A word against short term rentals and expiring contracts.

I don't start many threads. But this one seems to be needed. We have multiple "trade player" and "move this guy" even "Fire" coach and GM threads.

Something has caught my eye after reading multiple tweets by players including Damian Lillard about "loyalty" "NBA Family", "Staying true". Here is the thing. The Blazers have injuries yes BUT! The Blazers still have some players that could string together some wins BUT. To me it seems they have very little presence. Two fairly important pieces are pretty much guaranteed to be gone inside the next three weeks and that could include as many as 4 or 5 other players.
It's obvious this team is not together. They have no solid backbone. They have no family unity. They are living out the next month wondering what will happen and it's showing on the court. Afraid to get real close to each other because the NBA is indeed a "Business".
Fit and culture only take you so far. A person has got to feel secure in where they are sitting. The only person on the court right now that knows he will be here next month seems to be Dame. Of course he is playing like that.

You can dream up a thousand scenarios that will work with trade machine. People were totally in love with the moves Olshey made last summer. But in the end we all knew and were looking past the fact the Whiteside and Bazemore were basically filler pieces and moving them would probably include other players like Mario, Tolliver, maybe even CJ or Little, Skal, Simons? Building a team is tough. But having a revolving door is even tougher. These are people and they have the same basic needs as anyone else. I can only imagine what Hassan Whiteside is feeling when he gets thrown on the floor and players are slow to get there and help him up and not even pushing back against the player that did the throwing. Do you think on Nurks first game back if a player even so much as tries something like that what the response would be?

This is why i don't like picking up "Expiring" contracts and "One year rentals". They rarely work and do more damage to a season than they are worth. Now lets hope i'm wrong? Lets hope all this worthless basketball is worth the results? Right now it's hard to imagine.

 

One year is too long to commit myself. I have always refused to take a lease. If you look around, they won't charge any more.

I think it was the Kentucky Colonels owner (it might have been another ABA owner, I forget) who used my philosophy. He hired a new head coach every year until he found a star coach. I like change.

Bring back Bob!

 

Something to be said for that also. Weed through players and coaches until you have the very best.
But don’t expect a good season until you hit the jackpot.

 

I agree with a lot of this. CJ isn't going anywhere though, at least not if Olshey is still in charge.

I also wonder why other teams that signed guys to one year deals don't seem to have this problem?

 

Not sure if it's really "One Year" deals. Just my opinion but i think it's more expiring contracts that know they are trade bait.
Not bashing Whiteside or Bazemore. I actually think if things would have took off there would be a different vibe and a different conversation. The worse it gets the more everyone knows this isn't working. If they were a little healthier and the record was 23-16 rather than the other way around i would be willing to bet everyone would want the cake to bake. I understand that is 7 more wins but there were 7 games this year they screwed the pooch (Not @SlyPokerDog ). They absolutely could have a better record.

 

But the players we gave up were expiring contracts as well and would be in the same boat as wondering if they are going to be dealt, especially when a team is struggling. It hasn't worked out this year but there are many factors to that with one of the bigger ones being injuries and players having to adapt to different roles than what was expected for this season. A few moves and health can get this team back on track. Maybe not this year, but next year for sure. If Hood was healthy that would make Bazemore the back up and with Collins, if we still picked up Melo that would just add depth to the team which we are sorely lacking. A bench of Skal, Melo, Bazemore, Simons and Trent would be a decent bench.

 

No question injuries are playing a role. And yes if they were healthy I have no doubt the record would be much better. Like I said above. 23-16 instead of 16-23 would not be out of the question at all.

 

Oh, they should absolutely be closer to 23-16 than 16-23!

In my opinion, you're right about Whiteside being just a temporary stopgap. I'm not sure if that was the intention with Bazemore but he's been brutally bad for most of this season. Before the year even started though I truly believed that both of those guys HAD to be traded this year no matter what the record or what their performance was, especially if there is a trade that benefits the team beyond this season. Their value is in their contracts to match salary coming back. Even if both re-signed for cheap and accepted bench roles it doesn't vault the Blazers into contention. Also, letting them walk and getting "cap space" doesn't really equate to that much more money available than the Full-MLE ($12 million versus $9.7 million) so that wouldn't be the difference in signing a player to take us over the top either. The only good part about Whiteside's play this year is that maybe you don't have to attach an asset or as many assets when he's traded as they would've been if he was a huge malcontent.

