Sign & Trade - it's our only hope...

Mathews was not apart of the Afflalo trade. But Afflalo ended up not being worth the draft pick, let alone the Will Barton component. Some like to give him the out that "hindsight is 20/20", but I've noticed no one gives that out to a GM that drafts bust after bust. The most important part of a GMs job is to predict how a player will perform for a team, whether it be through draft, FA or trade. So far Neil has done pretty good in the draft...but the rest of his resume is a mixed bag.

And of course, we don't know everything he tried to do behind the scenes. But we know his signings have not been his "plan a".

 

Yes, his talk has been bigger than his walk.

 

Understanding that Cap Space doesn't and hasn't worked, should have led to another approach. If you know have a very good idea that what you have isn't of value, then it is your job to figure out what does work. Unbalanced trades, trades before letting players go for nothing so you at least have another asset, and not trading away so many Draft picks when that is one of the only way you have of maintaining some control over players.

I'm not doubting Neil's effort. It just seems that the 'cap space' route that fans have been sold for the last couple of years had very little chance of success and many of those fans already knew it.

This is a partial list of players the Blazers had that they received absolutely nothing for in return. There are good reasons that is the case with some of them but that is a LOT of talent in some cases just to walk out the door without getting anything back. Teams like Portland just can't afford to have that happen.


· Jamal Crawford, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Jonny Flynn, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Joel Przybilla, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Craig Smith, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Hasheem Thabeet, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Dan Gadzuric, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Justin Holiday, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Dallas Lauderdale, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Jared Jeffries, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· ThePortland Trail Blazersrenounced their free-agent exception rights toElliot Williams.

· ThePortland Trail Blazersrenounced their free-agent exception rights toNolan Smith.

· ThePortland Trail Blazersrenounced their free-agent exception rights toEric Maynor.

· ThePortland Trail Blazersrenounced their free-agent exception rights toJ.J. Hickson.

· ThePortland Trail Blazersrenounced their free-agent exception rights toLuke Babbitt.

· Earl Watson, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Mo Williams, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Arron Afflalo, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· LaMarcus Aldridge, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Joel Freeland, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Alonzo Gee, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Robin Lopez, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Wesley Matthews, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Dorell Wright, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Mike Miller, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Tim Frazier, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

· Anderson Varejao, previously with thePortland Trail Blazers, became a free agent.

 

http://nyloncalculus.com/stats/rim-protection/

Keep going down the list. Millsap is incredible. Analytics love his defense and his raw stats are some of the best in the league. ATL is smart and no longer have a clog inside, so they prolly won't let him go.

Ezeli's rim protection numbers are really good, but he only played 45 games last year and seems injury prone. I have no interest in gutting the team for him. John Henson is another similar dude who played even fewer minutes last season, but he's a great rim protector. We missed out on Aldrich.

 

Ezeli only makes sense if he takes a contract that doesn't require us to renounce anyone except Meyers, and he probably won't. I'm not even sure I want to renounce Meyers to get Ezeli either.

 

Eh...did they really? I know that, yes, we made it to the 2nd round. But c'mon - that really did have more to do with who we faced (or didn't face), than the quality play of Aminu/Harkless/Davis/Plumlee. Aminu was godawful for most of the LAC series and Davis was largely invisible. Both of our recent second round appearances had more to do with luck than truly being a quality 2nd round team.

 

Well...I think the best use of our cap space might have been in a lop-sided trade to a team needing to make space. Of course, I have no idea how hard Neil looked at those options, or if there were any viable options of that nature that would have made us better. All I know is, I'm pretty much over trying to use cap space to lure a big-time needle-moving free agent. At the same time, I have to wonder how often players like that are traded for, and how often traded for space? Not often, I'd wager. (See sig line below.)

 

Totally agree with this. I recall people being certain that we would be a Free Agent destination so long as we proved to be plucky, young upstarts. My rebuttal has always been that we won't draw Free Agents until we make the WCF. Once that happens - and ONLY once that happens - will impact players want to sign with us. It is known.

But beyond that, even operating on hope, there just weren't any names this summer worth taking a stab at. Aside from a couple key names, this Free Agent class sucks. There were two huge red flags regarding Free Agency and Neil chose to ignore both.

However, I think he has until the Trade Deadline to salvage the mess he's gotten himself into. He now has more tradeable assets than he's ever had. He needs to match offers on at least Harkless and Meyers. Then let's see if he can flip some combo of our players into a difference-maker. IMO he has to trade at least one of Plumlee/Davis. And since we're no longer going to have any cap-space for the foreseeable future "value contracts" don't hold any monetary value for us, but might hold value for another team looking to create future cap space.

 

When Wes went down the entire long term plan changed. That AA trade could have been completely different had we not lost Wes.

 

Bump.

 

Who on God's Green Earth wants Meyers Leonard for anything? Outside of Dame, CJ, Plumlee and (on some nights Crabbe,) our other players are basically throw ins. Neil overvalued this roster and then threw a ton of money at it. Let's hope in the offseason we can move for some low risk/high ceiling types and a couple of prospects. Looking at the success that Dallas is having with the D league, I'd like us to try more of the 10 day contracts. t know Neil doesnt really believe in the D league. Think it might be time to kick him to the curb? Ya think!

 

Man, I really wish I could like my own post.

 

You and @Fez Hammersticks both.

 

Honestly, I think many will change their tune once we get a look at contracts are handed our this summer. Cap going way up again.

 

If the money is as ridiculous as last year, maybe, but I still like our odds with some restructuring in trades and adding talent through the draft. If we play the long game we might be able to salvage this group. We aren't doing jack for the time being.

 

Haven't we been down the developing path before?

 

By $12M - $13M, around 14-15% of current cap, not over 30% and $24M like last year. It won't cause teams to hand out contracts which are anywhere near as crazy as this year.

 

I thought about this and I think the Bulls need him...Mirotic is shooting horribly from deep...they need scoring and youth...Wade is no spring chicken. The Mavs need to replace Dirk's outside shooting too...there are some takers for Meyers out there...just don't expect a huge return...Hawks could use him too.

 

sure, but we're now 1.5 years into a rebuild and made the playoffs year one...Olshey was clear about 3 year windows to contend...this one isn't as good as the last one.

 

Well, Leonard can give them the youth. Not so much the scoring, or anything else, though.