Notice Bledsoe Waived

If people have been following the cap and the worth of NBA players in trades they would know the Bledsoe deal wasn't valuable. It had a guarantee (unlike Roco pure expiring deal). Really it was a liability, it would've been much better if the Blazers had nothing in its place and more room under the hard cap.

People make all kinds of ludicrous justifications for the Clippers trade. The "flexibility" the team would have, cap space possibilities that were never a good option, the negotiating power Cronin gained for the CJ trade, overlooking it was done a week prior to the deadline. The Norm contract going from a consensus team friendly deal to a bad contract in a few months. It was a horrible trade then and predictably is still a horrible trade today.

 

Payton plays like a PF on offense, but will likely play on guards on defense with the knowledge that if he is switched on a big, he can usually be effective against him as well.

I suspect that you will see a lot of dame + hart, ant + gp2 and a little bit of dame +ant with one of them to close games.

 

GS did field quite a few minutes in the playoffs with Steph + Poole + Gary but they usually had Wiggins and Draymond on the backline.

 

Lol, I accepted it was bad on the first day. Also, if you value Keon as a first round pick (which apparently Cronin did), and you look at some of the trades that happened this off-season, it was valued about right. Norm did not have much trade value on that contract.

Grant traded for a late first.

Brogdon traded for a late first.

Wood traded for a late first.

Huerter traded for a non-lotto first.

It sucks that RoCo was a sunk cost and had to be moved, but not much we could have done there. He was probably valued as the Detroit second we got in the deal.

 

Hopefully we can replicate something like that with Grant and Nas.

 

There are still people defending it.

Norman Powell at 17 million is not a bad contract.

Our prize from that trade was Keon Johnson. Someone who isn't going to sniff any playing time.

The trade was horrible.

 

I gave 4 examples of similar/better players that were traded for a similar returns. The league clearly did not value Norman Powell the same way fans did.

 

Dangling modifier in that second sentence, Shams. Go back to journalism school.

 

Keon Johnson is a nothing burger. A future 1st is more valuable than a scratched off lotto ticket that isn't even gonna play.

 

My main complaint in the Powell trade is if we were going to get a first round pick, at least spend it on a wing/big instead of another guard. Keon is going to struggle to get minutes until his 4th year.....

 

Sure, but there may not have been a team that would have given a future first.

 

The media outside of Portland was pretty negative on the number we gave Norm. Hell, even the trade grades at the time we sent out GTJ weren't effusive on the move since it was seen a very slight upgrade at best. Norm is a bench player on a good team IMHO. 17 mil for your 6th man is a bit steep.

 

Most contending teams did not have either a need or a future 1st to give, as well.

 

Would Norman be sniffing any playing time? Who would you rather have at shooting guard: Hart, Ant, Gp2, or NP?
That is not even including SS who needs some minutes. I agree that NP's contract was not bad, but dumping it still saved us some money. Either way, Roco was not returning and I like Winslow better. The trade was not great for us, but the way people are whining about it is like we lost a difference-maker.

 

Simons/Hart/Sharpe/GP2.... so Keon is our 5th or 6th string SG; depending on Didi being in front or behind him.

 

Silver Lining - we have one less guard.

 

Jody needs to go. She don’t care about competing and winning. She want to save as much money and just make it to the playoffs.

 

Could Powell have been worth more a week later at the deadline? Possibly. Could he have been worth at the least what LaVert and others were at the deadline when traded for an actual first round pick? Possibly. If we had then flipped such first round pick from a Norm trade for Grant could the Blazers have drafted Duren? Perhaps. If Cronin never found a deadline deal for Powell could he have been worth much more this summer? Possibly.

Cronin stated he worked to get players to their preferred destinations. He also said he felt pressured to do the Clippers trade to duck the tax and negotiate a CJ deal, a clear sign of an inexperienced negotiator. You don't know for certain the league's value of Norman Powell was low and would remain so any more than others suspect it was higher. GM's don't always make moves for the best long term value or the best long term maximum return. We know Norm was traded for a player on a rookie contract in Gary Trent Jr. A GM job is to maximize the value of players they send out and acquire players for the least assets or smallest team friendly contract.

Cronin failed to get any meaningful asset for Norm or Roco. The Blazers are a long way from having contending talent; they can't give up multiple starting level players for meaningless returns and build a winning team. It's better to hold an asset for a possible valuable return at a later date, then to dump it immediately for irrelevancy.

 

I wouldn’t say Grant was traded for a late 1st. That bucks pick turned into Jalen Duren, a lottery pick