Ok I said it Neil Olshey did not screw up this past summer. I understand people are upset how the season is going and feel the need to blame someone, heck this season is not sitting well with me either. Let me explain why I don't believe Neil made a mistake. #1 Better to use the space the salary than to waste it. We all know that having cap space isn't a benefit to Portland other than absorbing salary in a trade. On the surface that is a tasty asset, but in reality all you are doing is making yourself available to absorb a guy nobody else wants. Best case scenario the team get's compensated with a draft pick for doing the other team/teams a favor. E.G. taking Vaerjao and waiving him in exchange for a 1st round pick from a good team AKA, not a great pick. #2 We couldn't punt on cap space no matter what. Regardless of how the Blazers spent or didn't spend in the Summer of 2017 our capo would have been eaten by CJ and Plumlee anyway. Yeah we might have been able to leave ourselves $20 mil to spend, but we wouldn't have Turner, Crabbe, Harkless and Leonard, the last 2 have very reasonable tradable contracts BTW... And we likely would have been scrambling to fill their roles with even lesser players who also would have dipped into our mythical cap space for next season. #3 Crabbe and Turner are core pieces to what success we have actually had, and the stupid jump in cap still makes everything seem out of whack. I agree their contracts are a little larger than they should be but not in "Fire the GM" territory. #4 we preserved tradable assets that we can look to move in more fulfilling trades. Crabbe is a little beefy in the contract territory, but he has a skill set that many teams desire right now. Again Harkless and Leonard have reasonable movable contracts as do Ed Davis and the Chief.... And even though most fans have given up on him there are teams that would gamble on Meyers. I think hanging on to assets has a whole lot more value than people are giving credit for. Now with all this said, am I making excuses? No, I am simply calling it as I see it. Too often fans assume we could have done better in trades or free agency than we did. Fact still remains no Portland GM has ever really been able to land that awesome FA signing, so in my mind it's hard to pin that on just Olshey.
I don't disagree with much of what you said (although the biggest mistake he made was when he bid against himself to sign ET to that contract), but there is always a tendency to find a scapegoat. Given this shit season, whom do you place the blame on, if not Neil?
I would much rather have ET than Parsons....I think we dodged a bullet in free agency and I think Turner is playing better and better....I like the guy
I like Turner as well, but I think we could easily have signed him for 3-4M/year less than we paid him
I actually agree the he didn't screw up. But my complaints are in other areas. Pros: He did get as much as he could with what he had. He struck out several times, but got something. Cons: 1) He was supposed to be this free agent magnet with all his connections and personality. He either doesn't really have that ability or his charm doesn't work when based out of Portland. Either way it isn't working. 2) He is too invested in making his decisions look right to be open minded about big change. I agree with most that he will likely never trade Dame or CJ. It would be nice for a fresh set of eyes to come in an evaluate what to do without having so much ownership regarding players they drafted or otherwise acquired. If he makes a big change OR he leaves under current circumstances, he will look like a failure either way. The only way he comes out of this looking good is to ride the current team and pray for a miracle. That is his priority.
Given the 'Needle Mover' comment at the beginning of his time here, I think many people may be waiting for that and unimpressed with what he has delivered so far...which seems very fair.
This, I think, is the main point of contention. Crabbe and Leonard, specifically, are arguably dead weight. Personally, if a deal were struck sending them out for a couple expiring contracts (like the hypothesized Ibaka/Green deal), I wouldn't complain about that at all.
I think it can be pinned on the play on the floor more than anything. Ed Davis has been MIA for the most part this season after being fairly valuable last season. Also the Aminu experiment that worked last year didn't translate to this season, to a large degree due to his health being very sporadic. Aminus deep shot also hasn't been as consistent this season. Not really GM issues IMO. To answer someone else above. If we had t kept Crabbe as our backup SG we would be relying on Pat Connaghton instead, not sure that makes us better. The only real backfire I see is the Ezeli signing, Neil gambled on that but the way he structured that deal all he did was a single pull on the nickle slot machine.
But, yuyuza has a point. We dodged one bullet to take another. We panicked and paid ET more than we should have.
To me the screw-up was angling for free agency in the first place. It tells me he overestimated his hand and his snake-oil charms.
Pat playing in place of Crabbe? No, definitely doesn't make us better. But maybe Layman plays more minutes instead. Maybe we end up better in the long run. No way to know. The Ezeli signing I actually have no issue with, as it's basically a 1 year deal, and is probably our most valuable trade asset at the moment given that his contract is being paid by insurance at this point.
I just think the Blazers plan was geared for this season to be completely about development and that has disappointed everyone, including the front office...I'm done worrying about ET though.....I think he's going to be a good fit as he gets comfortable...playing with CJ and Dame is different from playing with Isiah Thomas and Smart....it wasn't an instant click but I can see he's going to help our team. Playing AC and Turner together off the bench was not working
