Neil Olshey's job in restocking the Blazers roster for the 2019-20 season has been very impressive. What's even more impressive to me, though, is the way he did it and how he's improved the Blazers odds of being major players at the trade deadline. What he's managed to do is to turn the relatively unappealing ending contracts of Turner, Harkless, and Leonard into the ending contracts of two players, Whiteside and Bazemore, who GM's will have legitimate interest in as roster additions. Both of these players will likely be expendable to the Blazers by the deadline. Nurkic will in all likelihood be back and in full beast mode by then. Bazemore was essentially insurance against the departure of Hood, and the Blazers were able to re-sign Hood. That's marketable ending contracts of $27 million for Whiteside and $19 million for Bazemore. So, what are your wet dream trade deadline trades to move the Blazers up to top contenders for this year's title? Maybe there won't be any great moves available at the deadline, or maybe Bazemore and Whiteside are playing so well that the Blazers prefer not to break things up this season. If that's the case, Olshey has the option of dumping all of the ending contracts next summer (Whiteside, Bazemore, Labissiere, Hoard, and Tolliver) and maybe dumping a couple of contracts for picks (Hezonja and Trent) and opening up somewhere around $16-$17 million in cap space to acquire a quality free agent next summer. That's not max money, of course, but it could net a good player at a position of need. Certainly not a sexy of a move as something at the deadline, but who do you see as possibilities there? Here's a link to possible free agents to whet your appetite (just remember that this isn't an all you can eat dining experience; you're on a budget). https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...d-by-anthony-davis-draymond-green-kyle-lowry/
If Nurk comes back 100% healthy and the Blazers can find another cheap backup big somewhere, I'd be quite pleased with Whiteside/+? for OPJ.
I think the most impressive thing about Neil is how he was able to Deal Turner, Harkless and Meyers without attaching assets like Draft picks or one of the young players, this is pretty remarkable. He has been very protective over our draft picks during this time.
It's so hard to predict who's going to be unhappy or what teams are going to underperform. There's the obvious names like Love, Griffin, etc. The two that I want to keep an eye on are Paul George and Draymond Green. If the Warriors or Thunder aren't performing well, I could see either of those guys being moved. The Thunder desperately need an infusion of talent. Outside of Russ and PG, that team is sooooooooo thin on talent. I actually think Draymond would be perfect next to Nurk. He's the kind of guy that could help us win a championship.
Ordinarily I would agree, but in this case it is obvious that Bazemore and Whiteside were acquired with an eye towards the flexibility that their ending contracts provide. Yeah, it’s too early to get serious about trade moves, but it’s never too early to dream about possibilities that could move the Blazers into top contenders this season. Hence the choice of wording for the thread title.
This will be a very different team than before. Excited/scared. Media's consensus is that Portland is strong in the west along with Utah, Houston, Denver, and probably the Fakers too.
Can't remember, do we have bird rights on Hood now that he will have been with the team for two years?
I have such mixed feelings on this. They histrionics would get old, but the effort level and skill set would be great.
I like the flexibility of this setup. We removed a few players that seemed to be the weakest part of our playoff rotation, and replaced them with players that might be better fits, that we can try out for a year. After a try out, we can either keep the best fits longer or work a trade at the deadline. Seems like the best flexibility we have had in a long time.
The numbers for Early Bird Rights are dependent on salaries from this year and the cap number for next year but if we had Early Bird Rights on Hood this summer I think we could've offered him a little over $9 million without having to use our MLE to sign him. So next summer it will probably be around $10 million that we can offer him.
