This piece of shit cake was half prepared and you burned it to a crisp. What an absoultely abysmal offseason. You paid Turner/Leonard/Crabbe about 10x what they were worth. Everytime this team faces a good opponent they go home with shoe up their ass. Fire Neil and get a real GM rather than a soap opera star.
Dude your threads are a joke. You should stop. Hopefully Blazer management doesn't read this board because they could rightfully not give us anything or do anything for us because of bullshit like this.
Although I'm frustrated with how we've looked to start the season, despite the decent record...We have a top 5 GM in the league, Olshey isn't the problem.
Olshey has done a very good job of assembling something decent out of virtually nothing. The problem is the make-up of the roster. I've been harping on the redundancies for the past year... This team will never be much better than middle of the pack until some tough decisions are made. The problem is, we paid for greatness this summer, in the process dramatically reducing flexibility and increasing expectations.
What would have been the benefit of not resigning our free agents? Someone else would have given them this money (in Crabbe's case it was on paper) and we would have been left without player. At least we now have some players to offer in trades.
It sucks that we are struggling. It's easy to place blame. I'm scratching my head at this season so far. We replaced, Henderson, Roberts, Alexander, Montero and Kaman with Turner, Ezeli, Napier, Layman, and Quarterman...how did we get worse...maybe we should have resigned Henderson instead of signing Turner.
Olshey has a great drafting record. And he's been decent with trades. Where he's been poor has been with free agency. Turner signing looks terrible at this point and he's already been saved a couple times from himself (Hibbert, Parsons).
Neil is a good GM and we are lucky to have him. But no, his free agent signings have not been on point. There are so few ways for the Blazers to acquire talent..... taking some calculated risks is part in parcel with the job.
We got worse because the team isn't giving forth the effort it did last year. That's not Olsheys fault. Turners shot has also been off, that's not Olsheys fault. He's overpaid, but would also be helpful if he played the way he did for Boston. Ezeli also hasn't played yet, that was a great signing.
I'd argue any GM would fail in free agency for us. I agree he may have overpaid some players, but I suppose when all the big time free agents basically rejects you that is what happens. Dude has been pretty good at drafting and I'm still reserving judgement on trades (the Afflalo one blew). I don't think he's the problem at all.
As unpopular as it's always been I've never been high on him. He's got a lot of fans and an owner fooled. I've been forced to go with the flow. Because everyone and their dog loves him. He has way overpaid a few of these players and I can't see ANYONE taking their contracts.
It becomes clearer to me by the day that CJ is a stud who needs his own team to realize his potential, and we need a massive upgrade in the front court if we have any hope of maximizing Lillard's window. Most players don't get to spend their entire careers in one city. CJ is a talented property with a perfect personality locked in on a long-term contract (something very, very valuable to a young franchise trying to emerge from years of disaster.) At some point we have to trade him for Boogie or some of Philly's extra bigs. Philly seems more likely because of the different conference. You put CJ next to Ben Simmons and Embiid, and holy shit that team is scary. He's the perfect perimeter compliment, offering scoring, maturity and a franchise face that's not associated with all the losing. We take two of the following: Okafor, Nerlens, their upcoming draft pick.
Trading CJ for Philadephia bigs would be the worst business ever unless it is Embiid (which it won't be). Even for Cousins it would be insane unless he immediately extended.
Not really sure what NO could have done different? The talent is what it is. It's not like he didn't try to get Whiteside.
This will take some Trader Bob type of finagling to remedy. I know people didn't like his chemistry comment but that team was one bad quarter/FT parade away from winning a title. At least they were a contender and in the conversation. This team is HORRIBLY out of balance. Dame and CJ dominate the ball, (CJ especially pounds the ball into submission on almost every tough) while everyone else screens or defers the ball back to one of the 2 guards. There is almost no threat from anyone else even if they are capable. They have zero inside presence, no toughness in the paint outside of an occasional Ed Davis tussle, and for some reason, they are not playing a shard as they did last season. There is some serious work to do with this roster with a number of players who are looking like worse and worse contract every day in the system they are running.
NO TRADE CJ! Give up Moe, Turner, Mason or Meyers for a big man. Cj is a future superstar, he and lillard have chemistry and a big friendship.
I'm not advocating a trade of CJ but at the same time, he and Dame are so ball dominant it leaves almost everyone else out. No other player ever gets a rhythm because they just don't see the ball very often and CJ's far to frequent no-pass, over dribble possessions are getting a bit frustrating. I get that they are friends and have good chemistry but as I've said since early last year, they remind me of Monte Ellis and Stephen Curry when they were first paired together. Tons of offense but absolutely no defense. The somewhat saving grace of those two is they passed much more than Dame/CJ do. The Warriors had to move Ellis to take the next step and become a more balanced team.
For one thing, most teams value 17 million in cap space over a scrub that takes up that 17 million in cap space. Teams are much more sane about a players value during trade time, than they are in their drunken stupor to sign free agents, when they are desparate. Also, you dont' want guys taking up 10x what they are worth, because it come come bite you in the ass later. See the Thunder letting go of Harden for example, so they didn't have to pay luxury tax. They just pittled away a dynasty.
