Should've declined Outlaw and Blakes option?

miller/bayless
roy/rudy
batum/webster/ime
aldridge/milsap/howard
oden/pryzbilla


IMO we should've, and then we actually could've signed milsap...or another free agent, maybe odom?

what do you guys think?

 

I'm not sure of the financial implications...especially regarding Outlaw...

But there is NO way we should be going into this season relying on Bayless to be a backup point guard...haven't we Blazers fans had enough of young, crummy back-up point guards???

 

Pritchard should have declined to sign Pendergraph. What a useless contract, signed after his season-ending injury. We could have Collins or better yet, wait for cuts at the end of camp and sign the best cut in the whole league.

 

i don't think they wanted to pay Milsap any more than what they offered. And I do think we definitely need Blake for at least this year. I don't think Odom ever had any intention of signing anywhere but LA and there wasn't much else out there. Perhaps we can still use Outlaw's expiring contract in some creative way.

I have also thought it's kind of a shame we have to cut Colllins or Udoka, but really there are only 12 active players, right? So maybe it'd be more of a favor to them to cut them.

 

I always find it fun when things I said over and over months ago finally catches on.

 

The issue isn't should we have declined them or not but rather we should have traded Outlaw when his value was at its highest.

 

What about waving Outlaw and Blake would have made Utah decide NOT to match Milsap's offer?

Hindisght is always 20/20. That lineup looks nice, but I think Utah still matches, the offer to Milsap if it was presented. And really, if we had not picked up their options, our lineup would look more like this:

Miller/Bayless
Roy/Rudy
Hedo/Batum/Webster
Aldridge/Howard/Cunningham
Przybilla/Oden

MAYBE we can still afford Miller after that. So I'll put him in there. We're worried about touches in our lineup now, but realistically, Hedo would have been signed, not Milsap. Maybe not Miller. We eliminate our best wing defender from our starting rotation.

If it worked out with your lineup, that would haev been nice, but I don't think it would have.

 

shoulda woulda coulda. I guess fans will have to suffer through a 60 win season as is...

STOMP

 

But "Blakey" and "Big Shot Trav" are part of our core ...

I remember listening to KP fawning over Steve and Travis about 3 or 4 days after the end of the team's playoff run and my blood ran a little cold; I found it completely funny (and horrifying) that he thought both of those guys were part of our longterm future and because they were "such good kids/guys" KP couldn't imagine any scenario where they wouldn't be with the team at the start of free agency. I'm not even trying to say Blake and Trav don't have value, but I was dumbfounded that KP wouldn't rather have 7.6 million in additional cap space to play around with in free agency ... then again he probably would have just gone ahead and outbid Colangelo to get Hedo for way above market value and we'd be stuck with him 3 years past his window of usefulness, rather than actually pursuing free agents that would have been the right guys.

I admire KP's ability to identify and draft some talent, but his ability to pare down the roster into well defined roles and round out the roster with complimentary players leaves a lot to be desired.

 

Yes, they should have let at least Outlaw walk.

No I didn't really care for the Hedo signing. I tried to talk myself into it but was never really sold on the idea.

The lineup would be:
Blake or Miller/Miller or Blake/Bayless
Roy/Rudy
Either one of our underperforming small forwards
LMA/Howard/Cunningham
Oden/Pryz

Seems just fine to me.

 

don't you think the strong possibility exists that he was blowing a little sunshine up our collective bums with those comments? Once he's decided to go that way (there are good reasons I could list if you like), what good would publicly hemming and hawing do? I won't be the least bit surprised if Travis and/or Steve don't turn out to be part of the longterm future following this season... I'd expect some new sunshine from KP if that turns out to be the case.

STOMP

 

I would have been perfectly satisfied if he'd said nothing, it was the fact that he seemed to go out of his way to mention them that surprised me.

At this point I don't really know what to expect from KP, I was almost certain he was going to make a move with Raef and another player or two last season before the trading deadline and I thought he'd try to orchestrate some off-season trades to help balance the roster (more hustle and role playing guys, and less young offensive minded guys who need touches and minutes to be effective) but I'm still waiting to see thinning and consolidation that I see as being essential to the long term health of this team.

I know KP is playing the GM game by saturating the roster with talent at every position, but I also think he's shown a tendency to be very risk averse ... or at least showing a lack of understanding when he should come out and make a bold play. At some point every GM has to gamble a little bit with his roster if they want to take it to the next level and that usually means sacrificing a few lesser lights in a bid to get an upper tier player. Who knows, maybe he's got it in him and he's going to start maneuvering this year, but I won't be holding my breath.

 

I am sorry - but isn't staying with a bunch of young guys next to 2 or 3 guys that are clearly going to be big-time players in this league a gamble as well?

