Do you happen to know when the season ends in China? I have not looked deep into this? Players like Jeremy Lin, Lance Stephenson. Even a guy like Ty Lawson might be available? Just a thought?
If there's one thing I've learned about Neil Olshey, it's that he doesn't like back-up point guards for some reason.
I would not agree with that. He has always had one. Bazz, Curry would be the most recent. I think they have committed to 1M.
There is a big controversy right now about American players in China. The Chinese basketball league isn't playing right now due to the Coronavirus and most of the American players have been sent home. Normally they aren't eligible to play in the NBA until their season concludes, per FIFA rules, but they're trying to get out of their contracts since the season is postponed. I think they should be for sure! Jeremy Lin would be great, but he seems to have written off the NBA after not receiving many offers last summer. Lance would be like Evan Turner in Stotts' system so I don't think that's the right move. Lawson would not be considered by the Blazers because of being arrested twice in the last 5 years for DUI. Olshey doesn't mess with those type of guys.
That's not entirely true. Last season and this summer the Blazers added significant amounts to their payroll under Jody.
Curry is sort of my point. Not really a prototypical point guard, just like the newly anointed Simons, just like previously anointed Evan Turner... I don't know.
Yes sir. I was just thinking of this season, and how unplanned/sudden the change in direction seems. The more I've thought about it, I hear Olshey mentioning his rationale for offloading Skal as an attempt to absolve himself, ie blame it on Jody. If she wasn't going to games and handing Dame All-Star balls, I'd suspect she was thinking of selling...
I don't recall him ever saying that as I recall on occasion he mentioned he had discussed things with Paul Allen in the past and decisions were made. Paul Allen didn't force his influence but from most accounts he was involved. If you have a link to show that Olshey always had free reign I would sure appreciate it.
Stepping back a bit, I really think they had another move lined up to get under the tax in a 1 for 2 trade, with Hassan going out and us taking back two deals while skirting under the tax. I wonder if Nurk's setback changed those plans and they had already committed to the Skal move with ATL. This isn't like Neil. Even the Vonleh move a few yrs back very obviously got us below the tax. We throw around cash like crazy come draft time. Saving < 2 mil can't have been that much of a priority. Something like Dieng + X for Hassan kinda move, and they ended up moving Dieng to Memphis at the last second. It's really curious that Minny ended up in the tax. I wonder if we backed out last minute on a move that we had planned earlier.
See this is exactly why I'm so upset about the trade deadline. I totally get dumping Skal if it got us under the tax line, but it didn't. I'd get it if they needed to use the roster spot and the prorated contract would cost less than Skal would since he's hurt anyway, but it appears as if that won't be the case. So what seems more likely: 1) Jody asked Neil to get under the tax line. 2) Jody just wanted Neil to save a little bit of money. #2 doesn't really make sense. The optics of saving a few million to not field the best possible team around Dame seems like a bad decision. It's basically like telling Dame "Fuck your prime, we're saving $2 million!" If the goal was #1, I totally get why that would be the case and could justify it over #2. It would suck that was the decision but at least they would've accomplished what they set out to do and it actually has some benefits over simply saving money. It really only makes sense to me if Olshey failed to accomplish #1 and had to spin it as #2 to save face. In doing so you're right that he's passing blame to Jody. If it was only about saving money there are other ways to shed even more money off the tax payments. I don't know, it just doesn't add up that dropping Skal was their only move.
Yeah, this would make a lot of sense. I know it's just spin but he flat out said they never even considered trading Whiteside. He didn't need to go into as much detail about it as he did though. Just another contradiction because he also said that they weren't going to make moves based on this season either. Under your scenario that is very short sighted.
I just listened again. He says they knew weeks ago they weren't gonna get all the way down out of the tax too.
I would say that's evidence that upper management was likely calling the shots on moving Skal for the savings. Pretty much every GM would love to have a free reign and spend money unless mandated otherwise.
I suspected getting completely out of the tax this season wasn't a goal you and I went back and forth about this stuff a few times. My thinking was always that the instructions from Seattle were to reduce cost this season where they could AND stay under the tax next season. I thought next season was the priority as far as tax. A mandate if you will, and that would have knocked a lot of the trade ideas outside the lines next season with too much returning salary it's too early to say for sure that's the case, of course, but I think any prospect of repeater tax will scare off an owner unless he's in a big market with a leading contender, and has a huge new local TV contract. The Warriors for instance. if you recall, I did say I thought Portland had the margin next season to add an MLE-level contract, give or take a couple of million. That's what they did with Ariza. And I think that leaves them with the most options next year while staying out of the tax. They might be able to sign their first round pick; re-sign Whiteside to a 1 or 2 year deal; add an MLE contract (or two contracts splitting the MLE), and add a BAE contract; and do all that under the tax line. If they are determined to stay under the tax next season, being hard-capped wouldn't be a concern. Between Whiteside, Ariza, and an MLE deal, Portland would have the option to trade for 40M in returning salary. It could gut their depth a little to do something like that, but as you've been complaining, there seems to be some friction between making the most of Dame's prime vs financial and other concerns. I'll point at Dame a little for that because he makes it easy for Olshey to sit on his hands by insisting that nobody needs to be traded. If Dame was registering discontent, more might have been done
A couple of notes from this. It would've been possible to duck the tax this season, but in most scenarios it involved trading Whiteside which they didn't seem willing to do. Also, triggering the repeater tax next year wouldn't effect next year's payment, so technically they could be a tax team next year and then avoid the tax at all costs the following 2 seasons and the repeater tax would never come into play. I don't really get being a tax team this season given the injuries and best current realistic finish being the 8th seed and not trading this season for next season in terms of the tax. I think we can all agree their best shot at a title is probably next year or the year after that right? Why not use this season as the one not to go in the tax? Therefore next year you can go all in with hopefully a good chance.
that's assuming there was any trade out there that could have taken another 5M off the payroll without adding any assets or cash to the deal. I'm not sure there was.
Trading Whiteside would mean Portland doesn't make the playoffs this year, unless a starting quality C was coming back. I know we are all excited for Nurk to come back, but when he does - I fully expect him to be on a minutes restriction for 10-20 games. Portland didn't have the luxury to trade Whiteside in this situation while still trying to make the playoffs. I know you've made this claim before, but that doesn't seem right. I've tried to find some clarification, but haven't found it. Do you have a source for this?
