This probably should be pretty straight forward and easy but Im curious to get different thoughts on this. Has Neil made enough good choice so far to trust him? Especially in regards to making moves at or before this deadline. I think fans can get emotional and rash and want to make moves that arent good or smart long term but Neil seems to have shown how to avoid that. My biggest sign of that is Meyers Leonard and Thomas Robinson. And they were/are seperate decisions in my opinion. Meyers has proved him right and Robinson and Barton really kinda of changed my opinion of them last night. Im tired of seeing them make horrible decisions even in garbage time. Those two are the pieces that I would start with if I was going to look at a trade. So I feel like although I think they should make a move Neil has earned my trust that if we dont then it is for the right reason. My only concern is how long do you think it takes a GM to "fall in love" with his player and start to make emotional decisions or lack thereof?
Since olshey hasn't made any mid season moves since he's been GM, it's hard to say. It'll be disappointing if he let's this deadline pass without a move for a wing.
Yes. I'm not sure about his drafting abilities. A lot of that hinges on whether he had a big part of drafting Dame, but overall I'm very happy with his off season acquisitions.
I think the overall question mark stems from the Blazers pretty much staying pat last summer. I trust Olshey. The team has decided to build from within and in the case of Freeland, Crabbe, Leonard he has succeeded my expectations. After losing two in a row, it's easy to water down how much better this team is and it's partly because of Olshey's long term goals. This offseason will be interesting, but I don't expect major changes until then unless we start losing too many games before the deadline.
What impresses me is that he hasn't made a lot of moves. When you're GM you want to put your mark on a franchise, make big swinging dick moves to show everyone what you can do. In this case the correct moves for the Blazers was to keep the majority of our starters together and make very small moves. And it was the absolute right choice to get rid of Cho. He wanted to do a complete rebuild. He would have traded LMA, Batum and Wes for draft picks and there was no guarantee that he would have selected Lillard. This franchise could be so much worse right now. Keeping the core of LMA, Matthews and Batum was the right choice.
I think he understands chemistry. Let's see if he can be creative and structure and put together a deal to really improve this team. Something I have been waiting on for quite sometime.
I'm probably forgetting some things, but... Good: Dame Leonard Kaman Blake Robinson Bad: CJ Hawes Wright Neutral: Hibbert
We don't know what happened exactly. I still think Hawes would have been a much better fit in our system, rather than LAC. It could have worked out fine. You can't give someone a strike for something that never happened.
Stuff never seems to leak out from the Blazers so for that alone I give him an A. Its hard to know who Niel has targeted with trades because nothing leaks but I love his ability to aquire talent when wev had little in the way of assets(Rolo/Robinson) and he seems to have a plan and stick to it. To many teams jump the gun when things go south quick.
