Blazer fans are left hoping for a miracle every season—and this one is no different. Other teams pull huge trades, sign big stars, and make enormous moves to bolster their roster. We, on the other hand, make crappy little moves for players rejected by other teams or guys with borderline talent. Now I’m seeing it all over again. We’ve added a couple of minor pieces, but nothing even remotely significant. Will these guys make our bench stronger? Maybe. Will they get us to the NBA Finals? Not a chance. And I’m sorry, but Anfernee Simons is not going to be a star, and neither is Nasir Little. Just like every season, we’ll have to hope for a miracle again this year.
As far as big trades and big signings made this off-season, we're in the same boat as Utah, Phoenix, the Clippers, Dallas, Denver, Boston, Memphis, Golden State, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Toronto, Indiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Orlando, Sacramento, Cleveland, Houston, New Orleans (they got worse)... That's two-thirds of the league. I wish there were more big trades that Olshey missed out on so that I could be officially Anti-Olshey and not defend his ass anymore. But there's been nothing this off-season.
Most small market teams get their talent through the draft. But, when you trade away your picks for rental players, you're left in a position like Portland is this year.
What rentals did we trade our picks for? And isn't that what everyone wanted him to do? "Dame needs players to help him win now, not projects!" is the quote I remember seeing a bunch.
Last season's draft isn't the one that is hurting us this season. It is the drafts from 3+ seasons back.
We turned our 2015 1st into Plumlee who we turned into Nurkic. We used our 1sts in 2017, 2018, and 2019. The 19th pick in the 2016 draft (Malik Beasley) was lost. I'm not sure that's what's hurting us right now. More-so not maximizing the 2017 draft.
28 or 29 of those "other teams" fail to win the championship despite all these "enormous moves." Overturning your roster every year doesn't make the team more successful. The Lakers made a ton of moves and have a much worse roster than last season now.
The NBA has had a parity problem for too long now. Nowadays there is a new problem in the league: Player ring chasing. As long as players can leave their team(s) and form a superteam in a big market, the teams working at building their teams long term have, little to no chance against ring chasing. The league won't address it's own problems though as Adam Silver already told the league that they would have to "keep up with the Warriors" while everyone was griping that the addition of KD had overstacked that team. The league is all about money nowadays. And that is why I have a hard time blaming GM's of small market teams.
C+ - because he got Dame signed to an extention and was able to sign Powell, coupled with all the injuries and he outperformed teams that had high draft choices.