Aldridge When it comes to FA, yes, although it's exaggerated imo. Crawford turned down NY for Portland and Sacramento. Why? Money, and Paul Allen has it. There's also trades as well. Do I have an exact plan? No. Do the Blazers have the assets and cap space to turn the roster around? Yes.
Who gives way to James Harden at the SG spot... You want to play semantice here? First off, I am not convinced that if OKC had Matthews right now that they would start him over Sefolosha to begin with....but he certainly wouldn't play more minutes than James Harden who plays the majority of TIME at SG...
The Spurs won a championship w/o Ginobili and Parker. Making huge lopsided trades puts a team over the edge to win rings. That's just the simple fact of it all. Either that or a top 3 Draft Pick. everything else just puts you in mediocrity and first round exits. We have draft picks and tons of cap space. The only way we can get good in the draft is to acquire a top 3 pick in the draft and that's not even a guarantee. So either get a top 3 pick or aim for star players. Frankly, I think we could probably do both immediately. The last Blazers team that was good and got far in the playoffs (past the first round) only did so after stacking the team with talent after a bunch of trades.
and when they don't work, then what? No one is saying you shouldn't TRY to go after D-Will or INQUIRE about top tier players, but you better have a more realistic strategy ready to go when those probably fall through....
Matthews would start and Harden would continue to be a great 6th man. They could also easily be on the court at the same time as Harden can run the point a little bit and set teammates up. Sefolosha over Matthews? Please... Matthews is a perfect glue guy in a starting lineup. He doesn't need the ball to put up 20pts in a game.
You do everything humanely possible to make it happen. Like I said, go big or go home. "realistic strategy" just gets "realistic results" meaning waiting around for the draft lottery year after year to determine our fate.
Yes, and now they need 1 or 2 more.... and Crawford was a mid tier, at best FA, whose had choices b\t NY, POR and SAC....think about that...He could hardly be called anything resembling a top tier free agent... Turn it around to what exactly? A middling team that has to battle just to make the playoffs every year with no hope of advancing ANYWHERE in it? Do you want them to build a championship team or a mediocre team w\o any serious ambitions of winning a title? b\c you are not going to win a title trading good draft picks for middling NBA talent....
I highly doubt that and you severely overate Wes Matthews...maybe you are related to him or something...
In this draft they are.... You got 9 player who were rated in the top 5 of high school prospects for thier year in this draft...15 who were in the top 10...and a pretty high percentage rate 60%+ of those players have either become or are on thier way to becominf good\great NBA players...There is a pretty strong correlation there....
Its a strong draft, but in the top 3, the talent is of course in the category of more likely to become a star. We're not even guaranteed a top 10 pick in the draft or two picks here. Like I said, "just wait for the draft lottery".
lol I don't...ask OKC, they love the guy.... He is as good or better of a defender than Wes Matthews is... But irregardless, the poitn is Matthews would play limited minutes for that team...LIKE he should be playing limited minutes for a GOOD POR team...for a BAD POR team he plays a lot of minutes....
Agreed. Top tier FA aren't available every summer. That said, while markets matter, most players prefer money and a situation that looks like a good one That's a silly thing to say considering we haven't seen the moves they made yet. I'm sure like most fans, I want a contending team. And where did I say "trade draft picks for middling talent". Nice, you're creating arguments now.
Well, 5 of those kids were rated in the top 3 of thier respectve HS class.... POR may end up at #6, probably #7...I'd say there is a good chance they will be able to select 1 of these kids for sure, potentially 2...Furthermore they could always use both picks to trade up IF they REALLY liked a player... Much better way to go than trading those picks for the likes of Gortat, Lowry, Evans or Iguodala....
No disagreement that the draft is still loaded after the top 5 are gone. Those picks are valuable and can net us an allstar or fringe all-stars to play with LA or great talent to make us look like a marquee place for a top FA to come too.
I would rather have 2 of those three (not evans) then our picks. Those are all fringe all stars while the players we select will be lucky to be fringe all stars.
I'd say debateable...Matthews has better offensive stats for sure, Sefolosha is regarded as a top defender...For PKC with Westbrook\Durant out on the floor they probably value the defense of Sefolosha...but again this all moot anyway, as the reality of the situation is that Harden plays the majority of the minutes and Matthews wouldn't be digging into his minutes at all.... Honestly I am not a huge fan of either one...That is why I wouldn't mind seeing POR trade Matthews away for mid 1st pick....He is not a key player that you absolutely must have (or would be hard to acquire a player of his type) on a championship team...Get the key pieces first and then worry about players like Wes Matthews after that...
