"What if he offers Aldridge max?" It's a foregone conclusion that he will. Add it to the list of things I disagree with!
Yay for continuity and stability! Look at the Spurs. They've kept the same GM, the same coach and the same core of players forever. When your organization has a revolving door for both management and players, no one really buys in to the system, they view at as a stepping stone to their next gig. Olshey is locked up. Lock up Stotts, lock up Aldridge, lock up Lillard (as soon as possible), lock up Matthews, lock up Lopez. BNM
Why not all 5? We won 54 games last year and advanced to the second round. We are off to an even better start this year, in spite of injuries and a tougher schedule. Last year, we blasted out of the gate, had an easy schedule, caught a lot of teams by surprise and had perfect health from all 5 starters until after the all star break. You may not like one, or two of our pieces, but they work well together and are getting better. There are a lot of advantages to stability and continuity. You mess with your core and you lose that. Is there a better PF in the game than Aldridge? That;s debatable, but even if there is, is he available (Anthony Davis is not walking through that door - except when NOP comes to town)? At what price? How will he fit with this team? Stick with what works. The days of fantasy league personnel moves are thankfully behind us. BNM
I say lock up our starting five. Batum was clutch in the Houston series. How conveniently people forget.
My memory only works 10 years ago or like.... a quarter by quarter basis. It just vanishes after a quarter and then I'll fondly remember it in 10 years.
I'm sold on the team as a regular season team, but I'm not sold on us as a contender. And the reason I'm not sold on us being a contender boils down to Stotts/LMA. Stotts' system is severely flawed - it's built around the very shot that his defense is designed to give up. I don't know what sort of mental gymnastics Terry has to do to convince himself that the shot he wants to give up on defense is the shot that's going to propel his offense to the championships. And we've all seen that when our jumper isn't falling we struggle against even the worst teams, and Terry doesn't really change up the offense to get better shots - he just has the team keep shooter jumpers until Dame gets hot and wins the game for us. And unless you have a transcendent PF (Duncan, maybe Davis), I wouldn't build a team around a PF. Aside from the Spurs there's only been one fluke-of-a-championship won by a PF-lead team (DAL) - and LMA isn't nearly as good as Dirk was. Teams led by PFs simply don't win championships. Now, you can argue that we're being led by Lillard rather than LMA (and I do believe that to be the case), but until the FGA are distributed differently it's an LMA-led offense, and no team is going to win a championship when their primary scoring option leads the league in 18' jumpers. With all that said, I do agree with you on the importance of continuity.
Congrats to Neil! Anyone who thinks he hasn't improved this franchise hasn't been a fan for many years. Shout out to Paul Allen for showing Neil some appreciation. Good move all around.
I am certain our offense doesn't necessarily revolve solely on Aldridge. He's just a very important cog. Aldridge takes a lot of shots, the most on the team, but Lillard is slowly getting more and more shots. Stotts has evolved since his first days in Portland and I'm quite certain it will evolve even more. I think the moment we become unbeatable is when Stotts has equal shot distribution between Lillard and Aldridge. We are almost there right now. Then add Matthews and Batum taking the third load on a daily basis and you have success! You gotta give credit where credit is due. Stotts wasn't known for defense, yet he has developed into a solid defensive coach right now. Imagine what will happen with another season with the same players?!?!
It's interesting that he got it right now. The heavy lifting comes between July 1-July 9 this summer. If he somehow jacks that up, we're hurting pretty badly. If he rocks it, he should be here another 5 years.
I think both Wes and Rolo are pretty far from wanting to leave their situation here. They've seen the landscape out there and I think Portland has the edge to sign them both.
I think this has to do with resigning players. Showing commitment to the group and the plan going forward. Get it out of the way now since there will be bigger things going on in July.
Beyond everything, with Stotts and Olshey extended, you gotta love Blazer front office stability!! Class organization
