Why isn't he on our team again? If indeed his knees were very sore, and if it was a short season last year, wouldn't the creative answer have been to give him a year off and maybe renegotiate his contract to reflect that? It seems that the Blazers, as they so often do, jumped the gun, panicked, cut their ties and counted their cash savings. "Creative solutions they have not," said Yoda. I love Brandon and root for him even as a TWolf, but find it heartbreaking that he's not here if in fact he can play (and yes, that is a big IF, but it is Brandon friggin Roy we are talking about!)
Doctors said he would never play again. If he continued it would literally cripple him in his 50 or 60s. Additionally, I don't think the league allows you to re-negotiate contracts.
can't renegotiate his deal. He's not worth what his contract would be on our books currently. The opportunity to even try to get someone like Hibbert was worth having it off our books. Moving on with Lillard and Aldridge.
Roy's Doctros told him he couldn't play anymore. Roy did not want to play here any longer. Just a guess of course (see avatar)
Mostly so we would have cap space to sign Roy Hibbert. If Brandon were still on the team we wouldn't have had that cap space and then we'd be straight up HOSED. Could you imagine how bad we'd be this year if we had to have Meyers Leonard or Joel Freeland starting at Center?
A team with Roy and Lilliard and LMA would be a very good team. You guys are drinking the koolaid. I say it happened like this: Roy came back, couldnt really play, and the team freaked out, urged him to retire (even though he obviously was not ready to) and amnistied him. They wanted to save their money, not win games, or work with their superstar. Do you think the Lakers would have forced Kobe to retire under similar circumstances. I think not. I call bullshit on the whole thing. They bungled it. They panicked. And how is that Hibbert cap space thing working out for you?
I doubt anyone here drank the koolaid as most people on this board thought he should retire the year before. (I was not one of them) However what I did agree at the time was that he was no longer worth 16 million a year. 16 million a year by the way the Blazers had to pay regardless of him being amnestied. I think your reasoning is off, but I wish we had him for 5 million a year.
I think the problem with ths theory is the Blazers didn't need Roy to retire, they could have amnistied him injury or not. I believe it was Roy who announced to the Blazers' surprise that he was retiring (because he wanted to be able to run with his kids). If the Blazers were going to amnisty Roy, this turns out to be a blessing financially because insurance then pays Roy's salary. But then I think Blazers needed cap space so they ended up using the amnisty on Roy anyways. If Blazers intent was to amnisty Roy all along, they really didn't have to talk Roy into medically retiring.
I call BS on your whole speculation. EVERYONE was surprised when Roy came in and told them he was medically retiring. The Blazers doctors told him if he continued to play he wouldn't be able to run later in life, and he went to his own doctor who pretty much told him the same thing. His knees weren't doing better until he went over to Germany in the middle of the year and got the same treatment as Kobe, a treatment which isn't supposed to fix the knee but more numb it. Whatever you may think Roys knees are shot and he may get through this year but he wont be able to get through the next. When your meniscus is gone and your bone on bone there is no magic fix and with every step your causing more damage.
I think its much more likely that Roy was ready to move on and used his knees to scare Portland into using their amnesty on him so he could go elsewhere and make more money. That scenario isn't very likely, but more probably than the one above in my opinion. I doubt in 3 years we'll be saying "I wish we were paying Roy $18m a year right now, that would be a great contract!"
I don't know how long Brandon will be able to play or how effective he will be in the time he does play. I do know that when Brandon announced his retirement, the Blazers weighed their options, which were essentially to wait a year and then apply for his money to come off of the books due to medical retirement or to take the one-time amnesty and get the cap relief immediately. Chad Buchanan was looking for a quick reload by adding a big-time free agent plus whatever he could get in the draft. He didn't get the job and Olshey decided he didn't want to go the aging veteran free agent route. I don't know if Chad's plan would have worked, but I do know that if Roy was still on the roster, Olshey wouldn't have had the cap space to sign guys like Freeland and Hickson. I think you just have to accept that both Buchanan and Olshey made the decisions that they thought were in the Blazers' best interests at the time and let it go. A year from now, if Lillard pans out the way we hope, Leonard is decent, and we get another good pick in next year's draft, the Blazers will be on the rise again and will be worth getting excited about. I think I can honestly say that I'd rather be looking at that eventuality than trying to milk a couple more years out of Brandon.
I loved having Roy on the team, but I'm ready to turn the corner. He and Aldridge were never a great paring because Roy was a methodical half court player. Aldridge can clearly play that way, but he'll really excel in a more open court offense. If you put a bigger center on him he'll outrun him down the court. If you put a faster guy on him, he'll overpower him in the post. Grind-it-out half-court McMillan-ball eliminates this matchup nightmare that Aldridge can present. Lillard and Roy were ball dominant guards, and especially with his knee issues Roy was never going to be excited to play at a Lillard pace. Turning this corner was just something the franchise had to do. With Roy's history on the team, there simply weren't any half-measures you could take to turn that page, even if there weren't all the contract issues.
For as great as Roy is (was), he wasn't the player we really needed, one who makes everyone around him better.
