Since it seems like he’s a legitimate candidate to take over full time, here’s an older article about him https://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/2012/04/joe_cronin_self-made_nba_capologist_helps_put_blaz.html After spending a half-hour rattling off details about trade exceptions, trade kickers, midlevel exceptions, mini-midlevel exceptions and a zillion other head-spinning subjects that constitute the NBA's collective bargaining agreement, it was time for Joe Cronin to face a pop quiz. Interim general manager Chad Buchanan and other members of the Trail Blazers' management team rave about Cronin's under-the-radar contributions to the organization and they regularly brag that he knows the CBA like the back of his hand. He's so in tune with the ins and outs of NBA salaries, they say, that he can spout off the top of his head contract details of every player in the NBA -- a list that stretches more than 400 players long. OK, hotshot, how much does ... Dallas Mavericks guard Delonte West make? "Easy, he's a minimum salary guy," Cronin said, without blinking. How about Chicago Bulls sharpshooter Kyle Korver ? "He's got one more year on his deal, it's conditional and it has a $500,000 guarantee," Cronin promptly answered. He went on to reel off the contract values of three other randomly selected NBA players -- Dallas center Brendan Haywood, Miami Heat reserve forward Mike Miller and Memphis forward Zach Randolph -- noting each player's 2011-12 salary, the years left on their contracts and whether any of them featured player or team options. And that merely scratches the surface. Cronin is so well versed in the CBA, he can casually rap about the geekiest of minutiae, from the process of acquiring and using trade exceptions to administering qualifying offers to exercising the newly created "Amnesty" clause. By most standards, it's been a forgettable season for the Blazers. Offseason acquisitions have not produced as expected. Coaches have been fired. All-Stars have been traded for expiring contracts. The dream of a long playoff run faded long ago. But there is one hope-inducing bright spot that has surfaced through all the dysfunction: The Blazers will have as much roster flexibility as any team in the NBA this offseason. If things fall into place, they could have two lottery picks, between $20-25 million in cap space to spend on free agents or to use in acquiring players in trades, and six to nine open roster spots to reshape the team. Buchanan and president Larry Miller have taken to saying the Blazers are poised for a "reloading" project rather than a "rebuilding" project. And while it might seem as if they backed into this situation, the truth is they've been working behind the scenes for more than a year to lay the foundation to have this flexibility. And the architect behind it all is Cronin, a 6-foot-6, former college role player and self-made NBA "capologist" who has guided the inexperienced Blazers front office through the financial details of the revamped CBA. "There have been many times where I have thought, "Where would we be without him,'" Buchanan said of Cronin. "Because he just has such a strong grasp of the salary cap and the rules involving payroll. Any question involving the CBA, a trade or roster move or a particular salary, he knows it off the top of his head. He understands, basically, every single contract in the league, from the value of it to how it's structured." Cronin's official title is assistant director of scouting/salary cap expert and a large part of his job involves scouting college basketball and the NBA. But he's become the Blazers' de facto "salary cap guru." Cronin, 36, was hired by the Blazers as an intern in 2006 after earning a masters degree from the University of Denver and, within nine months, his hard work and intelligence made such an impression that former general manager Kevin Pritchard hired him full-time. Then, shortly after Tom Penn was hired as assistant general manager in May 2007, he pulled Cronin aside and told him he was going to help Cronin become a capologist. Penn is one of the leading experts on the CBA and, at the time, he didn't see a lot of young, up-and-coming CBA experts. But he saw a natural apprentice in Cronin. "In my 11 years in the league, he had the most eagerness, the most willingness and desire to learn and grow in that area," said Penn, who now works for ESPN. "And I wanted to help him and kind of mentor him a little bit. He was a workhorse. There's a lot of work to digging in and understanding the nuances of the collective bargaining agreement. It's a grind. But he really rolled up his sleeves and grasped it all." Over the years, Cronin has studied the CBA weekly -- sometimes daily -- to become an expert. A day doesn't go by in which he doesn't study the salaries of every player and every team in the NBA. He has had the luck of learning from Penn and former Blazers general manager Rich Cho, two of the most respected salary-cap experts in the NBA. But unlike those two, and most cap experts in the league, Cronin does not have a legal background; he's a rare self-taught, self-made specialist. The casual Blazers fan probably has not heard of him, but those closest to Cronin say his humble, team-first attitude and superb intelligence have been vital to the organization, particularly in light of the front office turmoil the past three seasons. Cronin is quick to deflect praise and minimize his contributions, but he's had a significant role in many of the franchise's biggest decisions in recent years. He was the driving force behind crafting the complicated, front-loaded contract offer to restricted free agent Wesley Matthews that was drawn up in a way that would prevent the Utah Jazz from matching it. And, most recently, he helped the Blazers acquire J.J. Hickson off waivers . Teams that are over the salary cap -- like the Blazers -- typically cannot put in a waiver claim. But when the Blazers traded Marcus Camby to Houston for two players who made roughly $2.5 million less than he did, the Blazers acquired a "trade exception" for that amount. Cronin knew the CBA allowed teams over the cap to use trade exceptions to make waiver claims, so the Blazers swept in at the last second to nab Hickson, blind siding the Golden State Warriors, who were poised to sign him as a free agent. The people behind such maneuvers rarely earn headlines, but Cronin's job is becoming more and more valued as GMs place a premium on salary cap knowledge and owners focus more on the bottom line. "It wasn't that long ago that deals were always done for talent reasons," Penn said. "But more and more, deals ... are being done for financial, contractual reasons. It's an advantage for an organization to have a creative, dynamic deal maker. This isn't just adding up numbers and seeing if trades work. It's about thinking more creatively, strategically, and understanding the books and finances of other teams and what's motivating other teams. That's the secret sauce."
