Sorry, but this makes no sense to me. Nurk hasn't played in almost a year. Just how much rest do you think a NBA athlete needs? What he needs after 11 months of recovery is a ramped up level of practice and, assuming his body responds well to that, a return to game play. After that length of time, with a titanium rod inserted in his leg, I don't see how he could be at risk from the injury. It's just a matter of getting the rest of his body back into game shape.
Sorry, I meant "rest" as in "practice on his game and get back into game-shape". Not sit around and do nothing. But with this season a loss and his flair-up, why risk playing him in a game? It makes zero sense to me. I'm quite certain he wants to play. But patience is the better part of valor on a lost season. Start anew next year.
Simply because the players and coaching staff don't consider the season a loss yet. They think that they can get back to winning, secure the 8th seed and that, with the return of Nurk, achieve more success than they've shown so far this season. As a fan, I wouldn't put money on that happening anymore, but I'd sure enjoy the heck out of it if it happens. I think that we throw around the idea of tanking far more casually than players, coaches and GMs do. A lot rides on each season's outcomes. Players want that playoff exposure because it can be a boost to their future earnings. Coaches need to win in order to keep their jobs or get new ones. GMs have to answer to owners for huge salaries. Business guys rely on playoffs for extra revenue and for sales of tickets and merchandise the next season. Organizations, particularly small town operations, can't afford to get tagged with a loser reputation. Bottom line, despite what fans may think is the best relative to draft picks, I expect that the Blazers will keep pushing to win until they reach a point where there's no chance of making the playoffs. Assuming Nurk is healthy, at some point he's going to be a part of that.
Fair enough. I still maintain that it's not wise to risk it, but hey....I'm also not a coach. Or athlete. I would like to see them fully healthy and make a run of course, but it's not going to happen.
Hypothetically let's say Dame's groin doesn't get better and we sit him out the rest of the season (just for sake of discussion). What's the highest you think this team could move up in the draft? When I look at the standings I see 9th in the lottery at "best" because we are 5.5 games up on 8th with 26 games left. Even if the Blazers were terrible the rest of the season I just don't see many of the teams 1 through 8 winning much either.
With the new odds, that's actually kinda interesting. 9th in the lotto puts us at a 20% shot at landing top 4, vs 2.4% where we are now. http://www.tankathon.com/ As a reference, NO started lotto night 7th and MEM 8th. And they landed #1 and #2 respectively. How good is this draft?
It's probably the worst draft since the Anthony Bennett 2013 draft in terms of the top picks. Obviously having a top-4 pick is better than 14-17 but much like that 2013 draft (Adams, Giannis, Gobert, Hardaway, Olynyk, Schroder, Plumlee), there will be a lot of quality outside the top 10. Obviously not the star potential of Giannis but it's pretty loaded with guys who will be solid role players. The main problem from the Blazers' perspective is that outside of Advija and Toppin most of the prospects worth moving up for are either guards or centers. So moving up is great from an asset perspective but not necessarily super helpful in terms of landing a can't miss star. This might also be the type of draft that if there was a guy that Portland really wanted outside the top 4 or 5 picks it might not cost as much as normal to move up to get.
Unless there's someone who can realistically be expected to crack the rotation next season, I really don't see the Blazers being interested in putting an emphasis on the draft as opposed to making the playoffs. They already have young guys in Simons, Little, and Trent who are in hte development stage and look to be contributors. I'd think that the Blazers would be more likely to look to package a pick in the 8-10 range with a player in hopes of acquiring someone through a trade who can be an upgrade at SF.
No one thought Giannis was going to be this transcendental star either, but if there is anyone with high variance in potential, I'd hope Neil learned his lesson form 2013. We can afford to take chances as this pick is not that VITAL for our future. Don't go for high floor, low ceiling dudes. There anyone like that in this draft? ugh, I hate that I need to start reading this shit again, this early in the season.
I think the last couple years Olshey has employed that strategy with Collins, Simons, and Little. Hopefully he learned from the Swanigan pick. The problem with projecting the next Giannis is that he was so terrible offensively at the time of the draft. Even if he played college ball his stats would've looked really bad. Most guys with his length are slower bigs in this draft. There are a few intriguing athletic wings like Okoro from Auburn but he's only listed at 6'6" and can't shoot. Jaden McDaniels from Washington is listed as 6'9" but doesn't really shoot well either and is super raw. How do you project guys like that to turn into 30 point per game scorers? It's tough but that's the reason someone like Giannis falls. This draft is super PG and PF/C heavy though.
Yeah, for sure the organization isn't going to tank unless they're mathematically eliminated which by that point will probably be too late. It was just hypothetical though. What's weird though is they weren't willing to trade their 1st round pick at the deadline so that doesn't fall in line with them trading their pick at the draft (it will be very difficult to do this anyway) or them emphasizing the playoffs over the draft.
Well, those cheap rookie contracts are a big help in luxury tax avoidance, so I guess it makes sense to stockpile young players even if they don’t fit Dame’s window.
Funny you mention learning from the Swanigan pick as I remember you at OLive as you were trying to talk me into him as the pick for Portland.
Hmm... It's almost as if a team looks much worse record wise when you remove their best 10 game stretch.
If Zach improves his outside shot a young big would be a good get in my opinion as I don't think there is any chance Whiteside stays here. And we still don't have anybody capable of playing PG in this roster outside of Lillard. Not that a rookie would solve the issue from day one, but Simons is not really a pg and neither is Trent ofc so if we don't plan signing a veteran one (if we don't it's huge mistake in my opinion) it won't hurt to draft one.
Look at you being brilliant. It wasn't so much removing their best 10-game stretch but removing an extremely rare, historical couple of weeks where Dame went supernova that provided that 10-game stretch. It's not like the team was playing significantly better. It was one player that had a run unlike anything we have seen at that many level in NBA history. Great fun to watch....but an outlier by far, to the rest of the season.
