FlashWad said: ↑ I have a sulking pit in my stomach thinking of the horrendous return got in those trades.. it gets even worse thinking Cronin might actually Be the permanent gm. His performance as gm has been a disgrace. We are the laughing stalk of the league. Might be many years before we pull our self out of this. There is no way we build a contender with dame now with how little assets we got back in our fire sale ] It's beginning to look like the 2 year "re-tool" was a 2 year tear down all along. It's unfortunate the Blazers had to lie to the fanbase throughout this process. I do think Cronin half-assed attempted to build a decent team around Lillard, but he's on a very strict budget, and wasn't getting much help from other GM's. Selling the Blazers to a new owner with a start from scratch open pallet, is much easier then a team loaded with hard to move contracts and zero future picks. Cronin's time as general manager will probably be up, if & when the Blazers get a new owner that actually understands the game of basketball. Joe is a numbers man, not a leader, not a wheeler & dealer. He can step back into his cubicle and crunch numbers. Give him a assistant vice president job title or something.
I was not a fan of the initial trades, nor of acquiring Grant, and HATED signing Payton... but other than that, I dig it. Getting stuff as he got rid of Payton was excellent. And the draft picks? I'm a fan of all five so far. Most importantly? He hasn't given away the future in a scramble to build a contender now. I think we are, though, better now with our current roster and we are SO MUCH BETTER into the future than we were (with Scoot and Sharpe) than before he took over. Tanking sucked but at least it seems like it's gonna pay off. Kudos to Joe so far.
I’m impressed with his lack of trades around the draft. The league thought he was desperate to put a star around Lillard and he showed no vulnerabilities. That’s a huge gain in leverage going forward. You can’t tip your hand in the world of sport’s negotiating acting desperate or you’ll get taken advantage of. I suspect with our unbalanced roster and the thought that Lillard must be on the move that the offers will start pouring in.
Yeah. I think the sweet spot is that you want people to respect you but you don't want people to think you're an asshole like Ujiri.
At this point Joe might have one all star and two future all stars on the team. Not sure the last time the blazers had that kind of talent. Of course being an all star as a guard is very tough in the west. I guess we’ll see?
I stand by that comment, the Blazers lost flexibility in the Clippers trade and many of Joes other moves. I love the Scoot pick and similarly loved the Sharpe pick on both draft days. I can still hate the Clippers trade. The Clippers trade is when we basically went down the road of eventually likely trading Dame, so I was very frustrated at the time. I'm content now keeping or trading Dame if we continue to build the team around Scoot/Sharpe which it appears we're doing. Yeah I was one of Joes biggest critics, but I love his draft. If he makes good moves going forward and doesn't repeat his prior blunders I'll flip my tune of being one of his biggest critics.
Your comment was wrong then and wrong today. Joe didn't clear cap space and didn't need to. They were stupid cost cutting moves that reduced the Blazers flexibility to add talent. Maybe that was Jody or Vulcan pressure more than Joe, I don't care I judge a GM performance by all of those dynamics. I'll never know exactly what Jody Bert Joe are discussing so the only judgements I can make are on the GMs moves. Joe made many blunders in these regards, starting with the worthless Clippers trade.
Sounds like Scooby Doo running in place to me. You jumped all over him instead of being patient. And the Clipper moves did lead to flexibility.
What flexibility? Name one player or asset we acquired with that Clippers trade "flexibility"? I jumped all over him for making shitty moves. If he makes good to great moves later, and does it multiple times yeah it will change my evaluation. I don't take back any of my prior comments as they were all justified by what he did at that time. I hope we see more of the Cronin from two drafts and not the trade deadline/free agency one. They were two completely different GMs.
Correct, if we had Norms contract we could be throwing that into trades instead of having to dump a starter.
But we may not have Grant (or $20m worth of salaried players), assuming Jody doesn't want to go into the tax. Would you rather Powell or Grant?
First that's a tax thing any yes I knock the Blazers management if they are losing flexibility, losing player talent only to save cash. Secondly even if staying under the tax had to be done there were other options; cutting Little and not payin Nurk above the MLE. Or eliminate other similar wastes of salary. Yes maybe drafting Duren instead of getting Grant. Dumping Norm for nothing wasn't needed, it predictably provided no flexibility that the Blazers have or could use to improve the roster.
Ok... so let Nurk/Nas walk so we can have a backcourt of Dame/Ant/Sharpe/Powell? I didn't realize people wanted to go smaller. Also, while Nas isn't great, his contract seems to be decent and tradable, which increases flexibility. Not sure why you'd want that one gone for a $20m/year bench guy in an already crowded backcourt.
It is always easier to evaluate a move when you have more information, especially the luxury of hindsight.
