Sorry, maybe a bad generalization on my part. I shouldn't say it "never worked". I meant more big picture in that it never worked as a good long-term solution as it tired Roy out and he was really an inferior PG when Nate chose to go with that lineup. Sure, it had it's times with if fit well with the situation, but like Vick, it was a recipe that is good on paper but bad to the overall scheme of winning. Hence why the whole discussion should make us appreciate how nice it is to have one of the league's purest PG's in the nature that a PG should be and who is still top 10 in the league at that position in Miller. It really allowed even a team depleted by injuries to fill in that void Brandon was having to fill before and still got us 50 wins (about 10 more than we would have got with our 08/09 roster given the same injuries). It does really make it exciting to know we've got quality top 10 players at their positions in each of the positions this year.
I could see a line up of Roy, Mattews and Batum in the final minute or so. But that line up playing a chunk of minutes in the middle of the game would yield no fast break points and wear out Roy, IMO.
Wow. I'm just now catching up to all the stuff that happened this past month. We seriously overpaid for this guy. I doubt he even gets 25 mpg. $9 mil, with bonus this year????! What was Cho thinking?
sorry, I was outside the country for the past month, and am just now checking the archives over at the Oregonian. Care to explain? AH... i see it was Larry Miller that made the offer. No wonder. What a ridiculous deal (even if it's front loaded). I really don't think he's going to come close to living up to it.
The offer was made before Cho was brought onboard. Still does not make him completely clear and free, a prospective GM with his analytical prowess should have preempted this and told Paul Allen not to do it before he was hired, as his analytical methods must have been good enough to predict his new employment status.
Matthews signed his offer sheet with the Blazers on about the 8th or 9th, Cho wasn't even interviewed until halfway through Summer League and was officially hired about the 19th. Matthews was all Born/Buchanan/Nate/Allen/Miller -- however you want to assign credit/blame is up to you
Full MLE for a backup SG/SF boggles my mind; especially considering how many players we already have at those spots. I'd rather have Marty and his (now, seemingly more reasonable) contract. About Rudy, I don't really see a need on the roster to fill (we seem to have all skills/positions covered), but if we're gonna clear up some room for Matthews, we should deal Rudy for a backup PF who can score in the paint.
Yeah it is a lot of money, but at least his contract is really only completely atrocious in the first year (because of the signing bonus), after that he shouldn't be impossible to move if the need arises ... I remain pretty neutral with respect to what kind of impact he'll have on the team's overall success.
Does anyone know if Matthews could even play at the SF spot? The reason I ask is I always saw this signing as a 20+ mpg backing up some of Batum's minutes along with Roy's. I know we all call him a "SG", but the wings seem like they should be pretty interchangeable for two top perimeter defenders like Batum and Matthews.
.483 FG%, .383 3FG%, 83% FT. Very good perimeter defense. 23 years old (24 in a few months). If we were going to drop a big long contract on a role player, I'd go with somebody who could shoot efficiently, have nice perimeter defense, and still have a ton of upside. Matthews completely fits the bill. We overpaid, but I'm happy we did. Also, that we overpaid to get a high quality role player bodes extremely well for Paul Allen's willingness to lay out more cash down the road (provided he's still alive) to continue improving the team.
Not to be an ass, but why do you care what the contract was? If we had offered 75% of the MLE, we can't use the 25% elsewhere. It was a question of who we wanted to get with the MLE, and we got him. We are over the cap, and as long as Paul Allen doesn't mind paying the luxury tax, why should we care?
Really? I was under the impression that teams could use portions of the MLE to sign multiple players. Well, if we completely fuck up with this roster in the upcoming seasons and have to rebuild, or if we want to move around some pieces to get a different look, or even if we want to throw in Wes as a filler in a trade, his contract could be an obstacle. But if he shows a game that actually warrants that contract, all this is moot.
I believe the MLE can only be used on a single player. Perhaps I'm wrong. But since we get $9million of it out of the way the first year, the remaining years of the contract will likely be pretty reasonable yearly numbers, and might be very desirable in a trade.
Correct. I agree with Blazerboy30 in this. Being over the cap, we only have 1 shot at an MLE, and 1 shot at the bi-annual expception. So all we do by frontloading that contract and using full MLE is use all of our MLE on the one available player and lose some of Paul Allen's money (nothing to us fans). And later years aren't too out of alignment with what we have expiring anyway, we'll just be paying him the salary he finally would have been getting when he actually gets to his peak.
