Trade Deadline: February 6, 2025

Don't even know if Jody cares if the Blazers make money. She gets a boatload of cash each year regardless just for "managing" the franchise.

 

Sharpe will be due an extension. There isn't any team giving us a top3 pick for him. Would you give up that #2-#3 pick to get Keyonte George?

 

Guess I see this differently - we need the roster to make sense then can go get the best coach. A title winning coach is not going to want to have to work with this lottery quality roster.

Billups or any random coach is fine for next season until we start to have more talent here.

 

Looks like he didn't get 50m a year.

 

40 doesn't make me feel that much better if I'm a Raps fan.

 

So, basically, their message really is "we don't have any information about whether the Blazers should have made a deal, or not." Great article, lol.

 

I don’t completely disagree with you based on the fact Portland will not get a good coach until ownership is changed or massive over pay. I don’t want a retread. The new “it” guy would be preferred.

 

from the article:

"Portland is 23-31, a spunky 13-seed that’s only 4.5 games back of the play-in. It’s also spinning its wheels, trudging through an increasingly paradoxical rebuild that can now, fairly, be categorized as bizarre. In the short term, Portland’s roster is tantalizing, explosive, and somewhat nonsensical. Its core players, several of whom are extension eligible this summer, may not be compatible with one another, and none are clear foundational centerpieces."

that's a pretty realistic and common sense evaluation, don't you agree?

"The Trail Blazers clearly aren’t going full bore on a youth movement, Jerami Grant, Deandre Ayton, and Robert Williams III are all (when healthy) in Chauncey Billups’s rotation. While veteran leadership can certainly bring value to a green team, there’s also something to be said about developing young players by, like, putting them on the court at the same time. Lineups that feature Shaedon Sharpe, Scoot Henderson, and Donovan Clingan—the team’s three most recent lottery picks—have played only 145 minutes this season, and they haven’t started a game together since November 20."

still seems realistic and logical...right?

by the way, the Scoot-Sharpe-Clingan trio is now up to 148 minutes after last night. 44 different 3 man lineups have played more minutes

"The Blazers have made it unnecessarily hard to figure out who should be part of the organization’s next growth cycle, a perplexing dilemma when you realize that all but four players on this roster are under contract next season, too. Yes, Portland will likely have another lottery pick in what’s expected to be a deep draft. But the strategy, right now, all feels a bit too circumspect.

Winning is intoxicating. But would it have made sense to be a little more aggressive about moving off Williams and Grant or potentially even selling high on Anfernee Simons? (Assuming that the market for any of those three could yield positive draft capital in a league full of teams so desperate to win.) There are a lot of questions, and I don’t have all the answers. But I really hope that the Blazers weren’t hoodwinked by their own recent success. That would be criminally shortsighted, regardless of how formidable they’ve looked over the past six weeks. Since January 1, the Thunder and Clippers are the only teams that rank higher in defensive rating, which might be the most unbelievable stat I’ve read all season."

he's giving Portland praise for that 11 game stretch but is registering consternation about the same kinds of things most posters here have registered consternation over. And confusion over the direction most here are confused by; and wondering if there is a coherent plan in place by the F.O.....which is what a lot of posters here suspect isn't in place

he even qualifies it by dealing directly with the criticism at the foundation of your dismissal of the article:

"Assuming that the market for any of those three could yield positive draft capital in a league full of teams so desperate to win"

in other words, he's allowing for the possibility that Portland's assets had very little trade value; at least in terms of draft capital

"Adding to the frustration: Reports have trickled out that Portland wasn’t particularly close to completing any deals. “We know a lot of fans, and probably a lot of people in here, prefer a little bit of action,” Blazers general manager Joe Cronin said. “Often, we do too. We’re always looking for ways to participate in these windows and find guys who can help us be better. But this time around, we just didn’t find the value. So, we decided to pass.”

The trade deadline can be an inflection point for any franchise mired in the wilderness of a prolonged rebuild. By sitting this one out, Portland tacked another level of uncertainty on top of a plan that’s yet to take shape.

One-word verdict: Bizarre"

Bizarre seems a pretty appropriate label and he sure isn't a lone voice in the wilderness

I get that it's an easy way to try and dismiss and shut down criticisms by saying nobody really knows what went on. That's a tactic people used with me to for years to try and deflect criticism and blame from Olshey. While it's true we don't really know what goes on, this isn't a courtroom. Second-guessing ownership, management, coaching, players, trades, contracts, strategies....that's what we do here almost all of the time. it's the lifeblood of this place...don't kill it!

 

Since the author is throwing out opinions, I'll throw out mine:
Not Bizarre at all.... except Grant.

My guess is that Simons is undervalued (compared to how our GM values him) in the league, so he didn't get traded.
My guess is that the coach and GM are unsure DC's body is ready for high, consistent minutes.
I would have traded Grant for a pick and soon to end contracts. I have no idea whether the Blazers were offered this.

 

Then what? You think the team selling would be a good thing?

 

Sounds a lot like the “anyone’s better than Scotts crew”

 

Tell me about the success that Stotts have had before and after coaching Portland

 

I was ready to move on from Stotts but I think that it was almost criminal to let the guy who actually prevented us from building the right rosters around Dame to fire him. So I disliked Olshey and thought he sucked at his job. In my estimation Stotts wasn't a coach that increased the wins of our team but he also rarely hurt the team.

I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth but I'd imagine @THE HCP would ask you how much success we've had since Stotts was fired.

I think since Terry got an unprecedented amount of seasons without a win in the conference finals that no one has much ground to stand on when complaining about other fans who wanted Stotts gone. Also this "anybody but Stotts" shit is a bit disingenuous because we couldn't have even known who the candidates to replace him would have been... so calling for his job is pretty much saying someone besides Stotts but I think all of us hoped it would be an upgrade or a horizontal move that brought in a fresh voice to take the team to a new level having benefited from what they learned from Terry and then getting to add to that whatever the new coach was bringing.

 

Have you been taking those drawing classes? Use more than just crayons, please!

 

Well he clearly knows how to work really hard to marry a sugar mama.

 

Lol. I've had conflicts with very few. Debates with many.

Certain posters get their panties in a bunch and can't get over it when I don't agree with them for some reason. Kj isn't one of them.

I only made myself explicitly clear in this instance because I knew some tool would inevitably try to use the misunderstanding to attack me.

 

no not a good thing - a GREAT thing.

 

Not true. I've consistently been either supportive or indifferent with all of Stotts, Billups and even many of Olshey's moves when he was here.

But Jody/Vulcan/Bert Kolde are absolute crap owners. Its the #1 reason the Blazers have all the issues they have today. I really don't even know how much of the moves or lack of moves I hate with Cronin is because the owners are interfering too.

 

The #1 issue is the owners??? Maybe Paul interfered at times, but I really doubt Jody and Bert are influencing personnel moves. At least they paid to bring back a GLeaue team.