Give me a break. How about 7-8 years ago? We just started building this team a few years ago when we were forced to dump our starting line-up.
That's not what I said now was it? We did the quick risky tank thing with Roy, Aldridge and Oden. We never had as much success as this team has had with Lillard and CJ. And we're one of the youngest teams in the league. Do it right. Set up a good culture. Have stability. I'm liking what I'm seeing this summer. We're 1 good move from competing every year.
Steph is 30, Klay is 28, Draymond is 28. Those three guys are part of the same window. Currently there is no third star to go with Dame and CJ's window. We can talk about longevity and having a game that ages well all we want, but right now there's a huge gap between where Dame and CJ are, and where our project players are. That's what I'm talking about.
I like Harris better than Biggie or Meyers but that leaves the Blazers woefully thin at Center where Leonard can at least play some minutes if absolutely necessary. Who do they get for a backup Center besides Collins?
So what's the alternative? Just go lotto for the next 4 years? It took Golden State like 20 years to get out of the lottery. We're building our future and working to compete as best we can now. Olshey's mistakes so far have been in thinking he could sell Portland on players who had other options. That's why 2016 was always going to turn out bad. That's why he didn't trade Aldridge. Aside from that I've been impressed with the job Olshey has done. I think he has learned that he can't go all in on free agents. We're one piece away from really competing. And we have good culture, and we're building our future. Exciting times.
I dunno, 3rd string C isn't as important. There's some out there still. Jeff Withey is a guy I'd look at.
True....but Zach played more PF last year with Davis playing Center. He was also starting to play some PF with Nurkic just a bit. So I wasn't counting on much from him and Nurk seems to be best at around 28 minutes per game.
no way Chi does that IMO, Lopez is a plus asset that is expiring this yr, Meyers is a ball and chain who has two yrs left
And where would they be if Steph or Klay left 5 years ago? Because that's what happened to us. The stars aligned for them. That's awesome. They started doing things the right way, built the good culture, and good things happened. We're in the middle of that process now.
Correct. But half of the league didn't just take 3rd place in the west with the 2nd youngest team in the league.
It was fools gold man. It was by such a slim margin. We could have just as easily been out of the playoffs entirely if we had swung a couple games the other direction. We didn’t have injury issues like some of the other key teams. And we proved how shitty we were by getting swept out of the first round by the 6th seed. I wish people would stop bringing up getting 3rd seed line it’s some kind of validation.
Every team has injuries. How long was that win streak? Seriously though, that was a bad match up. We couldn't stop Davis... Honestly I think the Pelicans would have beaten anybody but the top 2 seeds, and soundly. We also swept a team that made the second round. If seedings shake out differently we'd have been in the 2nd round. And the year before we were swept by the Champs. And the year before we were in the second round. We do need a third star. Unfortunately that guy left and we haven't found his replacement yet. Did you really want to go all in for Melo?
"2nd youngest team" has no context. We were "2nd youngest" because of Papagiannis, Baldwin, Layman, Vonleh (till he got traded), Swanigan, etc... End of the bench guys that don't have much potential (outside of Baldwin, but still). It was also because of guys like Harkless, Shabazz, Nurkic... Guys that are young but close to or at their ceiling. Papagiannis will never amount to anything, and it'd be better to have a veteran like Vince Carter in his spot... However, if that was the case we'd be something like 10th youngest, and then that wouldn't be a selling point anymore. So the "2nd youngest" narrative has no substance to me because most of our role players are in their prime, and aren't going to continually improve. Our roster doesn't have 2nd best a big gap in between current production and top end potential either. "3rd place" also needs context, because we made the playoffs by a slim margin of 3 games, with good injury luck compared to our competitors. When evaluating a team, you have to figure out how close they are to contention, and what will get them there, instead of looking at things simplistically without context. We're no better off than Washington, or New Orleans, or Denver, or Utah, or many other teams.
That wasn't a bad matchup, that was bad gameplanning compounded by Stotts failing to adjust. A good team is able to adjust to many different styles of basketball. The narrative of "We're fine because we were the 3 seed but the 6th seed was just so good and such a match-up problem for us that it's okay we got swept" is contradictory. "If seedings shake out differently".... The best teams beat whoever is in front of them. We're trying to compete with the best right? Then that's the standard we should be held to, not a standard of hoping for certain matchups to avoid getting swept with HCA. "How long was the win streak"... I counter with this: What was our record excluding the win streak?
Only thing that was proven in the playoffs was that we had a poor series and still 3 of 4 games were extremely competitive. A few bounces and it could have gone much differently.
What was any teams record without a win streak? That's a weak argument as it's a fact that we did have that long win streak. I always find it funny when people act like the win streak was an accident and shouldn't be counted.
