Official: you be the GM (what would you do)

That I agree with; probably won't happen if Dame/LMA aren't part of the deal, but in my hypothetical world where I'm GM, our whole team would be available to try and land him. I'd probably even do some shady back room deals if I was Paul Allen to land him. Toss them a few mill somehow. That said, I don't see people wouldn't want arguable 2 of the best offensive big men on the league on the same team. Our offense would be incredibly hard to stop, especially in the half court. Defense would still be an issue, of course.

 

A 27 PER player should be doing better than Love is doing. Even Jordan alone made it to the playoffs. Minnesota isn't even that awful; I think that Love doesn't make his teammates better.

It's irrational, I know. I think Love is a loser, and will always be a loser because of the way he gets his stats.

His clutch stats, for example, are atrocious. http://www.82games.com/1314/13MIN14.HTM

128.5 DRtg in the clutch. That's ridiculous! 35% eFG on jump shots, which is his most common shot in clutch time (69% of his shots are jumpers).

You think going to LA in close games is a bad idea because he's a low efficiency jump shooting softy? Sure why not hire a second guy just like him!

 

Because he's being asked to do something in those situations he's not good at, likely. Dame should be taking those shots, or setting someone up, anyways. Which alleviates that issue.

 

He's a stat whore. He does what stat whores do. Just look at JJ Hickson.

 

Unless he's always being asked to guard Wilt Chamberlain in clutch time, there's NO excuse for his DRtg.

 

Valid point, you take them when you can get them. They are not available very often. They say he is not available now, but I think that is a smoke screen in order to get better offers. Regardless we are not a good trading partner for them.

 

If I were the GM;

I'd get on the phone with Cleveland and let them know I'm interested in a sign and trade for Luol Deng. This could be either to themselves directly if they want to draft a SF such as Wiggins or we could join in on a 3 way for them to acquire a veteran star such as Kevin Love. I'd send out Wright, Claver, Crabbe, a sign and traded Watson, $1.7 million in cash to cover Watson's contract, and the most valuable piece our 2015 first round pick completely unprotected. The assumption is Watson would be cut from the roster and only included to match salary. All of the salary Portland sends out equals $6.9 million. Since Portland is a non-tax paying team we can receive ~150% salary back in a sign and trade or $10.3 million. All of the players Cleveland would be acquiring would be expiring contracts. Crabbe has value above his contract. The draft pick is the prized asset and worth more than the contracts. If Cleveland was building a trade package to Minnesota they could include those players and the draft pick. If they only want the cap space they could give the contracts and draft pick to a rebuilding team such as Philly for a future asset.

The draft pick would be unprotected for a few reasons; first of all that makes it a much more valuable asset, secondly it allows us the flexibility to trade other draft picks in future trades if need be. If we protected the pick for top 3 for three years we wouldn’t be able to trade a 2017, 2018, 2019 draft pick either. The chance of needing that protection is extremely unlikely so its better to improve the value of the asset we are sending out and leave ourselves more future trade flexibility.

We would have to be able to agree on a contract with Luol Deng. I would try to sign him to something starting at $10 million a season for three years which would come to $31.4 million. Some people will say that’s overpaying but when you look at all the teams with cap space and the void of starting quality players he will get that money or slightly more somewhere. Deng is a British guy who played in Chicago so I think he’d be fine with rainy Portland whether.

I’d then use the full MLE to sign Pelicans free agent Jason Smith as a veteran center. I’d sign a veteran PG with the BAE such as Luke Ridnour, hoping that CJ beats him out for the backup spot but knowing we have a capable option available. We would have two more veteran minimum salary roster spots, so I’d try to see if Chauncy Billups was interested in that role, and keep the final 15th spot open for training camp or veterans cut from other clubs.

That would give us a depth chart of:

Lopez/Jason Smith/Meyers
LMA/TRob/Freeland
Batum/Luol
Wes/Barton/Billups
Lillard/CJ/Ridnour

 

Defensive rating as an individual stat with no context provided is completely worthless.

 

Agreed, it’s a team performance metric.

 

Well shit, that's fine. He's probably with the starters, who all suddenly go to shit in the last 5 minutes of the game. Or, everyone on the opposing team suddenly, magically becomes Michael Fucking Jordan.

Or, Love is actually a bad defender.

 

Yeah I agree. Love leading the league in rebounding is a horrible thing. He turns his back to players with the ball just to start boxing out. Increase his stats but costs the team wins.

 

I'm not saying he's a great defender. Using his defensive rating is just simply a terrible way to look at it.

 

Yes, and the Wolves as a team were terrible with Love on the court at the end of games, and his offensive stats are terrible, too.

 

Yes they were. Not trying to argue that.

