I've said it before and I'll say it again: CAP SPACE IS OVERRATED

How many of them impact a team to win a ring?

 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you that cap space is overrated if you're looking to get your core players through free agency. That's why Detroit is going to suck, IMO, since they spent a bunch on Gordon and Villanueva.

But that's why I think the Blazers have done this the right way: get your top 3 core players through good drafting and scouting, and then add a real nice complementary part through free agency, and get some other role players through either trade or free agency.

It's pretty hard to land top 10-15 players who are on the upswing.. not many of those lying around available.

 

so basically you want the blazers to make a trade for a huge name? you realize that a lot of those don't workout right? shaq didn't win any championships with the suns. kidd is leading a dallas team with no future.

with a team like the blazers that has a lot of talent, making no move is better than making the wrong move.

 

There's no one way to build a championship team. The common denominator is, obviously, high-level talents. That's what matters. If you're lucky enough to get high-level talents in the draft, great. Most teams don't have the hit rate on draft picks to do that. The 1990s Bulls did. The Spurs did. This Blazers team did, IMO. If you don't land a foundation through the draft, you need to make brilliant trades and/or free agent signings. It's very rare to land a championship cornerstone in free agency, though. So it comes down to the teams who have the brilliant draft picks or brilliant trades, or some combination thereof.

As far as I'm concerned, the Blazers have landed championship-caliber talents in the draft (Roy, Oden and Aldridge) and they've landed several players who can be very good complementary players or better (Bayless, Batum, Fernandez). So at this point, it's not that helpful, IMO, to compare the Blazers to how other teams were built. Each team is built slightly differently, but the commonality is acquiring talents that you can't simply plan for. I think Portland has done that. If Pritchard can put in place the right role-players around those talents, Portland should be championship-caliber.

 

I do remember as far back as the Zach trade that there were a certain group of posters who said cap space was overrated. A lot of moves have been made with the idea of cap flexibility for this summer and I will recognize the group that said cap space was overrated may have a point.

If the arguement for every trade deadline that passed or potential trade turned down (remember the famous charging order this year was let's not trade, see what we got with this team and make adjustments this summer) was it preserves cap flexibility . . . well if the argument for not taking action was it will get us Turk in the summer of 2009, I don't think that would have sounded as good as it gives us cap flexibility in 2009.

 

But you take the risk. Something like trading RELC is little risk, high reward. Letting it walk is unforgivable.

 

THAT WAS ME. I COINED THE TERM IMAGINARY CAP SPACE BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WILL GET YOU UNTIL THE MARKET PRESENTS ITSELF.

 

Yea I was giving you credit for it . . . you wern't the only one who was saying cap space was overrated or whatever the others were saying. I believe it was stomp and BNM who were echoing your thoughts . . . but hard to remember . . . that was many beers ago.

Whats with the caps?

 

This franchise has been building-up free agency and it's promises of overnight improvement for 3-4 years now. At first it was just a diversion tactic: shut the fans up and give them something to look forward to while suffering thru the Telfair years. Then after we drafted some cornerstone players, the marketing buzz became obtaining that last franchise player to help take Roy/Aldridge over the top. This is while we were still batting around illusion of signing Paul, Williams or even Kobe.

After the media figured out that wouldnt be possible, I noticed Pritchard remarking how Allen wanted to play with free agency because he hasnt had extensive chances to while owner. Fair enough. So, basically free agency's importance, as it's been billed by the media and team, has downgraded from crucial to elevating to curious dabbling over the last 4 years.

Being responsible with salaries is important, but pinning hopes into building your team thru free agency signings is a crapshoot and in my opinion overrated as a team builder. Arguments could be made that none of the top free agents this year would even help the team. I tend to agree with HUSTLA, if thats the position he's coming from.

 

I sometimes do that for the hell of it.

 

calm the fuck down man.

 

i am calm.

 

It's not just you. I've always maintained that cap space is overrated. Teams that "blow it up" in order to position themselves to have big cap space so they can sign "superstars" almost never succeed. Shaq in 1996 was the last franchise cornerstone player to change teams in free agency. There have been some good players to switch teams in free agency, but it's very rare to get a truly impact player.

I've been very hopeful that Pritchard would be able to use the cap space for an impact player, but my belief that that would happen has been low. That said, if Pritchard ends up using it to get a player who ends up being a valuable supporting player, that's probably sufficient. Turk could be that player.

 

Then for the first time in recorded history, we agree!

 

you overreact about everything, basketball or not.

 

I just want to point out a couple of things and hope it does not sound to much like KP jock sniffing;

1. I doubt that he for saw the economic collapse. It has stopped some key free agents from opting for free agency. It has also stopped teams cold from making trades, even when they are cash strapped and being offered a life boat deal of a salary dump. Owners are so affraid of losing their fan base they will not part with their only pieces of value to improve their situation.

2. The Darius Miles fiasco. I am sure that KP and PA never would have guessed that a piece of shit GM and owner would sabotage another teams cap. I am doubly amazed that Davis Stern allowed such an aggregious and blatant manipulation of another teams cap. It is painfully obvious that Boston and memphis had no plans of actually relying on DM for basketball skills.

With those two in mind, Portland targeted their cap money for the wrong year. They should have planned for next year, but that is not how the cards fell. Additionally, none of the big free agents would ever come to Portland. Lebron, Wade, Bosh, Amare, Nash, etc. are all going to have a circle jerk in the big markets and try to conspire to make a couple of super teams to be coddled by the NBA and put up resistance to Portlands home grown team.

Portland needs to develop Oden, Bayless and Batum while keeping the rest in tact. They are close. They just need experience and those guys to develop. There will be opportunities to pick up other pieces.

 

It is kind of funny to look back to when the Zach-for-09-capspace trade went down. There were quite a few people back on BBF who were convinced, or claimed to be convinced, we were going to sign a Grade A free agent. Those of us who tried to point out the harsh realities of the FA system were flamed mercilessly. Oh well.......

 

yet the trade was still good and zach has been given away for nothing other than to get him off of the team by two teams since then.