I didn't. 1st thing was it signaled that Portland, finally, mercifully, was in the process of dismantling Olshey's idiotic dysfunctional roster. Good thing. Also, I didn't really slam Cronin for that deal because I was convinced, still am by the way, that the Vulcans were pushing Cronin to dump salary. I will say I never really bought Cronin's excuse that he had to do the Clippers trade before the Pels trade because other GM's were leveraging Portland's tax situation in other trade talks. I thought that was mostly bullshit RoCo had no positive value at the time, IMO. So the value was in Powell. But he had just signed a 5 year contract, that at the time was pretty steep. Maybe the Blazers could have squeezed another 2nd round pick out of the Clippers. Maybe they could have found another destination for Powell. But those things aren't certain in hindsight, it would have probably been better to dump RoCo and Simons and keep Powell around for a later trade
Powell at the 3 didn’t make any sense, especially with Dame and CJ at the 1 and 2. We definitely didn’t win that trade and I wish we had kept Powell at guard like he was most effective.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding things somehow, but it seems to me that the crazy thing is that the CBA that the owners got after this trade has so severely hamstrung teams that trades are super difficult to do now. The new CBA makes it harder for small market teams like Portland to find the deals they need in order to rebuild. Buyer teams that want to make pushes for title runs and would otherwise be willing to trade for guys like Simons and Grant are tied up by the limitations imposed by the new CBA.
I don't see that at all. trade rules have actually relaxed for teams under either apron. Salary matching margins have increased. Last year, teams over the 1st apron could take back 110% of outgoing salary; this season it's 'only' 100%. That's a regressive change but it's not really significant. The 2nd apron rule prohibiting aggregation of salaries has been in place for a couple of years, but teams over the 2nd apron can still make trades, and a team over the 2nd apron will have high salaried players so aggregation should not really be an insurmountable obstacle besides all that, starting this season, teams can use the MLE (non-tax; tax; room) and BAE just like TPE's in trades. Meaning that a team could trade for Timelord or Thybulle without sending any player back to Portland. That's a significant trade option that has not been unavailable till this season the one big difference between this year and last year is a situational difference. That being that 1st round picks in the 2025 draft have much higher value than 1st round picks in the 2024 draft. I suppose it could be the assumption it's harder to make trades now will give timid, confused, lazy-ass GM's more cover for sitting on their hands
Well, like I said, I am probably misunderstanding the situation. I was chalking it up to teams being so scared of going over the second apron that they're very hesitant to take on role players like Simons and Grant who have long contract commitments. It seems like we're not seeing anywhere near the volume of trades that we used to. I don't know about GM's, but I'll confess to being lazy-ass anymore when it comes to the CBA. I used to read that sucker from top to bottom and had Larry Coon's FAQ at the top of my bookmarks. Since the Blazers have become pretty much irrelevant in the NBA, I just don't have the enthusiasm anymore.
the 2nd apron rules may have a little dampening impact on trade volume. But I can't imagine it's a major reason for a lack of trades. Most of the teams above the 2nd apron have already traded away most of their future 1st round picks; I'd guess that's a bigger factor than the aggregation rule; but who knows I'd say the lack of trade activity is more circumstantial than structural. It's alway pretty dead before Dec 15 anyway. And, as I said, I think teams are very reluctant to give up 2025 picks compared to the willingness to trade 2024 picks a year ago. I'd also surmise that the market of available players isn't attractive at all. Blazers have Simons-Ayton-Grant; Suns have Nurkic-Beal; Lakers have Russell-Vincent; Bulls have LaVine-Vucevic; Wizards have Kuzma-Poole. That's a lot of expensive, flawed, and injury-prone players flooding the 'available' market another huge factor, IMO, are the Pick-Hogs. Depending on how the protections work out, 4 teams: OKC-Utah-Nets-Spurs own the rights to 50-60 first round picks and swaps over the next 7 years. Considering those future 1st's are the major grease for the wheels of big trades, those 4 teams can really put the brakes on trade activity
This is really the crux of the woes. Olshey crapped on CJ far too long. Very likable guy and very intelligent, but the duo was never going to be another splash bros and Dames size and D was far inferior to Curry. Thinking any type of score first guard would work next to Dame was a fools errand and Olsehy tried for years.
Not too sure about that part. They're both listed as 6'2" and Dame outweighs Steph 194 to 185 lbs. They're both pretty dinky for PGs by NBA standards. As far as defense goes, their DRTG stats are pretty comparable: https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/stephen-curry-defensive-rating-by-season https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/damian-lillard-defensive-rating-career
Because they are all undersized for the position here in Portland. That was a terrible idea from the start.
Dame was fine. CJ wasn't close to as good as Klay. Klay was a matchup nightmare for almost every 2 in the league, on both sides of the floor. And Golden State was better at every other position as well, and deeper. *Edit* We never had enough talent around Dame. Not ever, and certainly not after Aldridge left. And every player in the NBA knew that.
Agreed - hated the trade at the time. It showed that the Blazers were completely incompetent and had no strategic direction. This was as bad as any move Neil Olshey ever did outside the Evan Turner contract. If the Blazers were going to contend with Dame they had to find a way to flip assets for different starters - maybe you flip both CJ/Ant and then have Norm start with Dame. Or you trade Norm and a piece but somehow bring a different starter in. This trade made ZERO sense if we were ever going to try and build a winner with Dame. This was the biggest action that forced both the Blazers and Dame to end the Dame era in Portland. If we were not going to build a winner with Dame we should've traded him and all our vets for an aggressive rebuild like the Thunder, Spurs, or Jazz did. This Clippers trade made no sense in that context either. We had to eat Eric Bledsoe and Didi contracts (WHICH ARE BOTH ON OUR SALARY CAP STILL THIS SEASON!) It was an epically horrible trade. This was the beginning of the two timelines incompetency that has continued until today. We used the salary savings from the Clippers trade on much worse contracts. We didnt have a search for a good long term GM as other franchises did - a good owner would have done that search first and then empowered the new GM to make the best trades in the offseason. Once this Clippers trade was done even a good GM would have been in a much worse spot than when Olshey left the team. The people that liked the trade were either 1. Delusional Blazer fan homers that support nearly ever action the Blazers do or 2. Neil Olshey haters that just wanted change for the sake of change
Yeah this is a good point - they're saying guys who make over $30 million basically have no trade market because contenders can't acquire those salaries. We're seeing it with LaVine in Chicago and Ingram in New Orleans - both teams are rebuilding and would ship these guys off to a contender but theres no contenders that have salary room for them. Grant may be in that group as well even though he is paid less its very hard for most contenders to fit his salary into their roster. Guys like Deni on a cheap contract might be worth more than many allstars. In some ways I like the new changes and restrictions - but I don't like the flip side how its freezing a lot of still productive players out of the trade market.
Teams that are under the apron usually aren't contenders. The contenders now have way more restrictions and can't give up picks/etc to add that last starter as even if they want to they can't increase salary or aggregate salary. The Blazers and other teams with MLE TPE flexibility aren't going to be giving up picks for starters (or at least they shouldn't)
