Ignoring the Millsap part, I'd take Thabo, maybe along with Splitter's expiring, in exchange for...I dunno, Meyers and change?
Man. I bet there are a lot of sleazy college dropouts who majored in sports journalism getting paid to astroturf trade rumors by various agents right now. I wonder what the going rate is? This must be like their Friday "Stripper Flight" moment....
Yup, an NBA Front Office would totally use Bleacher Report as a smoke screen. Is everytime I suggest a random trade on here a smokescreen too?
If I remember correctly; in the first "whispers" thread, or maybe it was a TBpup thread, it was said that Blazers brass was divided on which direction to go. It seems to me that if they were fairly certain they could get Butler or George, then there wouldn't be any confusion. Match one of those guys up with Lillard/McCollum, add another complementary piece, and you should at least be a team that puts up a good fight in the playoffs every year. But if you don't think you have a chance or it turns out you didn't ever really have a chance; then I can see it's a problem. What if they passed on Cousins because they wanted to save their assets for Butler or George, and now they don't get them. I don't know if Cousins would have made them a contender but it sure would have put them in the playoffs every year and it sure would have been a more exciting team. Now that they passed on him and if no Butler or George, where do they go. It's one of the problems with drafting four year players, you can't really build around them with draft picks.
Nurk has so far had 20 good minutes for us. The book isn't written on what he will or won't do as a Blazer -- that said I don't like Okafor or Chandler much.
Yeah, it was a bit of a tease. What concerns me (or maybe "concern" is too strong of a word?) it's what will he do when he's not motivated to give a big "F-U" to Denver for trading him? I listened to a couple of Denver people on podcasts around the time of the trade and there seemed to be a narrative that Nurk is a bit of a pouter and is kind of mentally fragile when things aren't going his way. That is to say, I wonder how he's going to look when the honeymoon phase is over? Hopefully those assessments were exaggerated.
Easy solution, hire his dad as the big man coach so he's close at hand to kick some ass if lil' Nurk slacks off.
I think more than anything, he's a 22 year old big kid who lost his job to a guy better than him....I've heard Denver has had a toxic locker room for a long time now...Portland has leadership and support in the locker room...I think this is the difference maker.
hopefully he grows and matures from his Denver experience, he's 22 and seems like a decent guy who can play and might have a bright future here. If he doesn't then we have lots of options because he's cheap for this yr and next and if necessary we can wave good bye at just about any time
Eliminating Nurk from the equation, leaving just the Chandler rumor - if true, that's damning evidence against Olshey. I like what I saw from Nurk, but if that trade was never made, and his name was never mentioned, I'd be irate at any acquisition of Chandler. I/we don't know if Olshey's interest in Chandler was true or genuine - but if it was, if he prized him above Nurk and/or Okafor, he's got to go. There are just too many instances of Olshey targeting a crap player as his top priority.
