Olshey needs to be fired. His big free agent gets over the last 4 years are Mo Williams, Kaman, Blake, Aminu, Davis and now Turner and Zaza. His draft pick was CJ, but that's been it (Lillard was a done deal before Olshey was hired). His trades have also been underwhelming - Lopez, Plumlee, Vonleh. Time to move on!
He holds a tite ship and his teams have great chemistry. I do blame him for that. As for all the other stuff. Well, they are in the archives for all to see. I think he is full of hot air and is able to sell just about anything to this owner and have the owner jump on board with it.
Olshey sends them back to the competing teams with a curse.. Parsons knees are due to explode and Pau will now age horrifically.
So: what has been Olshey's greatest achievement? Drafting Lillard, right? What's his second-greatest?
It's not Olshey, it's Portland. This place blows dick and will always blow dick in the eyes of the NBA and it's players.
He's kind of a screwed this year. The new cap has bumped even the cheapes, most sparely-talented player's value into the heavens. His main source of talent acquisition.... trading late round draft picks for upside rotational players.... is gone. I really like the guy but I can't help feeling he was a little naive. He's always talking about relationships with agents and GM's. Well WTF does that matter in the an offseason where you have no draft picks and no fre agent will sign with you! If he's been buying time for hid career sake, the clock has struck twelve. It's Neil or bust!
You mean the part where he can't convince top-level free agents to come to Portland? Yeah, I think you're going to have to look long and hard to find a replacement who has that part of the job description down pat.
Damn, Neil is so awful. He's totally failed because he can't get free agents to choose Portland as a destination.
No. But that awful Afflalo trade is on him, and chasing washed up Pau Gasol doesn't inspire much confidence -- he's got enough real failures to damn him without the need to manufacture them.
If I had a criticism, it would be letting SO MANY players go for nothing instead of trading them for more controllable pieces while they still have value. The list of players that has left Portland with no compensation is staggering. Add to that the lack of draft picks lately and it is very difficult to be in a position of leverage. Neil has talked about cap space as a tool for a couple of years now but I've yet to see much done with it. No unbalanced trades, not consolidation deals....just 'we are going to have cap space' when hysterically that hasn't worked for a number of reasons. Maybe he thought by his pure presence that would change but I've yet to see evidence of that.
I know. He's been here how many seasons? Four? We've made the playoffs the last 3 seasons. And we were only expected to make the playoffs one of those three years. I get we're not a upper-echelon team, but we're young, we're gelling, several players have room for continued growth, and as long as we have those things, at some point, an opportunity or two is bound to present itself that can help us take that next step (think Buck Williams acquisition). We're not there yet, but we're in that area where one or two moves can really help us take a big step forward. So, I guess I'm more optimistic than most here. I'd like to see us take that next step, but I've seen enough from the current crew - they're fun to watch, they're good, they're competitive, they're good people - that I can say I just enjoy following this team.