The super Melo to Portland thread + The Big Blockbuster

I'm just comparing similar salaries. Replace Vonleh/Meyers/Turner with Batum and we would have this team with ~ the same salary:

Dame/Napier
CJ/Crabbe
Batum/Harkless
Aminu/Davis/Biggie
Nurkic/Collins

That is better than the team we currently have.

Olshey hasn't had that many good player trades. He's good at getting assets though...

1st/Barton for Afflalo

4 seconds for Robinson

Batum for Hendo/Vonleh

 

I would rather have Lillard, CJ, Batum, whoever the f they want at 4, and Nurk. Fill in the rest with cheap ass contracts.

 

Yeah as long as he played SF and not PG. His handles are always needed as a 3rd option. But when he tried to run the offense he forced too many stupid passes trying to make the highlight reel.

Turner does that as well but not to the extent Batum did. And quite frankly Turner has better handles and is a better passer. He just doesn't have Nic's outside shot. But he is a hell of lot better attacking the rim than Nic.

 

There was no indication that he was going to walk. He was adamant on his love for Portland even as he got traded. The Blazers turned around and (surprisingly) won 44 games that season. If the same thing happened with Batum instead of Hendo/Vonleh we absolutely could have gotten him to resign. The Hornets only won 4 more games than us that year and Batum even took a discount.

Even if he signed the same deal with us it wouldn't really prevent us from offering Nurk an extension (assuming that trade still went down). It just means they would probably have not signed some combination of Aminu/Harkless/Crabbe/Leonard/Turner, which in hindsight - probably a good thing.

 

You say that.... but we matched Crabbe

 

Big suke and Isacc Ropp will talk about Ryan Anderson after the break on 1080 the fan.

 

A few caveats:

Don't neglect context on the Afflalo trade.

Really? Robinson for a pair of future second-round draft picks and the draft rights to Kostas Papanikolau and Marko Todorovic was a good gamble on a top 5 pick.

And the jury is still out on Vonleh who Next to Nurk has the highest upside on the team.

 

I don't think you can make an argument that Turner is better than Batum at anything. Turners assist % in his lone season in Portland was lower than Nic's in his last 3 with Portland.

His handles may be better, but it sure doesn't lead to any meaningful results. Batum was at least a difference maker in many other aspects of the game.

 

FIFY

 

None of those deals were good deals in hindsight. I don't really care about the perception when those deals went down. You can consider the context but still look back and admit that they didn't work out.

 

Stop using hindsight...

The Afflalo move was a great trade at the time. We were 3rd in the league, red hot and rollin'. Take that hindsight somewhere down the street and check it at the door.

 

Seemed like that was weeks if not months in the making.

 

Are you seriously going to tell me that Nic was better at attacking the rim when he so often refused to do it? ET is very effective at taking his man into the post and scoring on him on the baseline. And like you said his handles are better. Those are two things.
I also think ET is stronger and plays more physical but that is just my opinion.

 

He left out the biggest acquisition.
Robin Lopez.
I don't even remember who NO traded for Rolo, but it was huge.

 

It wasn't, Afflalo sucked ass with us, even when he was given the opportunity to start.

But even if it was, bad moves should still reflect on the person that made the call. Another example, in the Robinson trade, Houston knew he sucked and was able to get a fairly good return on him. Olshey didn't and thought it would be a good gamble.
Looking back, Houston got the better end of the deal. Shouldn't that reflect well on Morey and not well on Olshey? Public perception at the time a trade occurs is useless, the kneejerk reactions made by fans and the media when a trade is made usually turn out more wrong than right.

It's like the people that argue to this day that Oden was the correct pick over Durant, that every GM in the league would have picked Oden. You can keep believing that, but you're wrong.

 

Withey.

 

Maybe, but that skill and his skillset in particular doesn't fit the team as well as Batum's. Just my opinion, and despite his handles being better, I still think Batum is a better passer and decision maker. YMMV.

 

4 years younger and $45 million less, and still a bad contract and a regrettable decision.

BNM

 

I wish we still had Batum!