Exactly this!!! He could have easily got the surgery and mailed it in then. I don't think his mind was made up until the moment he learned Matthews tore his Achilles. There was no benefit to postpone the surgery because he was gonna get max from any team that had a shot.
This is why I laugh at the "I told you so" crowd. Aldridge looked like he was "all in" with the Blazer organization. They claim his mind was already made up, but nothing up until the Matthews injury proved their case. So they can claim we lost Aldridge for nothing and we must blame Brass for letting this happen. If Matthews didn't go down and we made it to the second round, fans would celebrate on how Olshey rolled the dice and fielded a team that kept their franchise player. Personally I applaud Brass for having the balls to go all in, instead of pre-ejaculating and tossing talent with the first sign of adversity.
Guess what? we still wouldn't be able stop Randolph and Gasol and Damien would still struggle to play against Grizzlies defense. Portland didn't look like the best team in the league, get real. They lost the lead many times in the regular season and they didn't have the defensive toughness to be number 1. Even when Afflalo and Wes played together against Memphis they COMBINED for 12 points (Wes shot 0-7FG and 0-4 from 3), I wasn't impressed enough.
Oh, you mean Afflalo's FIRST GAME in a Blazer uniform? Hmm, probably not the best sample off of which to make a judgment. After that game, we won 5 straight, by an average margin of 11 points, four of those games against top-9-in-the-west teams, with our fourth quarter lineup (Dame/Wes/AAA/Nic/LA) providing unbelievably elite offensive and defensive efficiency. For those 5 games, we were playing like the best team in the league. Then Wes went down and everything fell apart. But for a very brief moment, we had a glimpse of what Neil had built, and it was glorious. I feel sorry for you that you missed it.
Aaron was actually decent that night with 8 points, Wes was struggling. I didn't miss anything dude, i watched every game and i still got most of them on my hard drive. It's nice to remember how they won 5 straight and all those blowouts against Philly blah blah blah, but how can they be number 1 when they were so inferior to Memphis,GSW and maybe Spurs? no way they could beat any of those teams in a series. I'm not trying to be a prick here, i just don't believe they were contenders.
I figure that since Players can officially sign contracts in about 3 hours, we ought to hear that Blazers have signed Kanter to an offer sheet sometime tonight.
I believe Olshey is showing a different finger right now to those of you who said he was sitting on his thumb.
listen to this guy. he's a wise one. i think olshey put it succinctly when he said "if i would have traded LA at the deadline when we were 3rd or 4th in the west coming off a 54-win season i would've been rolled up in pdx carpet and sent back to los angeles."
