Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th seed

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

Actually, both Roy and Aldridge were traded to the Blazers. In fact, it took two trades, one with Boston and another with Minnesota, to get Roy.

BNM

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

We had those guys in 2009 playoffs with HCA and got schooled by Houston but whatever. It sucks it didn't work out. We'd probably be good by now. Didn't we trade Foye for Roy?

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

I think that the Blazers are in a position to really advance the team without trading LMA. Looking at the three-pronged approach, they've successfully used the draft to add Lillard to go with Aldridge, giving them two excellent players. They used trades, the draft and FA signings this summer to reboot the rest of the roster with a competent center and decent backups at every position. Going forward, Olshey now has far more assets with solid trade value to make future trades. I think every player on the roster would be seen as having good trade value, with the exception of Freeland. Whether additional pieces will be needed depends upon how the new guys pan out and how fast they can fit in, but the Blazers certainly have options to make deals if they feel they are needed. FA signings in the foreseeable future will be limited to the Room MLE (this year) and the Non-Taxpayer MLE going forward, so if the Blazers are to become contenders with this core, it means that existing talent will have to grow and/or be traded for other impact players.

I posted: "They'll be looked upon as one of the favorites to come out of the West this year."

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

Guess what. They got injured and never even won a first-round game. When can Portland put up the 'should have won a title' banner at the RG?

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

Aren't you the same guy who says you don't build around 28 year-old players?

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

Never won a first round series. The took Houston to 6 games that year. They also took Phoenix and Dallas to 6 games without Oden and crippled Roy.

But yeah, injuries turned Let it Bake into Let it Break.

BNM

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

Clearly I made a mistake. Of course I know they didn't win a series, but won 2 games 3x in 3 years. Hell, I was at a few of those wins.

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

I was at both wins in the Dallas series!

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

I was at game 1 in the HOU series when we got blown the fuck out. Then at game 3 I think it was in the Phx series when we got blown the fuck out. Not sure if I should go to playoff games anymore.

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

People talking about the poor playoff performance are forgetting about the assclown coaching those teams.

As for Dirk and Kobe being late lottery picks that people missed on is sorta my point as well. Every single one of the teams ahead of either Dallas or Charlotte could have drafted them. None of the teams below them could have. It's not the fault of the system that some GM's (I'm looking at you, John Nash) are complete idiots. Luck is also absolutely involved, but it's easier to be lucky, or take luck out of it all together with a higher pick. OKC is a shit team without Durant, and there is no way in hell they get him without having a high lottery pick that year

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

Eh - I think you're really overvaluing our recent acquisitions. The value we gained is in the difference between below-average players and average players - it'll make a tremendous difference in the on-court product, but is only slightly more attractive on the trade market. Of everyone we obtained, the only players who might have semi-significant value are Robinson and Crabbe - and only if they actually show something on the court. Lopez, Wright, and Watson aren't going to bring anything of value back to the team. So we're in the same position of having only LMA, Nic, Lillard, and to a lesser extent Wes and CJ, as valuable trade assets - we now just have better "toss-ins" to add value to trades.

This is exactly right. I say let's keep the good, young players who are still growing (Lillard, CJ, Nic, Robinson), and use our "best" player who has the most trade value to acquire other assets that may have the potential to become impact players or who can be used to make future trades for impact players. Also, depending on the trade, it could potentially open up cap space so that we can utilize the 3-pronged approach rather than be relegated to a 2-pronged approach.

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

The NBA has all-stars who were picked in the middle of the first round every year. Teams have always made mistakes on when to pick the best players, they are going to continue to do so. Sure its easier to pick an all-star at the top of the draft but the vast majority of players picked in the top of a draft are not all-stars so either way a team needs a combination of luck and skill. All-stars are available every year through trade, the draft is not the be all end all to acquire them.

Can you give a single example of a team that got worse intentionally to improve their draft position, drafted well and won a title? Out of your list of the last 25 years finals teams, which is 50 teams, the only team I see that somewhat meets that criteria is the 2007 Cavs, who lucked out and drafted the second best player of all time, but still fell short in the finals as the roster was totally void of talent at other positions.

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

I really think we need to stop relying on "winning a title" as a metric. It's been widely discussed, and agreed upon, that the NBA is not a level playing field as evidenced by a small number of teams hording the majority of NBA championships. I think it'd be a better conversation to explore which teams significantly improved through the draft, rather than expecting them to beat all odds and win a championship.
Only one team can win a championship, and chances are it's going to be one of about 5 teams and everyone has a pretty good idea which team is going to win the championship before the season even begins.

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

For the record, neither Paul Pierce nor John Stockton were top 5 picks.

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

4 of 5 2003
3 of 5 2004
2 of 5 2005 (a third was 3rd team all NBA, but not an all star)
2 of 5 2006
2 of 5 2007
3 of 5 2008
2 of 5 2009

So 18 of 35 players picked in the top 5 have been all stars in those years (picked because the previous years were so long ago, and 2010 was too new) Another player, Andrew Bogut, never an all star, but 3rd team all NBA. Not sure how that is the "vast majority" of players picked in the top of the draft weren't all stars, when in reality, the majority of players were or are all stars. Last year, in fact, 16 of 25 players (64%) were top 5 picks


SA
Houston played for a title
OKC played for a title
CLE played for a title
ORL played for two titles

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

Well if posters are claiming the ideal way to build a team that has a chance of competing for a title is xxxx strategy they should be able to find ONE single example. There are recent examples of teams that won titles by incremental improvements; Pistons, Celtics, Mavs.

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

I don't think anybody is expecting to win a title based on a single lotto pick - all titles are won due to a variety of factors, including "incremental improvements". To try to frame the discussion the way you did (name a team that intentionally got worse, and then won a title) is not representative of what anyone is proposing.

 

Re: Blazers: Best offseason of all Westen Conference lottery teams, should be 7th see

The Spurs didn’t discard talent to improve draft position, they kept the two best players on a perennial 50 win team. Orlando had McGrady and Grant Hill, they weren’t trying to rebuild through the lottery it just happened the team stunk and was able to get Dwight Howard, lucky them? Except Orlando at that point had a terrible roster, and being lucky enough to get an MVP talent meant they would not be in the bottom of the lottery any more, so they didn’t have any teammates to pair with Dwight and had to watch him team leave the team a few years later. Same scenario with LeBron, in the end their rebuilding failed because he never had good teammates. So being in a position to win two of the best lotteries of the last decade in the end didn’t help them a bit.

Houston acquired Drexler via trade, when did they get Hakeem, 1984? That is probably the best example of tanking working well, but it was 30 years ago and took the team over a decade to finally win a title and then they only got the second from some dumbass team trading away an all-star to rebuild.

I’d rather follow the Mavs, Pistons, and Celtics blueprint who have all won titles in the last decade.