It was really just Turner, and if not him, another free agent, or trade at the deadline with all that cap space
Not really. It would have been either/or. Signing Fournier would have cost just as much as Turner. Obviously he's better than Turner, but not enough that it would have made us a contender. We'd still be right where we are now. Maybe one spot higher.
AC and Mo made sense to me at the time. I believe the Turner deal was made out of a drastic emotional response to Parsons spurning us, the Meyers thing was stupid, there was no reason not to let him walk.
And it's not like Meyers would have got a similar offer from other teams, same with Turner. Why did we feel the need to pay them so much? We were bailed out of Crabbe deal by Brooklyn. It was a terrible contract, and somehow we only end up with $3M dead money for the next 6 years from it which is not that terrible all things considered. We took a chance hoping he would maybe develop the following season but he actually stayed at a similar level which was nowhere near $18M player. I don't think Brooklyn fans are thrilled with him either, judging by their forums but the position they are in, they are just taking a flyer on whoever they can get hoping they might improve over time.
Agreed; just signing some guys for somewhat less would make them easier to trade at some point if for some reason they didn't perform as well as expected. Olshey seems to carry over his optimist persona over to his evaluations.
Cap space has proven to be jack....but we used it to sign jack...so the different would have been flexibility. We could have taken on contracts from sellers where as now we can't. I get where you are coming from, it hasn't done us well in the past but given the way it has been used, I'll take the option of flexibility versus the corner we are painted into any day.
Just curious... How would you have reacted if the Blazers went into a summer with about $40 million in cap space and didn't sign any free agents and on top of that let all three of our own free agents walk? Anyone who says they'd be okay with that is a fucking liar. Crabbe scored 31 points the other night, there would be posts complaining about how awesome he is and that Olshey sucks for letting him go. I think Sly has the most reasonable post that they should have retained guys on more team friendly deals. As for the flexibility angle, the only real difference right now is the full-MLE vs the tax-MLE. They would've had to sign SOMEONE to a deal. Even if it was doing what the Lakers and 76ers did this year where they overpaid for free agents but only gave them one year deals. They might have kept and paid Plumlee, who knows. Lets say everything else happened exactly the same for this discussion (except not giving Vonleh away) then they'd be faced right now with almost the exact same situation. They'd only have significant cap space if they let all of the free agents walk again, then what? If you re-sign everyone, even on cap friendly deals, you are still over the cap and have only the MLE and BAE to add the roster. Currently the TPE is worth more than the full-MLE, especially when you consider the fact it's hard to get good free agents here. The smaller TPE is worth more than the BAE. We still have the tax-MLE too. So no we wouldn't necessarily be more flexible, in fact we might be less flexible being around the cap because we wouldn't have the TPEs. Now the question becomes whether they use any of that flexibility to improve the team or stay concerned about the tax. Based on the Dame/Allen meeting and the Olshey comments I'd guess they agreed staying under the tax line this year unless something really great came up was the smart move and that this summer they'd spend the necessary money to improve the roster.
All you authority worshipers have convinced me. There is no way that history could have gone any better. We are all waiting for the afterlife. There is nothing we can do to improve life here in the physical world.
Would've rather signed Joe Johnson (keep in mind he went to Utah so it's not like we couldn't have signed him to that 2 year/21.5m contract) than get Evan fucking Turner for 4/70...
Seeing as how Olshey doesn't do his job...Seeing as how Olshey got a guy for Batum who didn't play...let's tip Olshey on the way out.
This is where I am at. I didn't love the signing, thought ET was overpaid, but thought it would be a good fit for our team, given the playoff struggles when teams just blitzed Dame and CJ. However, I know if we had a barn full of cap room and let ALL of our players walk I would've revolted as a fan. There is no way most people are being realistic
Batum has already played 2000 more minutes for Charlotte (6366) than Vonleh and Henderson combined (4346) played for us. Their Blazer minutes have ended, while Batum's Charlotte minutes continue to grow 2600 per year, with each minute more productive than Vonleh's (PERs: 10.1 Vonleh, 12.9 Henderson, 15.3 Batum). Olshey did not have the skill to either 1) get equal value for Batum or 2) get the low value he got for Batum, then grow that something via subsequent trade.
You all need to keep in mind that only Ezeli and Turner were signed with cap space. The rest were signed with bird exceptions. So we had about $25M, period, to sign any new players outright. We didn't qualify for MLE being so far under. CJ's upcoming extension would eat up most of that $25M the next summer, so it was use it or lose it, as KS said in the OP. Once over the cap, the only way you can get further over is to sign your own players via exceptions to higher deals. Which is what NO did. The order guys were signed mattered. If NO had matched Crabbe sooner (or Leonard), he'd have eaten up a good chunk of the cap space we had available to sign FAs. FWIW, ET was probably one of the top 10 FAs that season. I'd have to go back and look at who else went to be sure.
