At Vonleh's age, I'm expecting him to make a huge leap in his game over the next 2 seasons...Faried won't make that kind of leap..Meyers needs to make that jump this season....I don't see Faried as an upgrade worth selling the future over
The Blazers are $1 under the Luxury tax level with a team that will likely finish somewhere in the #3-6 range. They also have 11 players who are used to being regular rotation players. So likely Vonleh goes from starting 50+ games to getting scrap minutes (not much of a chance to develop) and that leaves 10 fighting for minutes when Stotts has historically shown he likes a rotation of 9 and that 9th player only gets around 7-12 minutes. Lillard / McCollum Harkless / Crabbe / Turner Aminu / Davis / Vonleh Plumlee / Leonard / Ezeli As long as the Blazers are winning, that may work but it's not hard to imagine some frustration due to a log-jam of good players. This team seems ripe for a consolidation trade at some point.
By the deadline there will be more interesting options for a consolidation trade....we'll know who's a bad fit or disgruntled on another team by then and who's not cracking the rotation here..I think we'll make a trade then but now let them fight it out for minutes early in the seaosn
And I think Neil knows that. We couldn't let Crabbe walk away for nothing, so we had to match, but we simply have too many guards and centers. Someone has to go, so it makes perfect sense that we pair up Crabbe with Plumlee and ship them off for a big. I think it will be Crabbe because Turner brings intangibles that we were sorely lacking last year - IE ball handling and distributing. That was something that Batum provided, and we missed it last season. I also think Plumlee will be in the package because he's still on his rookie scale and I think that dude is gonna get paid. We have Meyers and Ezeli on fairly affordable contracts. Although, with that said, both of those guys are injury prone.
Ya but do you really want to wait over the next 2 seasons? Let's get Boogie or Griffin and win it now!
I've been waiting since the last championship so a couple seasons is nothing!...if Meyers makes the leap this season...we might speed up the process..Meyers frustrated Boogie when he was healthy
To be fair, we don't need them to lead us to glory. We already have one of the best leaders in the NBA.
The more I think about Lopez, the more sense it makes, especially considering the fact that we have a logjam of bigs worthy of PT, and they have very few. Meyers/Aminu/Vonleh for Lopez seems like it could make some sense for both teams.
I agree we have too many guards but not too many good guards. We are fine with Dame, CJ ET and Napier. I view Crabbe more a as a SF and we could not lose him this last summer because he is our 3rd best outside shooters. We lack outside shooting when you consider Aminu, Harkless, Davis, Plumlee, ET will all get minutes. Crabbe is essential. So if he is packaged for someone with Plumlee, that someone better be a really good outside shooter or it will be a lateral move IMO. But if that new player is really good and young then I would do it, but we would have to replace Crabbe at some point. Which would not help us this year.
If golden state wanted to trade Klay Thompson. Would you do it? He only makes 18 million until 2019. So to make the salaries match we would have to trade some combination of Ed Davis and Aminu, or Davis and harkless, or aminu and harkless, or Meyers and Aminu. I think there's a lot of combinations that work out well for both sides. I could even see it being a 3 team trade. We get Cousins. Sac gets klay Golden state gets 2 guys from us (Davis, Aminu, Harkless, or Meyers)
This is a classic example of the "why would Golden State trade Klay to us when they could just trade him straight across to Sac for Boogie?"
But I don't wanna give up Crabbe for Monroe!! Seriously though, I like our 5 wings (+Napier); I'd much prefer a deal involving our PF's/C's. In that regard, Milwauke ain't want what we got, whereas Brooklyn might actually be interested.
Problem with Cousins is that in a year and a half he probably leaves and goes someplace else. Not worth it to give up on Crabbe if Crabbe deliver on his promise. To be fair Crabbe and Harkless are two players I honestly don't want us to trade despite them being mentioned as probable trade baits a lot. I'd probably rather part with Aminu and I also like him. Ed Davis is a no go although with his contract he would be a great asset for almost every team in the league.
Because there is such a thing known as the salary cap. Steph is gonna get some stupid ass $200 mil contract. Even with the cap going way up, they won't be able to afford their big 4, 3 years from now - the repeater tax will kill them. Someone will have to go, likely Klay. The reason why no Klay for Boogie is because it won't help them with the luxury tax down the road. Klay for Embiid + Noel + high 1st would probably be more interesting to them.
Yep, it's hard to give minutes to this many players. IMO if Ezeli can stay fit we will move either Plumlee or Leonard, or both of them. Sending Plumlee to another team for a backcourt player which we could then package together with Leonard for another big would probably not be the worst idea if we are to cut down on the numbers. Aminu could also be moved with Davis slotting in at 4 with Harkless used as a back up at both 4, Crabbe or Turner covering 3 when Moe is at 4. Aminu's trade value must be very high, he is on $7M. Nets would do Leonard and Aminu for Brook easily too. Not sure I want this. The same package would get us Okafor and he is younger and cheaper.
