I'm blown away there are still people here who think Neil had a nice offseason when we let 6-7 people go and got 1 productive asset in return.
He took some risks. People complained he doesn’t and is too content. he got rid of Evan who 99% of this place hated. He got rid of Meyers who 99% of this place bitched about for seven years. And got Hassan back. He wanted a shooter and got Bazemore who didn’t pan out. He’s gone and they got Ariza He and Stotts wanted a vet on the end of the bench who would be a mentor. They got Pau and Tolliver. Injuries forced Tolliver into action. Not the plan. Pau never got healthy and retired. they didn’t want to pay Aminu and couldn’t afford Curry. I’m not sure what Neil could have done better considering the assets he had. Now if we went to keep going back to the summer of 16 forever we can go in circles.
I don't think the injuries made Bazemore, Tolliver, Mario, etc. worse; if anything it gave them a chance to show if they could be productive. I think the injuries are the #1 factor in our record being so poor. I think the horrible off-season comes in 2nd.
This is a great example of the unknown not always being better than the known. Baze didn't work out, most everyone agrees. Pau was never healthy, just like Festus. Mario has been a liability. Tolliver got put in a tough position, but never really was shown to be someone we could count on. Whiteside - I'm not going to touch this, but this is clearly the best of all his moves. Little hasn't proven to be ready for NBA action. While a minimum contract guy not being great isn't a failure, of the 6 additions, it would be hard to say more than 1 was an outright success.
I just think the off-season looks horrible because bench guys had to become starters. If those guys came in to play 10-12 mins a game we wouldn’t notice their shittiness. Tolliver should literally never have been playing but just a good veteran role model on the end of bench (Jared Jeffries type). Then he ended up starting! At center! I mean...impossible to have high expectations with this going on
In addition, those (as well as others) that wanted certain players gone also hyped up all the acquisitions as well as Simons in the off season well beyond what anyone should have expected. This forum has a tendency to complain, complain complain and then when changes are made they hype, hype and hype and then resort back to complain, complain, complain.
But how can you judge the off season moves because of the injuries? If Hood and Collins are healthy then the guys you mentioned would've never even started. In fact there were times before Hood went down that Tolliver and Hezonja weren't playing at all. If we still had Turner instead of Bazemore would we have won anymore games? I don't know, maybe, but that's not a guarantee. Plus the whole bottom line of the summer moves were that we weren't stuck with anyone long term so when Bazemore doesn't work out you move him for an Ariza.
It's hard to play the what-if game. I don't want to say that if we kept Turner that we would have won more games, but the fact I'm considering it tells me how bad Baze was. I agree with you the Mario and Tolliver probably wouldn't be playing if everyone was healthy, because they're not good, which is my original point. The facts are that Neil traded or didn't resign 8 players who played 14 min/game or more this offseason (for various reasons, I know). So these were guys that either started or played some rotational role with the team. Am I outraged they're all not on the team? Not at all. Did I hope he'd be able to replace those 8 guys with more than 1 functional player? Yes. Maybe my expectations were too high.
That kind of goes back to the development versus playing someone that's okay argument too. If Simons breaks out in a year or two because he got his lumps this year when the injury to Nurk was looming no matter what route they took then it would likely have been worth throwing him into the fire this year. If he never turns into a starter or first couple guys off the bench rotational type player I'd agree that looking back it would've been better to have a "Curry" type player instead. Olshey obviously believes in him. Those minutes have to come from somewhere though. Same with the hope that Collins would be ready for starter minutes. Hood and Kanter obviously weren't on the team the whole year so how were the minutes divided up once they were both on the team. Then you factor in that CJ and Nurk were both hurt at the end of the regular season so certain guys got more minutes than they would've otherwise. So to say that we replaced those guys with only one functional player somewhat ignores the trickle down impact of Zach going down and whether or not it's worth trying to speed up the development of Simons.
All valid points. It appears Olshey thought Ant would replace Curry fairly well, but it's clear that was another miss. He's high on Collins and while I think he's probably over-valuing him too, I can't knock him because he's been hurt. If the strategy going into this season, in Dame's prime, was to hope we could develop Mario, Baze, Ant, Trent, Collins, etc. into contending quality players, that's awfully risky. That's a strategy teams like Phoenix, Sacarmento, and Atlanta like to implement, not a team with an All-NBA player in his prime. Just curious. Of Olshey's 2019 summer additions (Whiteside, Baze, Tolliver, Mario, Pau, Hord, Brown, and Little), which ones do you think were outright successes this season?
Ask me that in 12 days, ha ha. I was the first one in here saying when we acquired Whiteside we had to trade him at the deadline. I have also been pro trading Bazemore all year, especially after he wasn't a good fit. Those two were never meant to be long term fits on this roster. Olshey has already turned Bazemore into Ariza, which I agree isn't probably a solution either past next year due to his age but the fact is the roster is fluid. If you said the same thing about our roster last year on this date you wouldn't be able to include Hood and Kanter in that discussion. This is why I'm so in favor of kicking the expiring contracts down the road each year. You can pick up assets like 2nd round picks or whatever and also still have the ability to match salary if a player that can alter the trajectory becomes available. I was never worried about any of the moves this summer even if they were disasters because then you simply move on and try something else. The injury situation obviously complicates the issue of wasting Dame's prime.
