https://www.google.com/amp/s/articl...sf/2018/07/canzano_if_you_think_losing_ed.amp Ed Davis signed with Brooklyn for $4.4 million next season. It's not easy to galvanize a fan base, but have to hand Trail Blazers general manager Neil Olshey some credit. He did just that by failing to keep Ed Davis on the roster. Fan favorite. Soulful guy. Great quote. I liked watching Davis play as much as you did. Fans, players, media, all hated to see Davis walk away from Portland for the reported $4.4 million he'll get to play in Brooklyn. What Brooklyn got in Davis is precious for what they'll pay him and I'm not sure Olshey expected the uproar. Or maybe he just didn't care. To be fair, letting Davis walk is an investment in Zach Collins and Caleb Swanigan. And if you've tracked Olshey's moves over the years, you'll see numerous cases in which he's passed on a economical investment to clear the way for his draft picks to get minutes and production. Olshey most recently did it with Gerald Henderson, clearing the deck for Allen Crabbe. Now, he's doing it with Davis, who will help Brooklyn win games. Olshey also has to be terrified at this point of Mark Bartlestein. He's Jusuf Nurkic's agent. And Olshey has to be selling owner Paul Allen on the notion that he's going to potentially need maximum salary flexibility to retain Nurkic, a restricted free agent. Is Nurk worth $8 million-$10 million a year? Maybe. $15 million? Maybe. A potential max-deal guy in another year? Not in my eyes. But I'm not an NBA GM. Consider that Denver center Nikola Jokic is poised to accept a five-year, $148 million deal from the Nuggets. Also, know that more NBA teams will have salary-cap flexibility in July 2019. Would Nurk dare postpone his free-agent decision? "Bart's a tiger," said one NBA executive. "I could see Nurk playing this next season on a qualifying offer in Portland, then becoming a UFA. Bartlestein is fearless." That's "Unrestricted Free Agent" for those scoring at home. This is messy potentially. That much is clear. Portland isn't getting better. It just got younger in the draft and it's still paying a stiff tax for the terrible moves that were made in the summer of 2016. Those moves, incidentally, have Olshey's fingerprints all over them. And now, with Davis gone, Olshey is banking on a massive step forward with Collins and Swanigan, and potentially, Meyers Leonard. I get the fan frustration. Losing spirited, gifted players shouldn't be the theme of any NBA team's summer. But I sort of see the logic in what Olshey is trying to do. He's stuck, largely because of inept moves, and he knows the top of the league is light years in front of his roster. LeBron to the Lakers. Houston and Golden State, still absurdly good. Portland wakes up tomorrow no better than fourth in the league. But probably closer to eighth given the loss of Davis and how tight things were last season. Nurkic, though, is either about to cost Portland dearly in restricted free agency or he's going to make a large bet on himself and play next season for the Blazers $4.75 million qualifying offer and open the doors on a full-scale bidding war next summer. While all this is going on, keep in mind, the Blazers' best ally in defeating all those bad contracts is the ticking clock. It stinks, but it's true. Their hands are tied. Their best case scenario is to tread water for another season or two. It's why losing a bargain like Davis stings so much. He could have really helped that cause.
Bartelstein is Nurks agent?? Since when? Neil is about to give him the max. But I love the ignorance of this idiot to not know how close Bartelstein is to Neil.
Circumstances have left the Blazers with a no win situation. Nurk is an asset to the team and losing him for nothing is obviously not ideal. Over-paying him to keep him is even worse for the team in the long run. Trade him? Is he enough of a difference maker that someone is going to offer real value to rent him for a season? As painful as it is, letting him walk might be the least bad option. OTOH, we have a GM who laughingly over-paid the empty uniform known as Meyers Leonard, so who knows.
