Seriously, I'm pretty pissed off about losing Withey. He was an elite shot-blocker and defender. Fuck. I'd rather we sent Leonard, to be honest.
What's more annoying is that the Pelicans were going to buy out Lopez, so he could've been signed as a FA. The Blazers just assumed he would command more than his salary. But if the Pelicans had to buy him out, doesn't that suggest there was no market for him?
Great pickup for practically nothing. Not exactly sure why some people seem to be annoyed by this trade but you can't please everyone and for giving up nothing but second rounders Olshey has done one HELL of a job this last week. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
This deal gets worse by tiny increments. First it was for nothing, then it was for cash, then unknown second-round picks, then Withey... What's next? Is this a strategy to sell us on the trade first?
Second rounders are basically nothing. Did it cost us any proven talent? Nope. Withey wasn't even guaranteed to make the team. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
Portland has such a bad history of trading big men away, Moses Malone, Asik, O'Neal...now let's watch Withey become an all-nba defensive 1st teamer. Anyway...good move to get a competent center. Not it will be interested to see who we can get with the left-over money. I'd think we'd go after a guard or SF. I wish we would have kept Maynor. I hope we go after Nate Robinson. I've always liked him and never understood why he bounced around to so many teams. There are also vets like Calderon, and Udrih. Corey Brewer would be a cool pickup, but I don't think we can get him.
Jesus Christ, maybe Simmons is right, we ARE a bunch of fucking Soccer Moms. Jeff Withey? A week ago, who the hell was that? Oh, we picked him in the 2nd round of the draft? WE LOVE HIM, HE MUST BE AN AWESOME PLAYER FOR OUR BELOVED TEAM TO PICK HIM, OH HE'S SUCH A GOOD SHOT BLOCKER (ELITE, NO LESS!). I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HIM HOIST THE O'BRIEN TROPHY FOR THE BLAZERS?? Oh wait... now he's part of a trade for a proven NBA starting center? WAAAAHHHHHH I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY WOULD DO THIS TO MY BELOVED 2ND ROUND STEAL!!! LOPEZ IS CRAP!!! THE BLAZERS WILL RUE THIS DECISION WHEN WITHEY MAKES THE ALL-STAR TEAM WITH 39 BLOCKED SHOTS PER GAME AVERAGE! A week from now: OH, LOPEZ IS SO FUCKING AWESOME, I CAN'T BELIEVE THE BLAZERS GOT HIM FOR PRACTICALLY NOTHING, HIS PER IS GREAT AND HE'S THE MISSING PIECE THEY NEED TO MAKE A DEEP PLAYOFF RUN!!!!! Fuck Me.
Lopez versus the "average" NBA C, in advanced metrics. The .126 WS/48 is a nice number, as is a 19 PER on 18ish USG.
Here is a decent breakdown of Lopez' 2012-13 season. http://www.bourbonstreetshots.com/2013/04/22/season-in-review-robin-lopez/
And then what? How do we get from terrible to contender? Build up to .500 and break it up again? One step at a fucking time.
Not only that , but you would have Lillard wasting away his rookie contract on a bad team with the hope of lucking into an All-Star/All-NBA player in the draft. If Lillardwho he appears to be, the time is in the next two years to get another All-Star talent to go with LMA/Lillard, because in 3 years, Lillard is going to be looking at a max contract.
Aldridge may do that himself. That's my point. You could trade him now, get a great haul and most likely a top 5 pick next year in a great draft. That would put Portland in a really good position going into next year.