This doesn't really paint him as anything more than a cap guy.....which is just what we need to get Jody under the tax line.
It’s also from nine years ago, when being the cap geek was his job. He’s progressed steadily up the ladder to Assistant GM and now Interim GM. I think he’s more than a cap guy now, not that it’s bad for a GM to understand the cap.
There are people on this board at one time that could do that too in regards to the pop quiz and cap stuff. Then people have less free time and start careers and can't keep up with all these deals as much anymore. It really isn't that impressive. I would be more interested in hearing about his persuasion skills. People with analytical minds generally are not great at being persuasive.
As a fellow analytics geek, that is great and all. But that's a technical role. Being a manager and persuading people, people skills, getting people to be on board with things is really important in those roles. You can't just be a numbers geek. Rich Cho is an example. He had the personality of a dead fish.
Cronin is thrust into a really tough position. One of the biggest underlying factors for how GMs make decisions is understanding the short and long term visions of the team. While all indications might be that he has full autonomy, the moves he makes still require some foresight. And I don't really know how what that is at the moment, and he might not be a part of it. The potential moves he makes between now and February can have consequences well beyond his tenure. Shedding salary to duck the tax seems to be consistently brought up as a primary directive for him (which is infuriating for me) but that should be relatively easy to do with simple dumps of Snell/Zeller/McLemore. What he can do beyond that is completely a black box for me. People are bringing up Chad Buchanan trading away Gerald Wallace to the Nets as an example of what an interim GM can do, but that move was quite easy to make. We were in the midst of a rebuild with a very clear idea that a teardown was on the horizon. I suppose you can somewhat make the parallels to Aldridge in 2011 to Dame now, but Lillard is far more accomplished and has a greater floor/ceiling. Outside of the "interim" tags, I don't see too many other similarities between him and Cronin.
Not necessarily. Blazers need to keep 14 players on the roster. Dumping some minimum players just means you need to pick up the same number to keep your roster full. Now you can dump all 3 and pick up 3 guys with less tenure in the league so their minimum salary is less, but it's a lot harder to dump 3 guys than it is to dump 1. I think an easier path is trading Nurk or Roco for someone that makes less. You can do it easily with RoCo to Cleveland for Cedi Osman or something like that. Need to find the right landing spot because I'm sure there are teams that could use RoCo.
You nailed it. VERY smart, but had no personality at all to speak of. Very nice guy though, just didn’t have that salesman mentality.
https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/st...-search-shape-future-franchise-damian-lillard The prospects of Portland extending Lillard, 31, beyond his $48.8 million in 2024-2025 to pay him $51 million at 35 years old and $55 million at 36 years old threatens to turn an asset of a contract into an albatross. Good luck Cronin
Good lord Dame, how do you expect the team to build a contender around you when you earn that much money?
Honestly the more I read about Cronin the more I’d like him to just get the job. He’s done everything. Scouting, player personnel, he’s an expert on the cap/CBA. He’s a former player. Even if we hire someone else, hope he sticks around.
Sounds like completely opposite to Olshey, i wouldn’t be surprised if he get's the job longterm. Hopefully he can make some great moves to clean this mess
