Hey All, It's been awhile. I cannot say that I missed you but I figured it might be time to try this again. As stated in the title, I am curious which direction you think the team should go. Personally, I think this is a matter of perspective, if you keep this core together then your goals should be realistic. This is a playoff team, not a contender. Things happen though in the playoffs, injuries, hot streaks etc. Do you roll the dice that this team is capable of making a run under the right circumstances? Or should we blow it up and take a gamble rebuilding during a loaded draft? I would like to see some of your responses before I post my plan/ preference and the thread inevitably turns dark.
Development season....getting to the second round for the youngsters would be a basketball camp they couldn't get playing pick up in the summer....we're a really young roster and I expect we'll look different at the deadline.
Can't really trust the process, we aren't like Philly with lotto picks for multiple years. Can't afford to go all in either. Just need upgrades. Only player to "trust the process" in right now is Collins
I think with everything going on in the NBA and the Blazers, and considering the players and assets we have... Our path to a championship only happens if Nurk and Collins become all star or near all star level players. You can't win by trying to copy the success of other teams. Golden State is currently dominating by playing small. Trying to play as small is a lesson in futility. We'll only be a copy of an original. We need to go big and big with dynamic well rounded bigs. I loved Nurk's passing and court vision last year, it hasn't been used as much but it's there. I think Collins has similar skills. Use that. Build around it. Two great bigs makes up for short PG and SG. Keep Nurk, continue to develop Collins. Get a big man coach. Try to quick bake that cake.
There's 4 aspects to building a team. The first one helps accomplish the other two. 1.) Flexibility - Being able to make a run at free agents every summer because of the flexibility to clear cap space. - Having good enough contracts to be able to move them easily as filler/salary matcher. - Having a core group of players that is versatile enough so that any addition would fit in seamlessly and the team doesn't have to set specific parameters in their search for talent. - Means more to big market teams. 2.) Overall Talent - Can be added via Free Agency, Trade, or even the Draft. - Having flexibility as well as young assets/pieces helps facilitate the addition of overall talent. - Cohesiveness and having the right players in the right roles contributes to this. - Good coaching contributes to this. - Is essentially how good the team is/plays in the present. - Overall Talent in the future is dependent upon moves made and potential growth (P&P). 3.) Picks and Potential (P&P) - Involves young pieces that are valued by a rebuilding team (young players and picks) - Also involves potential for certain players to grow into a bigger role. - You can either stock up on P&P, cash it in for overall talent - Or you can be to good to add to it. 4.) Roster Control - How much control the team has over it's players' contract situations - Teams with rights to players for multiple years have more control over them than expiring players - A poor contract wouldn't factor in, as controlling someone like Evan Turner right now isn't beneficial, as he kills are flexibility (#1) Right now, we have little flexibility, decent overall talent, and an average to below average amount of picks and potential. So to answer the OP's question, I want to try to increase all three of these. However, I'd view it like this: Overall Rating=Flexibility+Talent+P&P+Control So anything that increases that overall rating, I'm for. IMO, adding DeAndre Jordan would be a very minimal talent upgrade over Nurk, we'd lose Nurk's potential to get better, and possible picks. We'd also lose roster control with Jordan being a free agent next year and Nurkic being only a RFA. We should look into trading Napier and Vonleh because they would bring back equal talent, and those two's contract situations would threaten our already low flexibility levels. They also don't have the potential to get past where they are now in the rotation. We could also upgrade our cohesiveness/role situation by landing us a starting SF. Hypothetically, trading Harkless and a pick for Tyreke Evans would increase our overall talent immediately, for many reasons. It'd also increase our future flexibility by shedding Harkless' contract. Losing the pick would hurt our P&P, however losing Harkless wouldn't affect this. So essentially, is the drop in P&P between now and 2018-2019 (due to resigning Tyreke being unlikely) worth the rise in flexibility (from shedding Harkless' contract and getting under the tax) and overall talent (for this year)? So essentially, I want us to improve the situation based on those four factors.
What will happen with missing and mysterious Swanigan? He could be butter on the bread in a multi player deal if Neil wants it. I agree Collins should stay.
