One thing that is always interesting to look back on is how are the players who are gone doing now? How are the players he missed on doing now? I lokk back over the list and there are only a couple guys I really think I would want back or wish had signed based on rumored offers. Will Barton, Hasaan Whiteside and maybe Nic Batum... maybe.
Like I said every GM does make mistakes. I don think the summer of 2016 isn't the best way to evaluate over pays... Were those guys overpaid sure, but it was ahuge leap in cap and Portland isn't remotely the lone team who over paid that year or any other year there was a big leap. Turners is the ugliest, in hindsight, but he also was a 13pt, 6.4reb, 6.5ast guy for Boston . Locking a player like CJ up with an extension is a far safer thing than letting him have the option of signing a 1 year QO and walking.
Kind of???? I will agree on Crabbe. I was one of the people saying let him walk. But i took a bunch of flak for saying it. Lots of people were sure he was gonna break out. Meyers just had come off a very good playoff series against Marc Gasol. Quite a few people were saying he had finally found his spot and that Aldridge was actually hurting his growth. But i got to agree i thought 10 per year was a bit high. Turner just came off what everyone considered a 6th man season. He was breaking out and most if not all figured he was gonna be the next nice piece. Trying to say people could see he was going to fizzle is just pure fabrication. I would venture as many as 9 out of 10 were on board with sewing Turner up. Then there is CJ. If you don't extend CJ you have a problem with him feeling wanted on this team. You know it and so does everyone else. CJ has and still is a huge part of this team. Treating him like they did Leonard would have been wrong. You do not have the locker room you have today if you do not show CJ respect.
Did we sign CJ to the max he could get? I do not believe so. Is there anyone here who thinks we still would have if he went to RFA or would it have been another Crabbe situation, would it not? So locking him up early was actually necessary to not end up giving him the max as well, right?
That's pretty much three huge responses to that post. Care to come up with more huge mistakes Olshey made that a comment board knew better than to do? Kind of sounds like the comment board knows what he did was what he was supposed to do to me?
But Meyers for 8 mill a season instead of 10 isnt? Or turner at 14 instead of 18 isnt? Come on now....
No we didn't waste it. By definition, we used it. Ezeli turned into ~$7M cap relief. ET, like him or not, started 28 games for us this year and did beat out our starting SF for those games.
"Wasting cap space" is only relevant for a team that can use cap space efficiently. If the best Portland can do with it is to massively overpay mediocrities like Turner, then cap space isn't an important concept. Instead, the relevant number is "luxury tax space" (or, whenever Allen is willing to pay the tax, "apron space"). That kind of space is useful to have to re-sign the team's own free agents. Like if Vonleh had broken out as a star, the team would really have benefited from having space under the tax line to re-sign him. With Nurkic and Napier needing to be re-signed, it'd be nice to have more room under the tax line or the apron line. That space wasn't "use it or lose it" unless the team was going to sign correctly-valued helpful free agents. Since they apparently weren't able to do that or capable of doing that, they'd have been better not spending that money and having more flexibility for re-signing their own guys.
The cap space was used efficiently and expertly. It was use it or lose it. CJ's contract extension would have kicked in and used it all. If Vonleh broke out as a star, our #6 or #7 in the power rankings might be #3. I'm reasonably sure NO would pay him next season, pay the tax this season, and even have used the TPE and even our 1st round pick to acquire someone like Tyreke Evans. Moot point, though. It was in Vonleh's power/hands to make himself indispensable.
They don’t have to be active GM’s, the most recent GM hires are first timers and have done pretty damn good in their first year. There’s plenty of people out there that can give a fresh look at the roster and prove themselves to be more than adequate. The philosophy behind not firing a guy who made detrimental errors because you don’t immediately know someone who would obviously do better is bad business strategy. Especially when the clock is ticking on your most important business asset. People have to pay for mistakes for both parties to learn. You can’t be hesitant to make change to a plan with poor trajectory because of perceived unkowns. Imo it has reached the point where remaining status quo negatively outweighs the risk of taking a chance on someone who may or may not have less experience. You have to either make risks or get extremely lucky to win big, being apprehensive and playing it safe will only bring more mediocrity. And personally I’m sick of mediocrity.
The math hurts. It is what the CBA is. If we pay 3 guys ~MAX contracts, we have very little space under the cap and not much else to sign quality players to fill out the rister.
Backtracked on what? Please show evidence that Turner had another contract offer. Until then, using that insinuation as a fact is a failure.
Names please........ Obviously everyone knows of these unknowns that would do better than NO, so lets hear some names..... Its your opinion that he made detrimental errors. That is not a fact based argument, thus not worthy of firing. But go ahead and let him go for.... who?
I can't agree with this more. You have to be smart in the way you use the space available. Also if Vonleh becomes the player so many people were saying he was gonna become Neil goes all in on the guy. He didn't. Plain and simple. That is not Neil's fault. Blaming the GM for Players that get their chance but don't work out is just crazy talk.
The biggest mistake Neil made was thinking free agents would come to Portland... but would he have been better off re-signing Matthews and Lopez and keeping Batum once Lamarcus left?
Championships are not built on trying, they are built on succeeding. This isn't a; 'Everybody gets a participation trophy' league.
Yes, because that negligible difference is less than $800K per year. $4M > $800K And actually, since we extended him, we gave him 7.5% raises; if we'd waited and simply matched another team's max offer, he'd only have received 5% raises, which would actually have resulted in CJ receiving $4M less over the 4 year life of the contract. So we didn't really gain anything by extending him, except for eliminating the <.05% chance of him signing the QO. And Meyers isn't a relevant example, because he shouldn't have been re-signed at all.
The Blazers had to offer more than the Celtics could. Since he had signed a 2 year deal, he had no bird rights. So they had to make a considerable offer. The knicks also had interest. https://hardwoodhoudini.com/2016/06/07/celtics-lose-evan-turner-new-york-2/ Could Celtics Lose Evan Turner To New York? https://www.boston.com/sports/bosto...ny-ainge-says-hed-like-to-re-sign-evan-turner Danny Ainge says he’d like to re-sign Evan Turner
