I don't see where he wanted out. And there was definitely a spot for him. He would have taken all the backup point guard minutes and Rudy's aswell.
Exactly. I don't know why people think he couldn't play the PG spot... he can defend PGs just fine, and while he's definitely not a pass-first guy, neither is Patty Mills. Mills and Johnson played 1060 minutes in the regular season. Why? Because there was no better option. Bayless would have been a big improvement at that spot, and he might have been a good guy to match up with Roy, given Roy's ability to handle the ball but NOT guard PGs. Ed O.
Let's not forget that Bayless' best game in the NBA was as a starter in San Antonio when Roy was injured, and the Blazers won the game. 31 points 7 assists 0 turnovers He then went on to average 14/3/4 in the playoffs off of the bench, with a PER of 15.6. Heck, Jerryd may have been a better option to start in place of Roy when Roy was hurt, with Matthews coming off of the bench. Instead, we fans got to watch Armon Johnson and Patty Mills struggle to the point that Nate lost all confidence in both of them. What a goofy trade.
You don't know who POR is going to get this year, could be a player like Batum, could be used with another player to trade up....until we know and see who that player is, you can't say that with any certainty
I can't say that I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning with 100% certainty, either. I can say with SOME certainty, though, that I am going to be waking up tomorrow morning. And I can say with SOME certainty that Jerryd Bayless, a 22 year-old who's showed flashes of brilliance, is someone I'd rather have than a early 20's pick in this draft. Ed O.
Even if Portland ends up drafting the next Kevin Durant in this draft, it won't make the trade any better. They're two different decisions. You'll get the credit for good scouting and good drafting, but that doesn't make the actual trade for getting the pick a good decision.
Exactly. A "generic" (unspecified but definitely not a top-five or even top-ten) pick, in a weak draft, has a certain level of value. That was what Bayless was traded for...the generic value of such a pick. If something bizarre happens and Irving drops to Portland's pick (the one they likely could have used instead in the Wallace trade) or the Blazers get super lucky and pick a guy at that selection that becomes a superstar...great. Some credit to good fortune, some to the Blazers' scouting. But any single move can only be evaluated by the information available at the time, and trading Bayless for a generic draft pick in a weak draft wasn't good value. We can hope that the next move, the usage of that pick that they have instead of Bayless, is great. That doesn't change the fact that the previous move was poor.
I don't know, at the time the trade was made there was no definite knowledge of where the pick would be. NO could have fallen into the lottery. They could have won the lottery. Of course, the pick was probably protected, I don't remember. And perhaps the blazers had a different view of the draft - they may have thought it is a strong draft in the range where they expected to be picking. Maybe. But the team might have had information at the time that we didn't and still don't, so all we can really say is that it appears to us that it wasn't good value. barfo
It was top 7 protected, but NOH was expected to be in that 7-14 range. AT the time, it was considered unloading a backup PG that didn't fit as a backup PG (and where we had committed to Patty and Armon as "backup PGs") for a mid-to-low lotto pick, which (regardless of which draft) carries a pretty tangible value to most GMs. Now, for the 20th pick, there's a difference. And the fact that NOH made the playoffs made it a bit of a backfire.
It was top-seven protected. I shouldn't have said "top-ten." I don't see how that works. It could be that there isn't much drop-off in players from, say, 15-25...but if a draft is weak, it means that the entire pool is going somewhat higher than they would in a better one. So even if the 25th best player is pretty close to the 15th best one, the 20th pick is probably still no stronger than in any other draft. That's true. As far as I'm concerned, that's an implied prefix to anything anyone says (outside of mathematics, linguistics, programming or other human-created systems). "In my perception, X" From everything I know, in my perception, the Bayless deal wasn't good value. I'm not one to believe in absolute facts (outside the above mentioned systems).
Don't you think we could have had BOTH? Portland simply substitutes their own 1st rounder instead of NOs.
Well, it depends on what one means by weak draft. And as a disclaimer, I don't follow draft prospects at all, so I have no idea why people say this is a weak draft. But I think a common meaning would be that the projected top picks aren't superstars. That doesn't say anything about pick #20 - pick #20 could well be stronger than usual. You could, in theory, have a draft where everyone had the talent that a #15 pick normally has. That would be bad news for those in the lottery, and people would call it a very weak draft, but it would be great for those picking below #15. barfo
That's a solid point. I'm not a draft expert, so couldn't say with any certainty, but my understanding is that people feel this is just a weak pool of talent all the way through, rather than simply at the top.
There's truth to that (edit: to barfo's assertions, not Minstrel's) I was listening (I think to Ford on Simmons' podcast) where he talks about drafting in general and the "Tier" system. Tier A is a perennial MVP candidate, B is a long-time all-star, C is a good starter, D is a rotation player, etc. The strategy is based on ranking your ideas of players, and that you'll take a player who doesn't fit a need from a higher tier before a "need" from a lower tier. This would've helped out in the Webster draft...even if we had Webster rated as a potential all-star SG (in our position of need), we wouldn't have traded out/taken him with two Tier A players (Williams and Paul) on the board, regardless of if Bassy was here or not. You take the higher tier player and then figure it out later. Anyway, Ford was saying that there isn't anyone he's comfortable putting in Tier A OR B. That said, he says there are a lot of C's and D's in the draft, which make it a "bad" one for the higher-picking teams, but also a relatively deep one. If the 20th pick is only marginally better than the 50th, that could mean that the draft sucks horribly, but it could also mean that the 50th guy can play. And in our case, we either need a Tier B PG and C, or a bunch of C's and D's that can give us quality depth until we eventually pull another consolidation trade.