There was a fantastic article last year on BEdge about wins per age analysis - and it was shown that this team is/was an absolute anomaly. This, right there - is the big gamble that KP is making and yet you all seem to ignore. He is gambling that his initial analysis and what he has learned since were right and that there is still an awful lot of unrealized talent in this group he already have/had.

What you are doing right here is framing the argument in the way you perceive it - but if you take a step back and look at it rationally - KP made a huge gamble there - it is just not the gamble that you wanted him to make...

 

I agree a bit, andalusian, on the gambling aspect. Is it more of a gamble to trade Batum and a contract for Gerald Wallace, and add the "proven" player, or to stick with a 19 year old kid from France as your starting SF?

 

Here's the thing, doesn't it seem just a little bit like KP is (perhaps subconsciously?) more worried about losing a player he's drafted/signed and having them go on to great success somewhere else than he is worried about making sure that he's surrounded his core with complimentary players.

He's done an outstanding job of stockpiling talent, he's done a kind of lousy job of making sure that talent is either maximized or balanced into clearly defined roles -- historically teams built this way don't last (the Baby Bulls, the late nineties, early 2000s Blazers, etc).

The fact that it worked out OK last year is something of an illusion or least was disaster averted by the fact that Greg was injured for large stretches of the season and was limited in his effectiveness due to foul trouble, the fact that Martell was out and not taking minutes and touches from Rudy, Nic and Travis, and now we've added a highly productive starting point guard who soaks up 35 minutes a night and all he did was shed two barely useful rotation players in Sergio and Channing.

My only contention is that this team is too heavy on young guys who are going to need time to develop and that's there just not enough minutes and touches for them to do that, nor enough PT and touches for them to put up the kind of numbers that are going to guarantee them their next contract. That's just asking for trouble IMO, and I have a feeling this is the year some of these issues that were held at bay last year for a variety of reasons are going to come home to roost.

 

Maybe. He did trade Jack which was, by most accounts, his consolation prize for not getting CP3 after Nash pushed for Webster and he did trade Sergio and he was willing to trade Webster before they found a loophole that allowed them to get Rudy via the Zach trade (which, by itself, was also a big gamble).

I will be shocked if there isn't some kind of a consolidation trade done at some point - simply because Blake and Outlaw will be much more attractive than Raef's contract - they are both cheap, expiring useful players and the team can add some cheap talent and a little bit of cap-space.

At the end of the day - I do not think that he (KP) does not take chances, I just think he takes chances that not everyone agrees with - sometimes it works for him (Roy, Aldridge, Batum, Rudy via the Zach trade), sometimes it does not (Sergio, Jack, Frye) and some - we do not know yet.

So far, 3 years into his tenure - we have already shown - this team is an anomaly. The way to win big is to have experience, known big stars and lots of veterans - yet, this team is so far ahead of the curve that one has to accept the idea that KP might just have a good handle about what he wants to do long term.

 

I'm worried right now that I have misjudged one or more of: KP, Roy and Nate. Something is amiss and I feel it stems from our main franchise guys.

KP may have made a mistake bringing in Miller without first cutting loose the dead wood (Outlaw and to a lesser extent Blake/Bayless). This team is begging for a consolidation trade. It seems painfully obvious that we need less players that need shots and major minutes. A couple of wing defenders and lunch pail post types are what this team needs. Guys who get boards, defend and make the occasional shot. Guys who understand that they are role players with no delusions of All-Star berths.

Then you get to Nate who is sending the worst sort of mixed messages to the team. Last night it seemed that Blake had regained his confidence...at the expense of Oden's. What the FLYING FUCK NATE? I feel like Oden will grind the enemy into hamburger, but not if he feels unsupported by his team/coach. There is no fucking way Joel should start over Oden and it's a sick joke that Nate would say otherwise. There is no way Oden is coming off the bench if this team is ever going to win a championship.

That brings me to Brandon. The game at the Glass Palace stuck out to me in that Roy got touches and shots and failed to capitalize. Meanwhile Oden, Aldridge, Webster and Miller himself all had huge games. Roy needs to take responsibility for himself. If he's a superstar MVP candidate he should be able to do it all and that means playing off the ball and getting his points where the team needs them. Roy is the one who chose to take off the summer from hoops (increasingly this looks like a mistake) and it's on him to find his own rhythm, that's not Oden or Miller's fault.

 

but what if I want my instant gratification yesterday?

just kidding, I'm in full agreement with your post

STOMP

 

Do you really think I'm all about "instant gratification?" Actually, nothing could be further from the truth, I just hold an opinion that there are some glaring flaws in the way this team is constructed; we're not quite back to Bob "I'm not a chemistry major" Whitsitt, but don't you think there are at least some parallels ... or at least the potential for a repeat down the line?

To me this is more about a team with an identity crisis right now, and a big part of that seems to be rooted in roster composition.

 

We won 54 games relying on Sergio...bayless is better than Sergio...if bayless sucked it up, we could just go with more of a 3 man guard rotation