 

Now that I wrote that book of a post on how we could trade for Deng, with his mediocre 3 point shooting I’m wondering if he is a Stotts player. I wonder if we should target Pau with that package instead? Give the Lakers Meyers, Crabbe, other expiring deals and our unprotected 2015 pick to sign and trade us Gasol. The Lakers supposedly don’t want to give Pau a multi year deal, Pau wants to go to a winning team, and we could really use a veteran like him off the bench. He had a 19.3 PER last year and 21.5 for his career.

Pau really seems like a Stotts system player with well rounded skills and high IQ. LAL can keep their pipe dream alive of Love/Durant signing as free agents. Lakers could trade expiring and picks to the Wolves during the season. I could really care less about us helping them attain Love. Like the Knicks and Melo I think those two kind of deserve to be stuck in mediocrity together.

 

Cleveland needs to draft a SF like you suggest. Wiggins has the most upside and I think he will be the pick. I doubt Deng wants to stick around so it shouldn't take much of an incentive to get Cleveland to get involved in a sign and trade. I think most of us agree Nic can play SG, so adding Deng as a wing with Wes and Nic would make us a lot tougher.

Who are we competing against for Deng? Who has Cap space this year that needs a vet?

 

Yeah I'm not sure, seems like both Deng and Pau are interested in going to a playoff team. It would have to be teams with room under the luxury tax after all their other signings. I can't think the list is terribly long. The great thing is tax teams like Miami, Brooklyn, Knicks, Clippers, aren't eligible to receive players via a sign and trade so we don't have to worry about them. Supposedly Neil is a great salesmen so he needs to sell one of them on being a Blazer!

 

Would you trade Batum for that crap? They can get a much better offer

 

Batum isn't a free agent. If LAL or CLE can get an unprotected draft pick for a player they don't want to sign they'll be all over it.

I was thinking Houston might put similar sign and trade offers out there. Just realized big advantage for us with Pau is him and Dwight were epic fail

 

I was thinking about this last night before going to bed. The OCD side of me kept me up for a long time while I pondered this question. I am posting my idea here so I can "move on" and stop obsessing about something I can't control.

This is extremely aggressive off-season plan. I't plausible.... I know it is a long shot, but here it goes.

Draft EDIT - After crunching the numbers on salary below, I think Neil should just skip the draft portion. Left it here just for conversation.
1) Trade Claver to Philly for #39 in the draft & take Damien Inglis. Philly has 5 second round picks to go along with 2 top 10 picks. There is no way they would want 8 rookies (counting Noel) on the team next year. Claver is a "smart" player & a professional. He would be a good example for a young locker room. Portland is trying to get the best foreign prospect that they can leave in Europe for 1-2 years.

FA
2 & 3) This goes together because I think Neil would have to "sell" both players on this at the same time.

2) S&T Deng with Cleveland. I see Deng making around $9-10M per year on the open market. You sell Deng to come to Portland for a championship run. Portland can pay him that if they include Wes & Freeland in the trade. If Deng would agree with a $9M starting salary (4yr, $38M contract with the 4th year a team option) - Portland would have more flexibility on trade options.
IN - Deng + 2nd round pick
OUT - Wright & 2015 1st to Cleveland. Wright helps mentor Wiggens for a year.
Freeland + $2M in Cash to Phoenix for a TPE & 2nd round pick. They get a decent "hustle guy" and it only costs them $1M out of pocket.
Claver + $1M in Cash to Toronto for a TPE. They get a "free" look at Claver, who has shown to be a very smart player.
Portland moves Batum to SG & brings Wes off the bench. Batum, Deng, & Wes each get ~ 30 mins per game.

3) Use the Full MLE on Pau Gasol. He can get more than that on the FA market, but he has made a ton of money in his career. He takes the MLE and starting position on a contender. Pau has the flexibility to swing between C and PF, inside & outside. He would be great paired with LMA and good with Lopez. Each player gets ~ 30 mins per game.

4) Use the LLE on a PG. First choice would be Greivis Vasquez, but I think he will make too much. Darren Collision or DJ Augustin would be my next two choices. Whom ever the backup PG is, they need to have a decent 3p%.

5) Sign a SF to a vet min contract. Wesley Johnson, Al-Farouq Aminu, Dante Cunningham, Shane Battier, Caron Butler, Hedo Turkoglu would all acceptable.

The roster would end up like this (using 14 roster spots & leaving 1 open to allow for "fishing" for players using 10-day contracts):

C: Gasol (16) / Lopez (32) / Leonard (0)
PF: LMA (32) / Gasol (16) / T-Rob (0)
SF: Deng (32) / Batum (16) / Vet SF (0)
SG: Batum (16) / Wes (32) / CJ (0) / Crabbe (0)
PG: Lillard (32) / Collison (16) / Barton (0)

4 of the 5 in the starting lineup are/were All-Stars.