Lowe: Blazers were considering Dwight in free agency

w/o question for me.

 

It made boston better. Might have made atlanta actually worse.

 

I suppose it also made us better, indirectly. BOS let Turner go to help clear cap space in their hope (fantasy) to assemble a new Big 3. Well, they only landed one of the three, but their plan allowed us to swoop in and grab Turner while they were focused on Durant, Horford and Butler.

I wonder if they knew they weren't getting Durant and Butler if they would have let Turner walk.

BNM

 

For that money i think they would. They still have crowder and drafted jaylen brown.

They have marcus smart, isaiah thomas, avery bradley at guard spots.

Well, maybe they wouldnt have. Who knows?

 

While we are reminiscing about this year's Blazers free agent pursuits; has anyone read this piece on why Parsons picked Memphis? Looks as if their coach made a better presentation as to how he would be utilized. Of course it just could have been he thought there were too many other wing scorers to compete with on Portland and so he wouldn't get as many shots as he wanted.http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/16956247/nba-qa-memphis-grizzlies-chandler-parsons

 

Yeah, hard to say. There is definitely a domino effect in the way free agency works these days. Teams scramble to clear cap space and unload assets, or let them walk for nothing so they can go after their top targets.

Neil seems to have made a habit of swooping in and snatching up these bargains while other teams are distracted by their sexier targets. That's how we got Rolo for practically nothing three years ago when NOP wanted to clear cap space to overpay Tyreke Evans. It's also how we got Aminu last summer, when DAL was focused on Wes and DeAndre Jordan. He also waited for GSW to renounce Ezeli to clear cap space for Durant and then snatched him up on the cheap.

Did he do the same with Turner? Hard to say, but at this point, I will take Turner at $70 million over Batum at $125 million. I like Batum, but I don't like him THAT much. Neil may not have hit any home runs with big name free agents yet, but he seems to have mastered getting solid player on the cheap (relatively speaking).

Ironically, he may be following in Boston's footsteps here. They consider Al Horford the first big name free agent to ever choose them as his preferred destination. They became an appealing destination for him by establishing a solid playoff team of young, inexpensive talent and a coach the players like to play for.

At the very least, we are accumulating young assets on reasonable contracts that can be used in a future consolidation trade. Or, worst case, we have a young team that continues to improve as our young, reasonably priced talent continues to develop.

BNM

 

I'm SOOOOO happy we didn't even make an offer to Howard.

 

They could have offered him the vets minimum and I'd have been ok with that but no way I offer him Festus money

 

He strikes me as a me first dude, not a Trail Blazer. Bullet dodged.

 

We probably didn't stroke his ego and Memphis did. They treated him like a Durant, bringing in Justin Timberlake to try to sway him.

Way too much drama for a dude coming off two surgeries.

 

Parsons wants to be "the man", seems like he has a massive ego. Took offense to dirks comments that the mavs couldn't land big time free agents. Was like "what about me".

 

Justin Timberlake, LOL. If that was the deciding factor: bullet dodged.

 

Portland could have wooed Dwight Howard with Justin Bieber.

Oh, no, wait, Leonard hadn't been signed yet.