source says that they were after Harris. That clears it all up! And, in the end, that "Tribune source" says that the deal "died on the vine" due to Harris' poison pill provision, not because Pritchard was unwilling to give up Outlaw as that favourite forum canard claims. The source explicitly speculates that Portland could have "worked something else out," but that is, as I said, phrased entirely as speculation.

So, well done. You've nicely proven my point that this is all rumour and conjecture.

As for Wojnarowski and Stein, yes, they traffic in rumours plenty. They don't have to "make things up Vecsey-style" in order for their rumour-mongering to, in fact, be rumours. Both of them are pretty clear in those articles that they're just reporting what sources say and that there's no certainty around any of it. There are a hundred of those types of reports per year. Talks happen constantly...actual, on-the-table deals are much more rare.

Because all young players don't improve, especially when you draft ones who arguably aren't even NBA-caliber (like Seung-Jin, Telfair, Monia, Khryapa, etc). I said that young players tend to because there have been plenty of studies showing the average development curve, which is a bell curve (peaking around age 27-28). Obviously, some players deviate from the average, but it's far more rational to use the average to base expectations on then some cherry-picked examples.

Oden, Batum and Fernandez are all already legitimate NBA players, something that couldn't be said for Ha, Telfair, Monia or Khryapa at the starts of their careers. Thus, it strikes me as far more likely that they will progress like most pro athletes and less likely that they will progress like certain wash-outs. Bayless wasn't a legitimate NBA player in his rookie season, so one can legitimately be worried about the bust risk with him, but he also didn't get a real shot so that may (or may not) be a mitigating factor.

It's not guaranteed that they all will improve, but I think the overwhelming probabilities are that Portland will see much more internal improvement than other contenders or near-contenders.