The emergence of Gary Trent jr brings so many questions about the future of our roster. Will we be able to extend his contract at a reasonable price or we're gonna end up overpaying him just like Crabbe with the obvious result of dumping him later? Is he a starting caliber SG or a sixth man? If he's a starting caliber SG should we trade CJ for a starting wing? Should we keep both him and CJ and start him at the 3?
I think he's a better fit next to Dame than CJ is. CJ is the far superior player, but at some point it'd be nice to have a quality small forward and the only way we get one is trading CJ. Trent really reminds me a lot of Wes Matthews before he developed a post up game. I would say more aggressive as a shooter, though. Much like CJ, Trent never, ever passes up a shot. I love that aspect about him.
Bill Simmons was singing Trent's praises on his podcast late last night. Thinks we may be the 3rd best team in the West, at least top 5.
Currently, no - we will not be able to extend him reasonably without maneuvering. Remember that Dame/CJ already take up ~65% of the cap & that Nurk is going to need to get paid soon... He is a starting caliber SG, and CJ ought to be moved. However, the wing needs to be able to handle the ball.
I think Trent could play SF full time against most teams in the league. If that's the case I think you could play him with Dame and CJ. I'm just glad Portland continues the tradition of turning 2nd round wings into good players. They really have a good eye on what type of player they can mold into a player that fits our system. We've not had a single dud. From Barton to Crabbe to Connaughton to Layman and now Trent. Trent is looking like he may actually become the best one though, so here's hoping...
The nice thing is, Gary is doing things that Barton, Crabbe, Pat and Jake never did. He's multi-faceted and also consistent.
Hard to say consistent when he's only been doing this for half a season, and he's had his fair share of duds as well. I would say at his best, Crabbe is doing what Gary is doing right now on offense, which is mostly just catch and shoot or one dribble pullups. But Crabbe never learned how to defend, and Gary is already defending at a high level, so there's a lot of optimism here.
I have bitched plenty about Trent in the past (not his D, his O - he tends to be a black hole) but he's been a revelation. He clearly thrives in the spotlight (the anti-Uncle Cliffy) and that's a quality you only find out when it matters. Good for Gary. Take ALL of Melo's minutes!
Once Gary got consistent minutes, he was consistent. Once Jake was discovered by the league, he became invisible. Gary also plays defense and doesn't look lost out there ( like Crabbe did, and Simons does). That was my point really, just poorly worded I guess.
That does seem to be a strength of drafting in the Olshey era: finding players who carve out a multi-year niche in the league. Of course, they tend to be more useful to other teams: we have a tendency of developing them only to let them go to make room for the next one. We're a farm team!
Of the players that the team has lost, Will Barton is the only one who has really been useful to another team. Crabbe wasn't. Jake barely played this year, and Pat isn't significantly better now than he was in Portland, other than being on a better team.
Crabbe, if anything, got worse (and a fuck-ton more expensive). Disagree about Connaughton, though, and we could've used him right now (of course, he's not playing either, so...) Never liked Jake, so I don't care. I wonder how much of the credit should go to our coaching staff, though. Maybe we're actually sneaky-good at developing players (like Miami and Toronto)? I predict Simons will have more success on his next team and give rise to Jermaine O'Neal moaning among the same fans who are trying to run him out of town right now.
One point on this is that portland signs these guys to similar 3 year rookie deals. In total they get paid around about 3 million total and we get on average one rotation season from them. If you can get a rotation season for 3 million dollars you take that anyday. And these guys end up sticking around. For a second round pick you cannot ask for more. Like Jake Layman is one of the only second rounders in that draft that’s still a rotation guy and he was picked 47. He was mostly injured this year so I don’t know how you can fault him on that. Of course there is also the chance we keep them. It sucks that the one guy we kept turned out to be the worst but that was just some questionable decision making.
Nurk's contract runs through the the 2021-22 season so there's no need to do anything yet on him. He'll undoubtedly get an extension, but it won't hit the cap for two years. Trent has one more season before the Blazers have to decide what to do with him.
