because he just won a title. A year or two ago, people seemed to be ripping him as much as they are Paul now. Too involved with the team, when he should just let his hired front offic make decisions, too impulsive, etc.
Hank will confirm that I was far too patient with our last rebuild. I was very much in favor of Oden, and still think he can contribute. What I don't like is our middling talent that is older and overpaid. If your team is starting Wes Matthews, you have problems.
A starter putting up 16-3-2-1, with decent D at the 2 and 3, while shooting over 40% from 3 means you have problems? especially at 24 years old? I don't get that.
That's why we trade our assets. For future draft picks and cap space. We then hope we draft well and also hope if we overpay a great player, they'll come here.
He is, IMO, an average starting 2 guard in the NBA... which is OK, but not good enough to bring your team anywhere. If we have three average starters, two above-average starters and no bench? That's borderline playoff team. And that's where we are, IMO. Which would be OK if we had young players with big upside in our pipeline... but we don't. It looks at this point like we've squandered every pick since Batum. Ed O.
There is absolutely no need to tear this team down nothing and start over again, IMO. The Blazers have some at least three very good players in Aldridge, Wallace and Batum. They can have a ton of cap room for the summer that will give them all kinds of flexibility to sign FAs or to make unbalanced trades. Get a GM who's halfway competent and this team should be really solid next year.
No need to blow anything up. Just decline some contract extensions next year, and we're like 25-30 mil under the cap. Who are the big name 2012 FAs (outside of CP and Dwight)?
I guess you guys just are not paying attention. The big name FA's are following LeBron's lead and trying to form superteams. We will not be able to land a top FA in their prime.
San Antonio didn't tear their team down nor did LA. In fact, LA was the epitome of "good but not great" until West shuffled some pieces to first fit Shaquille O'Neal in (before the big changes limiting free agent movement) and then dealing Divac for Kobe Bryant. The most recent edition of the Lakers was also "good but not great" until they made the Pau Gasol trade. Oklahoma City and Chicago haven't yet proven to be championship-caliber and I wouldn't agree that Chicago purposely destroyed their team for cap room and lottery picks. Cleveland did and it only took them about 10-15 years to make it work (and they didn't win a title out of it). Miami is about the only team that truly tanked and made it pay off in anything like a timely manner (I'll assume they win a title before this core is finished in Miami)...and Miami already had Wade, so even them it's very arguable that they blew it all up. Miami is also not remotely a "blueprint" that any other team can even hope to succeed with except perhaps LA. Portland isn't going to attract two blue chip free agents, even if we count Aldridge as "Portland's Dwyane Wade" (and Aldridge isn't close to Wade's caliber of player). I don't think any team has really made "blowing up the team" (i.e. purposely weakening the team's talent) work in terms of turning it into an elite (championship) team in a reasonable time frame...except maybe Miami. And saying "Even Boston and Dallas have built their teams around lotto picks" is changing the argument in a very silly way...yes, KG was a "lotto pick"...he wasn't a lotto pick by Boston. I'm all for Portland trading for a prime superstar who was once a lottery pick.
Whatever they do, it's going to take some shrewd trades and likely hitting on a couple of draft picks, which usually means lottery picks and I don't really care how they acquire them -- players for picks, by virtue of a bad record, etc. -- so that brings up the elephant in the room. Right now it looks like either Allen himself or Bert Kolde are running the show, with heavy input from Nate and Larry Miller ... and since I've taken a vow of positivism this year I'll end my commentary here.
Some semi-recent lotto picks who, maybe, we'd be able to acquire in the low risk, high reward thinking, if it's lotto picks you're looking for on the team: Andrea Bargnani Tyrus Thomas Jeff Green Yi jianlian Corey Brewer Spencer Hawes Michael Beasley OJ Mayo Hasheem Thabeet Johnny Flynn Jordan Hill Earl Clark
If you don't think the front office is capable of making the right moves (and I'm not saying you're wrong, necessarily) then it doesn't matter what strategy the team employs...success always requires smart moves by the front office. In that case, Portland may as well keep this group together, because a decent team that can win about 50 games and make the playoffs is a lot more fun to watch than a terrible team.
