To add on my post above - Batum - $22 million - 5-14 tonight, 1-7 from three, 4 assists, 3 steals, 2 rebounds Dwight Howard - $23.5 million - 3-11 shooting, 14 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block MKG - $13 million - 3-9 shooting, 5 boards Zeller - $12 million - 1-3 shooting, 4 boards, 2 assists That's $70.5 million right there and they're shooting 12-37 from the field. That's 32% from the floor. Yikes. I know our guys are shooting like shit tonight too, but holy cow.... I would be depressed if the Hornets were my team.
I voted to keep him. Here’s a question for all of you. When Aldridge bolted for the Spurs the summer of 2015 where did you expect the Blazers to be in 2018? I thought bottom 5 for 15/16 similar for 16/17 and maybe hoping for an 8 seed this year. Instead the Blazers could pretty easily be a 4 seed down the stretch.
And it was his brazenness that stuck us with shitty contracts of players he traded for (minus Plumlee who was probably our third best player and we were forced to trade.) and will now waste two years of CJ and Dame's prime. I'd rather he sign perpetual one year deals of borderline alkies who might turn their careers around or D league reclamation cases if he is trying to get a team to overachieve. Neil has had six years to build a team so maybe it is time to let someone else with an outside view of our squad do something else with it.
I was fully expecting Portland to be around a 0.400 winning percentage in loosing LMA. Without the obvious mis-steps, I think they could've been a 50+ win team this year. Getting from 45 wins to 50+ wins is hard to do. Going from 50+ wins to 'true contender' is insanely hard to do
For the most part I've been pretty pro-Olshey during his tenure here. I was severely disappointed today but this is all on Allen. I really like having Allen as an owner but he didn't want to pay the tax unless a miracle trade became available to bring in a really good player. What should Olshey do in that situation? He can't just ignore the situation and stay over the tax line. I don't really blame Allen for wanting to not start the repeater tax and to save a little money this year. Do you think Olshey would give Vonleh away if he wasn't forced to get under the line? I'd rather just eat the bad contracts for now instead of using picks to get rid of them. That being said, they have to make moves this summer. No more putting it off or saying wait until next time. Olshey alludes to them knowing they are going to be in the tax next year. They have a draft pick, the tax-MLE, and two trade exceptions ($13 and $3.6 million). The team has to add talent. Knowing that Allen feared Dame was going to ask for a trade is key. I think that tells us that he promised Dame to go all-in this summer but convinced him that staying under the tax this year would be beneficial unless a no-brainer trade became available. So I think Olshey should be given the summer to improve the team. If not I will fully join you guys on the fire Olshey train and I'll even supply the pitchforks. I just don't see any way Olshey gets fired before the end of July for doing what the owner wanted of him.
The tax hurts us in the future in terms of flexibility I believe. We didn't want to repay Noah anyway. The Noah trade isn't the problem, so how is Paul Allen the problem?
I don't think Neil has done a fantastic job but the 2016 was about using capspace before we lost is since once CJ's contract kicked in we wouldn't have had capspace the next year. It was a use it or lose it type and besides overpaying ET by about 5m a year none of those contracts at the time made me want to fire him. Harkless is an okay contract, Meyers had about 20 games before the end of the season that tantalized us and showed promise on why we used the 11th pick on him, then he went back to being Meyers, and Crabbe contract was matched because of his age and potential growth to go alongside his insane 3P% and when Crabbe didn't live up to his contract he was moved for the leagues largest TPE and a 2.6% loss in capspace for the next 6 years. Besides those contracts Neil has drafted fairly well and made a lot of good trades that weren't big but were very solid. The fact we are where we are after we lost every starter not named Lillard from our 2014-2015 and didn't go into the tank and look like Sacramento is pretty amazing. I for one am glad Neil isn't making crazy trades just to make trades as no matter what we do there is no way we are getting out of the 2nd round of the playoffs so might as well wait until the big super team has to blow it up and when that happens all those contracts we have will be big expiring or be off the books. I also think Neil is waiting to try and pry a disgruntled superstar away from a team much like he did in LA, unfortunately every team in the league is behind the Celtics in terms of assets they could use to get a disgruntled super star.
I'm not saying Allen is a problem. I'm saying since last summer it is completely 100% fact that this organization's goal was to get below the tax line if the team wasn't showing major progress. That isn't up to Olshey, he's following orders. Of course they would have changed this philosophy if a major trade presented itself (like Melo apparently) but short of that they weren't going to add payroll this year. Next year is different. The last two years they snuck under the tax line. Next year they have to commit to being in the tax and they know that. This could end up being a really good move if they take advantage of their TPE's and tax-MLE this summer.
Olshey could've done many other things along with that Vonleh trade and stayed under the tax. He didn't.
True, but a lot of the guys you were clamoring for didn't get traded today. It's possible they weren't even really available. There wasn't a single really bad contract that got traded today, was there? Elfrid Payton could only get a 2nd. Maybe the best play was to wait until summer. We'll see.
The Blazers are pretty comfortable with their center rotations right now. He would get less PT here than in NY and wouldn't be happy.
Lillard (36) / McCollum (12) McCollum (24) / Connaughton (15) / Turner (9) Harkless (24) / Turner (9) / Aminu (15) Aminu (15) / Collins (15) / Davis (18) Nurkic (28) / Hernangomez (20) I like that, and Hernangomez has serious potential. That's enough minutes for Willy and it'd allow us to part with Davis in the off-season if we couldn't resign him cheap.
No ...he couldn't...he tried...the deals weren't there...nobody he targeted got traded..his move made sense...off season he can take risks without a repeater tax from this season...couldn't take on salary at the deadline period. He explained it clearly....
I voted keep him...I'm all in for coaching and staff stability...they've pretty much gone the long term plan and invested in their development system..is what it is....just hope the team gets consistent effort night in and night out
I used to be for continuity and stability in any sports organization until the Mark Helfrich fiasco at UO. The only way to make an organization stronger is to put it under constant criticism and trial by fire. You get too complacent and everything will eventually fall apart. But I understand why people don't want to pull the plug on Olshey. He's not great but he ain't bad either.
I hate what we did in the Summer of 2016 and how it has taken us almsot two years to not even fully rectify that, but I don't hold it against Olshey that he did not trade for a superstar this February or last Summer, there just wasn't a deal that would have made sense available out there, I believe. I know a lot of people live in a world where you can package Evan Turner, Meyers Leonard and a protected 1st round pick and get back DeAndre Jordan but you can't. To go after someone who earns $10M+, and most decent players do nowadays, you have to send someone who earns a similar amount of money and more or less equal the value you send out with what you get back. I don't even see us putting up a coherent package for someone like Evan Fournier at the minute, which would be the minimum level of player I'd like to see coming for it to be worth the hassle. Getting even more average players like Dudley, Chandler or Booker like some suggested would just ensure that we would have different average players being criticized for not being good enough to win us championship. We will have Turner and Leonard on the books for the next two years and there's not much we can do about it. We can't make serious moves in the free agency, we don't have the assets to do a big trade. The only way we could change the look of the franchise now would be by trading either Dame or CJ, and you don't do such moves during season when there's still a good chance that you make the playoffs. We might try to reshuffle the team in the offseason but not now.
I'm on the fence. We better not get bounced early from the playoffs. Do we have a chance at the WCF? Maybe. Dame and CJ are going to get hot. If we don't get out of the first round, bye bye buddy.