 

I guess my original point was more about the expiring contracts because why would a team let an expiring contract go if the player was something they wanted to keep? Kind of goes along the lines of Dame and CJ? Olshey wanted to keep both. If he had not they would have become a trade asset as an expiring contract. But on doing so their attitude toward the team and being "Shopped" would probably change. Then after being traded the team involved would have to make another decision. Do they want to trade that contract again at the deadline or keep them. That again puts the player in a position. When the team regresses it has to be tough. Seriously i know they make millions but they are still people. It has to be tough to stay professional at times?

 

Good thoughts, BUT, I'd argue that the one year rental on Kanter last season paid dividends quite nicely.

 

What if the deals don't really move the needle? Do you then let them expire and maybe hope for a sign and trade in the off season?

 

A good example is last years lakers with many of their young players in trade rumors till the deadline. It's the nature of the business though and they get paid tons of money.

 

I see the logic, I just don't think it's as big of an issue as you think. The motivation for those guys should be to play well to earn a contract this summer, and to possibly play the team into keeping them.

We'd have players with the same "worry" if we didn't make those trades... It's impossible to avoid having expiring contracts.

And if guys are really like that, bench them. Bench Bazemore for Little, because I don't think Nas would be worse than an uninspired Bazemore, and it'd be better for our future.

 

Hoping for sign-and-trades is too risky and if we can't find something meaningful at the deadline, then it'd be hard to figure out a sign-and-trade where we'd bring something useful in. This free agent class is weak too, so I don't see as much maneuvering from teams like there was last year.

 

That wasn't a one year rental. Kanter was picked up off waivers.

 

I agree on this but the problems really started as the injuries started to mount. It wasn't just Collins or eventually Hood. If you remember Whiteside was injured most of training camp then reinjured his ankle when the season started. Then of course Gasol never even put on a jersey. By the way??? When does he come back as a coach? If you also remember Zach was injured right before camp also. Then if you remember also Whiteside hyperextended his knee against OKC. Of course we all know little had back spasms for about two weeks. Same with Dame. Bazemore has been nursing the Hammy pretty much all season.
As the losses mounted you were getting "It's still early". Dame even tweeted "Good thing we still have 60 games left". But now there are only 40 games left and Skal is out as well for at least another 3-4 weeks.

At what point does a guy that is listed as trade bait decide "Hey. I'm gonna play and get my stats but that's it" I think the combination of a 10 day training camp, a grueling first 20 games, injuries and guys being labeled as trade bait have all lead to a very tough season. Gonna take some miracle work to get this season back on track. If it ever was on track at all?

 

I hear you and I agree something doesn't feel right but I don't think it's the short term deals. For example mentioning Whiteside's play is not right for this kind of argument you make. Hassan has always been playing like this. Probably he is playing as hard as evert to be honest. And there have been examples even very recent ones that some short term deals ended being good ones like Hood and Kanter.

It could be that changing around 10 players messed up the chemistry of this team and the lockeroom balance.

 

That is actually the point. The locker room actually seemed pretty good until player after player started getting hurt or in Gasol's case never healed. Right now the Blazer chemistry seems to have taken a few steps back.

 

Hood was instrumental last playoffs. So was Curry. And Kanter. We probably don't go as far without those players everybody considered rentals.

It was a shock when Hood chose to come back.

 

Hood was picked up at the trade deadline. He came in knowing he was going to be here the rest of the season and the season was going well.
Curry was picked up and was never in question last year. Matter of fact he was coming off injury and we all knew he was going to get more money.
Kanter also was picked up off waivers.
You could call Curry a rental but there is no comparing him as an expiring like Baze or Hassan. Curry was a two year deal at 2.75 million a year.

So no.... No comparison.