At first, we are not done yet, there are stil two open roster spots and we have to wait what is the next move by Neil, right now, i think the roster is not better than the old because there are too many "what if's", BUT it has definetly more upside than the old roster and the fit from the role players to Dame and CJ should be much better than the old roster. We can surround Whiteside with 4 shooters (Dame, CJ, Bazemore, Hood) at any time, this could be our best lineup. With Harkless, Aminu and Turner you could never do that, with those guys you have allways a spacing problem, those guys are good for regular Season, but we have higher expectations. And we all know, Harkless, Aminu and Turner were never able to benefit from missmatches when Dame got trapped and doubled teamed in the Playoffs and in the future nothing would have changed, so it was time to move on from these 3 and bring new guys. Of course it's a risk to gamble on the development on Collins, Anfernee, Little and even Hezonja, but you have to take it because with Aminu, Harkless and Turner in the Rotation you will not win a championship
But if Simons can play point and Mario does work out, we're going to be pretty deep with ball handlers. A lot of teams don't even have two guys who can handle the ball as well as Dame and CJ.
And most importantly is: it doesn't really matter what the roster looks like right now, it matters how the roster will look after the Trade Deadline in February, i trust Neil to do good things at the Deadline to improve our Team
Lets start with Turner. When he first got here CJ had not broke out yet. So his first year was probably his best thinking he was the #2 guy. I think his attitude changed when CJ emerged as it seemed to me he got worse every year. Bazemore is coming in knowing at best he will be the third guy and will be fighting to keep a lot of that bloated contract. Hood is in the same position minus the bloated contract but will be fighting for starter minutes and to continue on with what he had accomplished in last years post season. We will probably take a hit defensively but what we will gain is those 2 on offense will not be ignored for long when it comes to the double team of Dame and CJ. Bazemore/Hood > Turner , Harkless, Aminu. Aminu was never a starter even with extended minutes he played the same when he got here as he did when he left. A very solid defender and a solid bench guy. Letting him walk in the short view might have been a mistake but in the long view of things it was best for him and us and it would just hamper Collins development. Curry. See ya and glad you got paid by someone else other then the Blazers. He is not as good as CJ and more inconsistent all he would have done is stopped us from using Simons Kanter, Meyers< Whiteside. Period. The attitude I can live with because we want our Center to have attitude otherwise we would have kept Plumlee. He once said he wanted to come play for Portland and if there is any team that can make you feel at ease it is Portland/Dame. So are we a better team on paper? yes/no all depends on your view. In reality everyone of those players that left were not going to get any better with the exception of Jake and he was just not going to get any minutes and they were also part of the reason for our sweep from the WCF Kanter excluded. So we might take a step back this year but we also did not make any long term commitments either and we will also get a good look at our project players so my opinion is we got a lot better no matter what the outcome is for next season and I am excited for it.
I was wondering about this too. Just for kicks, I ran numbers on our biggest matchup nightmares last year to see how well Hark and Aminu actually did during the regular season. Here's how the following stars did against us: We were 16th in defensive rating last year. Considering Hark and Aminu got their minutes almost entirely for their defense, I don't see a lot of "stopping" going on here. You could argue they also covered up a lot of deficiencies for our guards, but did they really do enough to offset their own offensive deficiencies? I'm skeptical. I think we're better off with a downgrade in wing defenders, and an upgrade in rim defense (which we will get in Whiteside, and with more experience/minutes in Collins) and an improvement in wing shooting. The biggest upgrade, by far, will be Whiteside. Portland's system last year turned Kanter, notorious for being possibly the very worst defensive center in the league, into a passable (and sometimes even effective) defender in the playoffs. Swapping him out for a guy who gives you the same rebounding while actually specializing in defense....well, it's going to be fantastic.
Reminds me of Wiggins so much. I'd say a more reeled-in Wigginss: better efficiency and similar impact in 1/4 of the minutes.
Yeah i rembember how Paul George went nuklear against us in the regular Season and neither Harkless or Aminu could stop him, (i know it's just regular Season and they did good against him in the Playoffs, it would be interesting to know how much his shoulder hurt him, or if it really was because of Harkless and Aminus Defense)
Whiteside is kinda the antithesis to dirty work. He doesn't set great screens and is worse than Camby in trying to chase blocks. Check out his head to head matchups vs any decent center. He got destroyed.
If Whiteside or Bazemore dont work out well we could trade them for a more productive player. Im hoping the team plays awesome and no moves are needed, outside of additions with little cost as we did in Hood/Kanter last year. But it's nice we have flexibility if needed.
I think the "what ifs" are usually there for us to start the season, Probably a little more worrisome right now because of Nurk's injury. But last year we started with some too. We started the season not knowing how Baldwin (He played 16 games for us last year) Nik and Curry would help. What would we get from Jake and Zach this year. Would Swanigan gives us minutes? Would the rookies play? Was Hark's knee worse than they said.? (He never played more than 20 minutes a game in Oct or Nov.) And the never ending question every year........what to do with Meyers. But I agree with you that this year's "what ifs" seem to have more upside. I am excited to see how it comes together but I can't help but worry about the start of the season. We could struggle with so many new pieces....or not
We are better than the end of season last year. Whiteside as a starter over an injured and dehydrated kanter is enough to make us better right there.
Also. Whiteside played best when he had a leader in wade watching over him. I think lillard will do the same. We have two players who can contend for most improved. hezonja and whiteside. If they do, and collins and simons pop, we win it all. Mark this post.
It seems seems really really unlikely to me that Olshey and the front office would just randomly put trust that kind of trust in Simons and Collins if they didn't think they were ready. Especially coming off the the WCF, the most wide open upcoming year in a long, long time and considering the other moves we made that clearly indicate that we are making our move to contender. I get that it's a little unknown but it's not like they are rookies that were drafted low or in the second round. They have enough analytics and have seen enough to feel comfortable with these moves.
Agreed with that as well. Also, they weren't going to spend $16,000,000 (what his contract would be with the tax implications) on Seth Curry for 8 points and 1 assist per game. Do to what you said above, they probably believe they will get close to that or better for a much lower $$$ commitment for now.
CJ had just averaged 21 points and 4 assists and had won the MIP award. That sure looks like a breakout to me
they put enough trust in Evan Turner to give him 70M dollars right after they put enough trust in Chandler Parsons to offer him 94 million; enough trust in Crabbe to give him 75 million; enough trust in Meyers Leonard to give him 41 million. enough trust in Festus Ezeli's knees to give him 10 million they've been making good transactions over the last 5 months, but the same people evaluating Simons and Collins also evaluated Parsons, Turner, Crabbe, & Meyers and got those evaluations wrong...big time IMO, your argument is not very persuasive, especially when a little insurance against getting one of the current evaluations wrong is the low cost of a veteran minimum contract
