Zombie Fire Olshey

Summer of 2016 was absolutely abyssmal!

 

For me it was just a little more than five years ago. This...

https://www.nbcsports.com/northwest/portland-trail-blazers/lamarcus-aldridge-sign-spurs

... should have been plenty to give this used car salesman his walking papers. If you do not know what someone with the value that LaMarcus had at that time is going to do you trade his ass at the trade deadline. If you don't and the guy walks away, leaving you with no value whatsoever in return, your ass should be fired. That's when it should have happened but it didn't. Then as if the summer before wasn't bad enough he gave huge contracts to ET, Crabbe, Meyers and Ezili in 2016. He rubbed it in everyone's face that kept him just how bad he was and is to this day. So here we are.

 

The Aldridge thing was tough. I'm ok with most everything else, but losing Aldridge in FA was almost unforgivable...

 

Didn’t Olshey run an AAU circuit and dabble in daytime soap operas before his GM days?

Kind of a weird beginning to becoming an NBA exec.

Seems like a guy who can talk his way into any kind of job.

 

He didn't dabble in soap operas the guy made a go of trying to act for like a decade. Then he volunteered as a high school basketball assistant coach (at a basketball powerhouse in Southern California). Then he started a business that was designed to inflate the draft stock of guys who had declared for the draft. It had facilities so they could work on the techniques involved in combine testing and they had classes for team interviews. The contacts he made there must have got his foot in the door with the Clippers in mid 2003. So yeah, he played division 3 college lacrosse, went into acting and then got into the basketball racket... never really got into the game of basketball but has definitely been in the basketball racket for about 23 years and the guy is 56. So in his early to mid thirties he thought basketball might be his grift and it's worked out for him. Not so much for us but it's been very good to Neil (better than acting was).

 

If Olshey does nothing or just brings on JaVale McGee tomorrow by noon. Nothing would make me happier than a press conference at around 7pm in which Chris McGowan is announcing that, "This evening the team and Neil Olshey have agreed to part ways. Joe Cronin a long time Trail Blazers executive will be our interim General Manager going forward. No questions at this time. Thank you."

 

The 2017 draft set this franchise back so much more than the Aldridge departure

 

I do have to disagree. Drafts are always a crap shoot. I'll tell you what isn't, we could have gotten serious value by trading LaMarcus to a team he told us he wanted to go to. Draft picks or young players that would have seriously helped the rebuild and would still be paying dividends today. Not many people were raving about Bam in 2017 and even fewer knew who Donovan Mitchell was. We missed on both picks but there were very few hits and none of them were obvious. Not even Tatum was a completely known commodity, a lot of experts had Josh Jackson ahead of him. I guarantee you the highest bidder would have been better than nothing for LA but there are no guarantees in the draft.

 

It's not just Mitchell and Bam. It's also John Collins, Jarrett Allen, Anunoby, Derrick White, Josh Hart, Kuzma,etc. Any one of them would have helped us more than Collins AND Swangian did the past 4 seasons.

This is on the level of Neil selecting Aminu right ahead of Paul George and Gordon Hayward. Blunders

 

I don't get what people think is out there and gettable for us.

 

I know, its like if we don't hit a home run or do something ? Most of the teams in the league been dormant so far, may break lose once one big deal goes down?
I dont think its realistic to think we could could pry away a Towns from the Wolves?
I guess the Gordon trade could happen but there is competition with a bunch of picks and players.

 

People are acting like we have two picks to trade and as if Jody is fine with paying the tax.

 

5+ hours to the "We were very active, but...." press conference.

 

This team is part of the Vulcan Enterprise and it will be run as a business. Teams were not able to put fans/customers in the seats as yet. There are really only 4-5 teams that are legit contenders out of 30 every year so the main goal for owners and management is to be profitable. Small market, only 1 pro team out of the big 3 or 4, Star player and fighting for a playoff, decent returns when thing are normal, what more could Jody or Vulcans ask for from a business standpoint? A trophy would be great in Pauls memory. This team is up for sale too.

 

You forgot ".... at the end of the day....."

 

You probably have absolutely no idea how correct you are.

 

Xeatlle Blazers

 

you keep saying that Portland has great talent and is one of the most talented teams in the league. You've said it many times, especially as a means of trashing Stotts for mismanaging that talent

you know what works best as a trade asset?...talent. If Portland was filled with talent, making a trade should be easy because other teams are looking for talent too. Simple process of mix and match

I still remember Olshey's press conference after he was hired. He actually said that two of the primary responsibilities of his job was to make sure that Portland always had a good collection of assets while maintaining the kind of flexibility to be able to utilize those assets. He's failed both of those responsibilities repeatedly over the ears. Bullshit artist

 

Someone stated it yesterday with the perfect anagram. Neil Olshey = He only lies.

 

This is KP’s cake baking, only worse