For three decades, owner Paul Allen set professional standards for accountability within the entire Blazers organization. He made his GMs sell him on any changes, all the way down to holding private meetings with top players. He gave everyone a long leash, but he had control over the leash. My hunch is. The system of accountability has changed since Mr. Allen's passing. I am not sure who, if anyone is holding the accountability leash now. Which could mean lower than expected results for years. Since Mr. Allen's passing a little over one year ago. There have been many decisions made. Starting with Stotts contract extension, and then a ton of off season moves. I bring up the Stotts extension for a reason. I believe there was a report that Mr Allen refused to extend Stotts contract after the bad loss to the Pelicans in the first round of the 2018 playoffs. Obviously Mr. Allen had doubts about Stotts back then. But Olshey extended Stotts after Mr. Allen's passing. Just one example of the change in accountabilty that has taken place over the last year. If I am wrong about any of this, let me know. Most of this is my opinion and gut talking. But sadly, I believe the worst is yet come. Hope I am wrong.
The thing is, we have no idea how much jody allen pays attention to the Blazers, while she owns the Seahawks and has probably 100000 other things to do. She probably is not involved in the day to day operation.
I have no idea how involved Jody is with the Blazers. Does anyone here know if she is, or which of her staff is responsible for running this ship? As of today, "IF" this ship has a rudder, it is broken and needs fixing. The entire crew, down to the players on the court, are out of control.
I fear there is no one to hold Neil accountable... he has his guys and they are all getting paid, and fans keep buying tickets... so why would anything change
I agree with that one and said as much when it happened. But it's really minor in the grand scheme of things. Having Layman here would do little to affect our current record. But: 1. Hood/Collins were supposed to be the Harkless/Aminu replacements. Not Baze/Melo. We all watched who played in the playoffs and who had the most success. 2. Whiteside was supposed to be the Kanter replacement. Another decent move in a vacuum. 3. Ant was supposed to be the Curry replacement. Fine. 4. Baze was supposed to replace Turner. Also fine.
At the end of the day, it was Neil and the players that set championship expectations for this season... not the fans. Nurk injury was a known at that time, Zach was averaging 9 points and 4 rebounds when he went down, we were 8-12 when Hood went down, then we added Melo who is averaging 7 points more than Zach. And Neil thinks the fans are stupid and he is using injury excuse to buy another year and hold nobody accountable.
Zach's stats don't mean a damn thing. He played in 2 games. And he was unquestionably the best defender on the team to start this season and a massive loss given the rest of the roster construction.
Okay so what would you have had him say instead? Sorry Portland, we will not be competing next year for a title, so it will be a year of mediocrity. Please sit and be patient for the next season? First that would be pure lunacy (ticket sales, etc). Secondly, Every team goes into the next season expecting to compete and hope to chase a ring. EVERY TEAM. This is the pros man... Sigh... do you ever come up with answers to your complaints? If not, you should try.
I’m not blaming him for having optimism and trying to sell tickets... I’m blaming him for not admitting when he fails, and not holding anyone accountable... and instead getting defensive and having disdain for the fans for wanting them held to a higher standard for a team with a league high $147 mil payroll.
The first thing to understand about Neil is, he does not have a plan, short or long term. He uses a strategy applied daily. Case in point. In 2016, he overpaid several players because he could that day. He did not take into account how those bad contracts would affect future roster moves. We are still dealing with the problems his lack of planning caused. Case two. Historically, counting draft picks, Neil has turned over about 1/3 (5) of the roster each off season. This number worked well to bring in talent to evaluate, without disrupting team chemistry. Last off season, not counting Hourd, the number is 8 new players. Over half the roster is new, result, team chemistry is a mess. I will let the experts here decide which moves he should not of made. I will just say he went too far again and made too many changes to the roster, like he went too far giving out bad contracts in 2016. Because Neil does not have a plan.
We got rid of all of the mistakes from 2016 pretty easily, having given up no assets to do so, unlike most of the other teams. This is simply false. https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/continuity.html This was the first summer we had substantial turnover, and even now, 57% of the roster returned. The prior three years, we have been among the league leaders in roster continuity. Actually led the league in it in 2016 and 2017. And as you can also see from that chart, roster continuity has very little correlation with team success. It's easy to blame and I'm no Neil fanboy, but the moves he made this past summer have been largely defensible. You still haven't pointed out what you think he should have done instead.
You need to read and understand the info in your link. The 57% you quote is minutes played, not roster spots. And the 2016 bad contracts are still on our books, just different names attached to the $$$$.
The biggest Neil made this offseason was expecting Pau Gasol to be ready. I think he was counting on him and that turned out to be a disaster.
Think there needs to be a distinction between team chemistry and roster continuity. Chemistry can be developed pretty quickly if the coach and team leaders have the right mindset to get the most synergy out of all the players. The coach has to have a system that is amenable to his players' strengths. He also needs to hold his players accountable (as this thread suggests) to not make egregious mistakes. Hell, Look at the rag tag Knicks team that destroyed us last night. There are teams in the league with a lot more turnover than us, who play a lot more cohesively. I think if anyone needs to be held accountable for not playing hard or right, it's the players + coach. We haven't changed our defense or offense in years and the league has caught up to us. And any semblance of adversity drives Dame/CJ/ (and now, Melo) into iso only mode with little effort on defense. Terry has yet to hold his players accountable in 8 yrs-- why would he start now?
How are the two points any different? And they're expiring this year. Look at how much LA gave up to get rid of Deng/Mozgov. Or any other 2016 extension that's been moved. We have every single one of our future assets intact.
what you also fail to address is how involved Paul Allen may have likely been in the contracts that were doled out in 2016. You easily point the finger but have no proof one way or the other as to where and if any blame should be associated. It's been known from the past that PA got attached to his players and often wanted a player or players re-signed. I always like when people point fingers with nothing but speculation.
