I find it funny you choose try to make generic slams against nobody in particular with nothing to back it up. Who are you slamming? Them. Who are they? To top it off, I believe you are wrong. Almost everybody on this board wants an upgrade at both positions, and it woudl be hard to find anybody in disagreement besides the "Bake it" crowd.
Which would be three strikes and you (Pritchard!) are out, right? I mean, rebuilding a junk roster into a mid-50s win team with a lot of upside remaining was nice and all, but not using an expiring contract/$8 million cap space is unforgivable and easily nullifies the previous work. Are the Blazers really better off today then when Pritchard took over? I think it's a good question to ask that no one bothers to due to the "cult of KP."
easy. We say "Brandon, please sign this max contract extension", and "LaMarcus, here's your 5yr/60M extension...you just need to sign the bottom--right--there."
If Hedo is indeed the target, then I might feel a little better about going into the season with Steve Blake. As we saw with Orlando, Hedo can be a primary ballhandler. Blake is good enough to bring the ball up the court (I'll give him that much) at which point he used just to give it to Roy. Now he can also give it to Hedo, who is, according to David Thorpe (NOT my favorite person, but still) the best pick-and-roll running SF outside of LeBron James. And running the pick and roll was one of the major reasons I didn't like Blake as our PG.
All that was mentioned at the TD was that SF NEEDED to be upgraded and that Pritchard had failed on RLEC. Now, it is PG that NEEDS to be upgraded, and if Pritchard doesn't, it's a failure. I just wonder what some people would be saying had, say, Richard Jefferson arrived at the deadline, yet it meant limited options at PG this summer. The post was intended to be "generic" because I was making a "generic" point about the posts of then verus now.
I just don't see where Outlaw and Webster fit into all of this if the Blazers are to add a PG and SF, which is what I think they want to do. sign Hedo trade Blake/Webster for Hinrich? I'd guess you could keep Outlaw actually, which I'm totally fine with btw.
Here are some unglamorous vet PG UFAs probably available for the veteran's minimum as a backup: Lindsey Hunter -- he's older than dirt, but he's a good veteran influence and can still defend. Anthony Carter -- who I thought didn't look bad in the playoffs Bobby Jackson -- never a pure PG but a tough veteran Brevin Knight -- see Lindsey Hunter: better PG, worse shooter Jacque Vaughn -- came in in the Chauncey Billups draft, so old but not ancient. Kevin Ollie -- his best was never up there with the above guys. And that's pretty damning!
Lindsey Hunter is the only one who at all interests me of that group, and as you said, he's older than dirt.
Sarcasm is awesome! No, I would say that KP would have a couple of strikes against him that he would have to account for in short order. I don't recall saying he should be fired, unless you are referring to the post about not trading for Devin Harris because the Nets wanted Outlaw. Who is arguing they aren't better off now? I am saying that KP failed at something. Is that so fucking impossible for people to state? He had one awesome draft, one draft where he lucked out, one draft where his guy hasn't done much and the current draft that no one can really say much about. Name all of the big time, difference making free agents he has brought in. Name all of the established NBA players (not draft picks) he has traded team assets for. The list is pretty freaking short. Jason Jones maybe. Other then that, nothing. The jump from playoff team to title contender is at least as difficult and large as the jump from bad team to playoffs. Harder really, since you have less to work with via the draft once your team starts making the playoffs. We all know KP can get a team from bad to playoffs. We don't have the slightest idea if he can close the deal. What we do know is in two previous instances he had assets he didn't use. Why should I believe anything different will happen now?
Is it more or less awesome than passive-aggressive bitter posts in essentially every single thread about the off-season? Please advise. Over and over, hundreds of times per month before the off-season signing period has even started? Clearly not impossible...you've proven it is possible. It's not that you are "skeptical" that I find silly. It's that you go on and on and on and on and on and on saying that Pritchard is a fucking failure. I'd hate to see how you'd handle a team that was actually not good and not loaded with talent. I'm perfectly fine with people being disappointed that RLEC wasn't cashed in for a nice player. I was disappointed, too, though without knowing what deals were actually available I find it impossible to know whether to affix blame for that disappointment on Pritchard or on the realities of the market. I'm perfectly fine with people finding this season's draft underwhelming...it certainly didn't thrill me and there's no way to know whether it will look good or bad down the line. It's the fact that 90% of your posts are along the lines of "What wil Pritchard's excuse be when he fails again this off-season? Which free agent do I want? Does it matter, we won't get any of them. What sort of trade do I want? It doesn't matter, Pritchard can't make trades and certainly will never trade any of the players he acquired, except for the ones that he has which don't count because they're inconvenient to my theory." Blind pessimism is as silly as blind optimism, IMO. So I made one sarcastic comment about it. That's all.
Perhaps I have gone too far on this topic and needed to be put in my place. I think to say I was "disappointed" about the RLEC is an understatement. I was demoralized. However, I should probably just let it go and hope for the best. This sadly is not my strong suit. I have said elsewhere I hope I am wrong and KP pulls something off. It's not like I want the team to fail. I am very concerned that waiting 2 more years for a window to open is too long. I am concerned that if Portland stands still they will get passed by. However, you are correct that incessant posts about KP get me nowhere but more bitter. I will not make another. In other news, my fondest hope is that Portland can swing a deal no one has mentioned in a while. The Bobcats are in real bad financial trouble. I think Crash could be had. Even better would be if Portland could snag Felton at the same time. Larry Brown doesn't really like him, and he is an upgrade to Blake who has proven he can play in the NBA. So there you have it. Crash and Felton for some combination of Rudy, Batum, Outlaw, Blake and Bayless. I don't think a deal can be made without them getting a player in return. Yuk. I just looked at Felton's performance last year. He was worse then Blake in nearly every single advanced stat. One or two can be explained away, but all of them? So, no Felton, just Crash.
I fully understand where you are coming from. I wasn't "putting you in your place," incidentally...my comment was sarcastic, but meant to be fairly light. I only wrote the longer post because you seemed to feel I was taking a shot just because you disagreed with Pritchard on something. I'm very much a "maximize every asset" type of person. I think the team can end up a championship contender without a major move this off-season, but I don't like to leave anything on the table. An extra chip is an extra chip. So I'll be quite disappointed if nothing comes of this off-season. I just think that it's nearly impossible to know, on any single issue, where the blame lies...was Pritchard not aggressive enough, or did he enquire after all the right people hard but free agents just happened to choose other teams? Did he turn down good trades due to risk aversion, or was there not a good trade available? Ultimately, any single issue or decision is hard to evaluate in terms of right or wrong, since we don't know the universe of options, so I believe in evaluating executives on their success over the long-term. Because it really is a bottom-line business for a GM...did you build a winner or not? We don't yet know if Pritchard built a winner (if we define "winner" as a championship team), so whether he's a success is yet to be determined...but at this point in time, the path from arguably the worst roster in basketball to second-tier team has to be considered successful in the time he's been the GM.
Why? The team moved up to the 2nd-best record in the West after the TD without making any move and keeping cap space. Hindsight has to play a role in assessing your demoralization, doesn't it? Plus, what had become a loser franchise played a veteran Houston squad tough, a Houston squad that minus Yao for much of the series pushed the NBA champs to 7 games. Relax.
