pretty much where I'm at. I'm no fan of Cronin and I'll be concerned if he is the one running the draft and the off-season Could he have done a little better on the Pels trade? Probably....maybe. When the particulars of the trade were announced back in February I suggested the Blazers should have received the Lakers pick, top-4 protected, as insurance; even though at the time it sure looked like there was absolutely no way the Lakers could sink inside the top-10 of the lottery I've discussed this trade with Blazerkor and a couple of other posters who have gone so ballistic about the Pels trade and they've all said the trade would have been acceptable if only Portland would have got that 2nd lottery pick this year. In other words, what made the trade unacceptable is Paul George getting Covid after the Lakers had a historic collapse. That's the pivot point. I guess Cronin failed because he didn't allow for PG13 getting Covid the morning of the play-in game again, I think Cronin could have probably secured a little better return from the Pels. Whether or not he asked and the Pels refused is something I don't know. I am pretty sure he was operating under some fairly strict financial boundaries imposed by the Vulcans. And I'm suspricious of the Clippers trade because of the relationship between Jody Allen, MS, and Ballmer
Lanny's sentiments are about five years late. I have sang the praises of the "addition by subtraction" theory....Starting with Olshit, CJ, Norm, roco..... We now have two more to get rid of...Jody and Bert. Then, the team will be just fine.
It's crazy that so many in here know exactly what there was or wasn't on the trade market for these guys and allow what Cronin did get to dictate what they believe is the best anyone could have got. The fact is I wouldn't be too upset over the CJ trade if the pick would have conveyed or the Lakers pick would have if the Pels didn't. That trade wouldn't have been great for us but it wouldn't have been the absolute failure that it now is. I don't really give a shit that the Clippers didn't have a first rounder until 2025 since they only gave us a 2025 second rounder anyway. Of course we could have got more for every player that we traded (Hart and a late lotto pick for CJ along with some cap relief would have made sense). I'm not delusional, I didn't expect two firsts for RoCo or complete salary relief and a first for Norm. I just think coming away with Keon, Justise, only a mostly expiring contract in Bledsoe and a fucking 2025 second rounder that could have been bought during that draft for cash was far too little. Remember that the cap savings for this season were like 4M. I don't think that we would have been getting robbed with the CJ trade if the pick conveyed if we weren't throwing in Larry like he was some kind of cap filler. I just think coming away with Hart, Hughes, the Bucks 2025 first and another second rounder that could have been had for cash was too little for those two. I realize that many in here are for some reason viewing the over one hundred million in savings for a trust worth 200 times that as an accomplishment for Cronin but I just can't quite get there on that. But fuck it, what's done is done and we can still have a bright future. Now we are where we are and I can't imagine that anyone was blown away by Cronin's performance and if someone is in an interim capacity, interviewing for one of only 30 positions in the world at the pinnacle of their profession... in my book they better be blowing people away with their performance if they are going to get that job. There are hundreds of qualified candidates that don't have any ties to the Olshey regime and so many in here want to keep Olshey's right hand man, along with the vast majority of his front office after what has to be seen as no better than a barely proficient trade deadline after a decade of wasting the brilliance of Damian Lillard by treading water with an average of a first round exit. That fucking blows me away. The perceived distance between who we have running the team now and who we've had running the team over the past decade is mind blowing because many of you in here act like it's a huge difference and it's the same fucking people minus one. Edit: For anyone in here that remembers me begging for Olshey to be fired every fucking day since the LaMarcus debacle, I just want to say that when I was pleading for him to get fired I never imagined that he would be fired and we would give control of the team to all of his cronies (not a Cronin pun but could be one).
Except nobody defending Cronin said that he got absolute top value. It's the exact opposite where people bitching and whining about Cronin for the past 2 months, again without knowing what offers were there, are certain he got fleeced and taken advantage of. Nice strawman though.
I don't think he did enough to get a job that he was in the running for as interim and will be troubled if we just allow a succession to take place in what still is very much the same regime that we've had over the last decade. When I said I wanted Olshey fired I meant I wanted our front office purged (not killed like in the Purge movies, just removed and replaced).
You decry to others that they don't know what could have been had but all the same you make it known there could have been more. Just admit you don't know and accept that other people know you don't know either. Saves a lot of words lol. It's okay, I have to do it all the time.
I don't know for sure that we could have got more but it seems logical that we could and should have. I don't know anyone who is over the moon about the return we got in those trades. The biggest question I see is that if we're not over the moon about the moves that our interim GM who was the right hand man of the guy most of us wanted gone for a while, why on earth would we want that guy to be made the actual GM when there are so many qualified candidates that didn't make lackluster to terrible deals for us this year and who aren't connected to the front office that so many of us have been disappointed in for so long?
In willing to give him a chance as well, if he's the best guy we think we can get. But I'm not singing his praises either. The one thing we saw from him is a willingness to make moves, and didn't seem like he fell in love with anybody. I'm good with that. Everything else is up in the air. We don't know what was available or what directives he was under. But I feel like that's a long way from wanting him to be the guy.
