Inside Access: "Nurkic is that 'third guy'"

http://www.nba.com/article/2017/04/02/inside-portland-trailblazers-quest-berth-postseason

 

If he's not fully recovered by the start of the playoffs, they better rest his ass.

 

It really sounds like they are being uber-cautious already, seeing that he played a full game with the injury. If we were truly battling for a higher seed, bet he'd be playing.

 

There is so much revisionist history here.

Neil made the trade for a pick and to get rid of Plums. It was almost universally understood that we were getting worse for the present and hope to get better for the future.

Such bullshit.

Go watch Neil's initial trade PC. He talks about the pick and Mason way more than he does about Nurk.

 

"He’s huge, and he actually sets real screens.” - Dame

 

Well it's the GM talking to a league reporter; do you expect him to say "Look, I wanted to tank. We needed to punt on re-signing Plumlee because he was going to be expensive, and he can't even set a fucking screen, y'know? Maybe Nurkic turns into someone, maybe he doesn't. I had to get in under the Luxury Tax because Moe Harkless was hitting more threes than I expected. Check out my fucking balance sheet, I'm four thousand ducats under. That's my fucking genius."

 

It would make headlines and I would be busting a gut laughing my ass off!

 

It probably is all there off-record, too; but I'm happy to accept the retroactive truth because it's at least good news.

 

It's all good even if Olshey mistakenly had a golden goose fall into his lap. Nurkic is now ours, baby!

 

Olshey only gets blame, never credit. He just threw a dart at a board and it landed on Nurkic. Lucky.

 

And it's obvious that he wanted Nurk all along because he was using the Sixers to up the offer from Denver. He played the deadline masterfully.

 

What press conference?

 

...was thinking the same thing!

 

I don't think anyone, including Neil, thought that Nurk would have such an immediate impact on our team. Not just with his own play, but on other players as well. Vonleh has been markedly better. Dame has been markedly better. CJ and Crabbe have been better. The whole team is playing on another level since the trade, and that even carried over to the game without Nurk against Phoenix. How could anyone possibly predict that?

 

He also played PHI to get DEN to throw in that 1st round pick. Or would some of you arm chair GMs rather have Jahlil Okafor and no MEM pick?

He made the trade. I don't give a shit why or how. He's the one that did it and deserves the credit. He got the younger player, he got the better player, he got him for cheap for another year and he got a 1st round pick. If that's the only great trade he ever makes, it doesn't diminish the fact that it was a GREAT trade.

BNM

 

This is why you make one move at a time. I'm glad as hell he didn't try to move two more guys at the same time in some other trade.

 

This is fucking nuts, and can't be shown largely enough.

If I want to talk about "Big Three", I think I'm actually dancing around the fact that CJ is #2A and Dame is #2B of the Big Three; Nurk is the Big #1A with a bullet here.

 

I still think it's likely that a major trade will happen this summer.... most likely before or right after the draft. I don't think we're keeping all those picks.

 

Me neither; I think they get packaged up for a lotto pick or a player. It'll be a backup center. I really want to swing for a good one like Chandler, but who knows.