You could probably deal Swanigan. Keep Collins. Super young and versatile. Can be that unicorn of a player. Ceiling being Porzingis. Just have to find a way to get rid of the bad contracts that were handed out. Harkless you could move in a package pretty easily I think. Turner and Meyers will be the tough ones to deal.
Accurate view!!! No one wants "Outrageously Overpaid" Turner and "Too Much Money" Meyers. Imagine if we did not have those two with dollar space to acquire future young talent.
I really like this a lot. Something that is overlooked a lot when people say we need to increase flexibility by getting rid of contracts is that the reward for doing so doesn't necessarily lead to more flexibility and also takes away from other categories. There doesn't appear to be a reasonable way to get under the salary cap, nor will there ever really be a way to get much cap space as long as Dame and CJ are on the team along with Nurk if/when extended. So even if they somehow got rid of Turner, Leonard, and Harkless for nothing back in return it still wouldn't really create a situation where the added flexibility leads to the ability to add more talent. In fact it would probably make it more difficult considering the picks and players that would have to be included for that to happen. Despite being slightly above the tax line, the Blazers actually do have a decent amount of flexibility right now IF they are willing to spend the money. They still have the tax-payer MLE they could use to outbid most teams for any buyouts and of course the Trade Exception of $13 million. Any trades where a player goes out and nothing or less salary comes back also creates Trade Exceptions. With all the free agents out there and not a lot of teams with cap space it could create a situation where Trade Exceptions could become very valuable at the draft or at the beginning of free agency. That is why I won't panic quite yet if it isn't used by the deadline. I totally overvalue draft picks but they represent a chance (albeit small where we will likely be picking) of landing a true difference maker. Trade that away just to get rid of a bad contract and you almost eliminated any chance you have of improving this summer. 1st round picks are always valuable whether used on a player or in a trade. Like you alluded to the more picks and promising young players a team has the better everything else becomes especially trades.
No. Going big has been tried before as well. We need something original, something noone has tried before. I have a plan. We've had key parts before but have not capitalized on them. We need to go fat. barfo
With their current salary obligations (size and term) and the age of Damian, they're probably better trying to perform trades, than tanking. Blowing this team up would mean pairing picks with shitty contracts just to get rid of them (Turner, Leonard, Harkless, et al.) and you'd basically be giving away the types of assets you need in a rebuild, unless you're willing to take pennies or dimes on the dollar for guys like Damian or CJ for younger, unproven assets (draft picks or players). If the Blazers could pair CJ with Nurkic, or CJ with Collins, or CJ with some other combination of players, there's a chance they could swing a deal for a second all-NBA caliber player, which is probably what they're going to need if they really want to contend for a title. Even then you need one of the players left over to take a big leap (Collins or Nurkic if neither is used in a trade).
Holy hell. I dont know who you are, but I know that the years before I joined, I read many posts of yours I thought were good. Nice to have you back, but.... I do believe you have to start over from ground zero if you have been inactive for a year. Is this correct @HCP ?
As for the OP, Only small moves before the trade deadline to try to free a bit of cap. If we can find a workable wing in that process great, but not counting on it. See how we do the rest of the season and playoffs and make the bigger moves this offseason.
Too early to go all in. Still need another year or two of building. Stay with the process of building a solid team.
You are advocating soccer wall defense? It will definitely help to seal the paint - but with NBA offenses becoming 3 ball happy, I am not certain it helps.
I totally overvalue draft picks but it's because I like being able to fill out a rotation with either vets like Aminu and Ed who'll come here as a one-trick role player for less than market value (which we got super-lucky with), or with rookie-scale contracts. The regulars are tired of hearing me say this, but if we wouldn't have traded away our draft capital from the classes of 2013 (other than CJ), 2014, 2015 and 2016 in trades (failed or not) that didn't get us very far, we would've had a stable of young players coming up that allowed us to not panic-pay Crabbe, or Mo, or Meyers. For instance, if we had Pat last year playing like he was this year, would we have said "I'd rather pay Pat 1.4M than Crabbe 18M?" I think maybe we would. If we had Zach (or shit, even Biggie) playing well behind Meyers would we have offered him 4/41M? Pat and Crabbe and Patty Mills and Will Barton were all 2nd round picks that would be super-useful to us, but we are in a habit of trading them away, too.
