Remember this: a major trade now is an acknowledgement that the roster WAS the problem. That is directly contrary to Olshey's established position. Personally, I suspect he is willing to die on that hill.
As has been pointed out, we just got 6 new players this summer (while losing 8 from the previous roster) translating to >40% turnover from last year's roster. What he said and what he did are quite divergent.
This is incredibly faulty logic. I'll guarantee that nobody said the Warriors' roster was the problem in 2016 before they signed KD. They simply took an already great roster and made it better. (No, I am not saying that the Blazers' roster is comparable to the 2016 Warriors--please nobody claim that I did.) If Neil honestly believes the roster is good enough to contend, but also honestly believes that a trade will make it better, those are not inherently contradictory beliefs.
I don't consider players like Blevins, RHJ, or Giles to have any relevance to the teams roster continuity. Melo and Kanter were the only guys in the rotation that didnt return. The prior year it was Ariza and Whiteside gone, who regularly started. After the WCF we lost Aminu, Harkless, Kanter, Turner, Curry, Leonard I'd say this summer where all the starters returning and only two rotational player changes was right there with any offseason for the least changes. I'm interested to see what the Billups changes look like and hopefully better health, but a narrative that Neil made significant roster changes is not true.
I can agree with that, but I don't think his lack of changes to the starters and primary rotation have been due to some supposed hard-headedness.
Rich Paul needs to get to work and start throwing grenades on NBA Twitter. Force their hand by not just making it "bumpy" but downright ugly.
If that happens part of me just wants to see Morey take a hard stand and say fine sit out we wont trade you, good luck. Its ridiculous a player finishing year 1 of a $170 million rookie extension can hold a franchise hostage... but if a player gets out of shape, hurt, old, or ineffective the team has to eat these shit contracts.
Well it goes both ways. Morey has been trying to trade Ben from the moment he came to Philly last year, and has full power to send him wherever he wants to without Ben's discretion. Not to mention the public ridicule he's faced from fans/teammate/coach. I tend to side with the players on this sorta stuff. Why support billion $ franchises over multi-millionaire players?
Morey job is to try and do trades to improve the roster. That is part of why a player is in a sports league that gives him a $170 million contract. If Ben wants to threaten a hold out or whatever that is his choice and I believe he should be able to do it. I also believe the 6ers should be able to say no we won't trade you for less than your worth to us and we won't pay you anything while you sit out. But it seems like we never get a situation that plays out that way, the player still gets paid while sitting and then gets sent to their preferred team. If this happens differently I will be glad to see it.
There haven't been any rumors at all that Neil is shopping him. So either he's waiting for someone to make a sweetheart deal, or he's simply not listening.
I don’t really understand Moreys plan here. Isn’t the best case scenario a harden situation? Aka he shows up and plays lackadaisical and sort of ruins team chemistry/momentum
If this is really the case and that's it, this is not good sign, imo. I love CJ and I think he is great player and I would love to see CJ getting ring in Portland, but this is heart, not brain. And Blazers played this card (heart over brain) for some time now and it obviously get them nowhere. If this team don't want to go full time professional and play this "friendship" still, I see Billups going sooner than later. I think the main reasons Olshey don't want to trade CJ for Simmons are non basketball factors and this is fuckin crazy.
If true, Neil should be fired ASAP. Its incredible he still has a job and wasn’t fired along with Stotts. What's even worse is him taking zero responsibility despite having kept Stotts around for nearly a decade.
I mean... Did you feel this same way when Dame raised a stink and made all his cryptic posts this summer? He too is in the first yr of a supermax deal. Why doesnt he just shut up and do his job? Ya I know there are obvious differences between how Dame has handled it vs Rich Paul, but it's a similar premise. All this said, I dont see why Simmons should come back to that toxic environment. He's admittedly willing to be fined so lets see how this plays out. It's just interesting how fans side with ownership and management over players so often in these scenarios.
A TON of issues there that are coaching oriented in nature in terms of the spacing and movement....or lack thereof. It doesn't change Simmons' weaknesses but they certainly didn't play to his strenghts for large portions of the time either.
