https://hoopshabit.com/2015/09/07/portland-trail-blazers-neil-olshey-goes-contrarian/ For the sake of the basketball offseason, Portland Trail Blazers general manager Neil Olshey acted as steeply contrarian thinker is correspondence to the rest of the league. Allow me to explain. Remember when the 2014 Spurs annihilated the Heat in the Finals and the next season every team began to adopt similar “pace and space” principles? The same thing is beginning to take shape now, except with the Warriors instead of the Spurs. Because of Golden State’s vast array of flexible wings (andDraymond Green), they can act as a Swiss Army knife on defense, switching between every pick imaginable while still corralling the ball handler. Since this practice lead the Warriors to a championship this past season, many executives are scheming to replicate their own version of that and hopefully strike big in the postseason as well. Milwaukee is a great example of a team constructing itself similarly with their deep rotation of long, athletic wings that can reign terror on defense. However unfortunately for the Bucks, their wings cannot shoot like the Splash Brothers. Teams around the league are craving (in some cases even overpaying) for the so-called “3-and-D” wing that can spread the floor and rotate through the 2-4 slots in the lineup. If you look closely, I am pretty sure you can see DeMarre Carroll andWesley Matthews nodding their heads solemnly at that statement. Portland is an interesting case because this offseason they elected to stock up on young, fair-priced big men (a seemingly out of touch commodity at this point) after realizing that their chances of retaining LaMarcus Aldridge were slim to none. While the rest of the league was drooling at the idea of replicating what is happening in Golden State, Olshey and his staff went the other direction. They were in a contrarian state of mind and I respect the hell out of that. The article continues. It's all pretty bad writing, but a pretty good observation. When the league seems to be highly valuing the versatile swingman, guys like Ed Davis and Plumlee and Vonleh, who would be garnering sizable contracts and trades in past eras, are snatched up by Portland at a bargain rate. I think when the Spurs mow through the league like a buzz saw with Aldridge and Duncan, a lot of teams are going to be looking around for promising young bigs. And Olshey will probably look much wiser than he does right now.
Olshey has been snatching up value acquisitions across the board. I'm always happy to stock up on promising bigs.
There are no rules that say NBA players have to be human, if Olshey was really an outside of the box thinker he would look into seeing if a drone can dribble a basketball.
Another thing that I don't think gets mentioned often enough. Every move Olshey made before LaMarcus made his decision would have fit both scenarios: LaMarcus stays and we go for it all, or go young.
I love a GM who looks at the successful teams and says "Fuck it, let's do the opposite of successful"
Or, it's not overpaying for someone else's past success, and seeing if you could be the next team that everyone emulates. This does always happen in the NBA. A team has success with a small SG, everyone goes that way. Twin towers, everyone hunts for a twin towers. A "Big 3"(god I'm sick of that fucking term) and everyone says it's impossible to win without a big 3. yadda yadda yadda. What you notice is the thing everyone else is chasing, is always changing. A good team will find success, and a lot of the crappier teams will look and say oh, we need to do that! It reminds me of a joke about Hollywood, and how, when Titanic came out it was a huge box office success. And what people could have seen was hey if we use innovative special effects and great casting and a good story, blah blah blah, maybe we can be successful as well. But what Hollywood saw was...People want shipwreck movies!
To me thats more like a Bob Whitsitt or Mark Cuban type. I think Paul has gotten more of a play it safe type of Owner and that always carry's over to your GM.
We got a poor man's Steph already. As much as I love Dame and he is his own player (much more athletic than Curry) IMHO this is the truth.
We're #2! At least at PG. Now we need a poor man's Klay, Iguodala, Draymond Green and Bogut, and we have a chance of losing in the Western Conference Finals. Oh, except the Spurs, Clippers, Rockets, Thunder and, of course, Grizzlies will still be better.
The other funny part to me was that he implies that Olshey is doing the opposite of Golden State, but if you look at the moves, there are more similarities than differences. Restocking with a bunch of athletic long guys who are interchangeable; you still have many three-point shooters; but maybe like Golden State with more emphasis on the rolling and rim than on the popping and outside shooting.
We've not only gone big, we've gone tiny at the backup pt guard position. Frazier and Pressy are Mugsy Bogues and Spud Webb sized
