I just want to say that as fans with the limited information we had and the past that we'd accepted with Olshey that there was no reason to know that Keon and Justise with their small salaries had more value than Norm and RoCo. Their was also no reason to think that CJ and Larry brought back anything close to what Hart and others equated to, until the Buck's pick for Grant trade transpired. It seems that Cronin was playing 3D chess and the rest of us checkers because he sent out four rotational players in the league for two, a prospect and a draft pick that then turned into two rotational players and two starters. I'm so happy that Joe made me wrong. This team is obviously better than I could have imagined and I hope they remain exactly that.
I had overlooked Keon as just a young guy we were getting back to maybe throw in trades down the line. I was unconvinced he could ever become a backup PG. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised that he’s gotten decent opportunities to bring the ball up the court and make plays so early in just his second year. The shooting percentages don’t bother me. The offensive creativity will come. He’s going to be defending Dame, Ant, and Sharpe in practice—ideally, he fills the GPII role in two years on a GPII-level extension. This becomes a sneaky good deal if Keon can become a Lu Dort kind of player. There were some on this thread that wanted to trade Ant for him the last two summers.
Just remember, if the Pelicans didn’t make the playoffs we have had another young piece on this team. Too bad that didn’t happen
I very much misjudged Cronin. Very, very happy to be proven wrong. It's interesting to think Keon Johnson is two years younger than Nassir, and only a year older than Sharpe. I had written him off as kind of a flyer--and yet I know that if we'd drafted him (particularly under Olshey) we'd have been on the same 2-4 year "let's withhold judgment" plan that we had for guys like Nas, Ant, Zach or Trent. Keon has shown more potential this year than arguably any of those guys did at age 20. He was drafted by one team, traded on draft night to another, and thrown in on a deal to a third team all over the course of 2 seasons. So he's got a weird trade history that doesn't necessarily line up with his upside. Statistically, he's the worst performer of all guys on our team. But it's not like he's eye-wateringly bad. He does some good things on defense and plays a combo guard kind of style on offense, and like Sharpe he's shown some moves that portend really good things for the future.
I see what you're saying, but Dort is a fucking tank, and Keon is "wears a T-shirt-in-the-pool" skinny.
Keon's defense principals seem to be on point. He will never be a huge defender, but he is quick and gets to his point really well. He is going to be a player in this league for a long time.
If CJ & Nance for Hart & Grant is Cronin getting obliterated, I look forward to him making a decent trade.
Hart is a clear improvement over Nance - he is just as good while being healthier and more reliable. Right now, Grant is a better fit than CJ. If Grant continues to play like this and re-signs for a reasonable amount, it looks like a win for Cronin. If he turns out to be a one year rental - time to revisit the conversation.
The only thing about the CJ/Hart trade was the inclusion of Nance. I wished we could have kept Nance. He would have been the absolute perfect fit for this team. Either Joe should have refused to include Nance or insisted that the Pelicans included Trey Murphy. They weren’t going to include Herb Jones.
We didn't know Nance would fully recover from his knee issues when we included him in the CJ trade...a big with injury history and a bum knee is someone you move on from in my view especially in Portland. Joe Cronin did an outstanding job shuffling the deck and he's not done.....Roco got benched for gambling too much on defense by Chauncey
I got the feeling that Joe and Chauncey just may swing for the fence, if Durant could be acquired. Ant plus could be attractive for the Nets if they decide to blow it up, tank for the big guy & rebuild. You couple KD with Dame, Grant & Sharp with a few, Chauncey dogs, they would be close to contend.
yeah, it would have killed the deal. IIRC, Portland's TPE was only about 200K more than Grant's salary, while Murphy's salary was 3.05M
maybe, although it is possible Cronin could have still leveraged the Milwaukee pick into Grant. Seems like he's been pretty consistently underrated as a GM even if true though, at least the Blazers would have an extra 2025 first as leverage I'm really hoping Portland makes the playoffs this year so they can finally convey that 1st to Chicago that Olshey encumbered in the dumbass Nance trade
Winslow is as known an entity as there is. He played point guard / point forward in Miami. If Winslow starts drilling 3-pointers at 40 percent, that is not something Joe expected. That hasn't happened. Jerami Grant was on an expiring contract. He could go anywhere he wanted to go after this season. You need to keep that in mind. Keon Johnson was a first-round draft pick. Teams don't randomly select players using darts on a dart board. Keon was playing on a supposedly "deep" team trying to contend and developing him I'm guessing was not a priority. And this was known: On Wednesday, Johnson jumped 48 inches in the air to break a 20-year-old record set by Kenny Gregory, who jumped 45 1/2 inches in 2001. Johnson also recorded a 41 1/2-inch standing vertical, which is also a combine record and 4 1/2 inches higher than anyone else in this year's class. "It was great. I'm sure Joe and Chauncey knew more than that.
Joe said they were high on Keon when he was drafted and he's been on their radar for a while....people scoffed at Joe for saying that but I've honestly liked everything Joe has done since he's had the job.
