Interesting in regards to trade value, you’re probably right, part of that is because of the various contracts they have too I would think. Being 1st rounders they have a few guaranteed years.
GTJr. - very balanced and extremely hard working. Savvy player with inside out game and a defensive presence. Has the Eye of the Tiger Little - nose for the ball, extremely athletic, junkyard dog Simons - potential to be an offensive gun slinger Mo Wen Jay
Oh I think we are all watching him. It's just that some focus on the positives and think the 20-year-old has a lot of potentials, while others focus on the negatives, and don't think they are fixable. Some fans wrote off Little and Trent during the Summer for the same reason. Either way, it is too early to know.
He is currently a blight on continuity. But my point is what you said earlier: he is another small, iso-happy SG. Even if EVERYTHING breaks his way, he is at best a lesser version of CJ, or even if he ends up to be a better scorer, do you want to watch however many years more of isolation offense? If this season did anything, it made me wish we passed the ball more and defended better, both of which are most definitely not in Simons bag of tricks. And for the record, I wrote off Trent from day 1 and was WAY wrong and happy to admit it. And I don't think anyone has written off Nassir Gerald Wallace Little. That guy is great. Gabriel is great. I like Hoard even. All of these guys seem to get it, and it just seems like Simons doesn't. Listen, I've come FULL swing from loving Simons, to defending Simons, to seeing what he does to the team, and finally here, wishing him on another team (although we should've sold high). I'm also not one to dislike Blazers.
I said he needs to gain 10 lbs and I said he is a SG. but I never said he is another small, iso-happy SG. If he is iso-happy then it is due to coaching since we pretty much say it about almost every Blazer who runs the point since Terry became HC. The guy is only 20 with very little experience. At least Trent got a year with Coach K.
Simons biggest upside is at point guard because at SG pretty much everyone he defends will have some sort of size advantage, whether it’s length or strength. At PG he at least has the length to guard most guys. We’ll see where his career goes but I will say his athleticism is superior to CJs, so maybe he can develop into a more dynamic scorer. CJ doesn’t get to the line. Simons already has the superior free throw rate, so there’s hope.
Do you mean ever, or just in the next year or two? Not trying to argue with you, just curious. I think Gabriel may have a future in the NBA.
I wonder how many non-title contending teams have a worse group of young players than the Blazers. I bet its a small list.
I am not sure it even matters. We seem to go through this exercise about every 2-3 years guessing which young team based on their young talent has the best future, and most of those teams never stay together nor get anything in trades that make them title contenders. And who are the title contenders right now? I count about 26 teams who are not. And for those who will reply "well they are closer than we are" I say bull shit, things change quickly. (injuries and salary cap being the biggest factor) We have 8 players on the team who are currently 22 or younger. (Collins being one of those) We only need around 3 (maybe 4) of those to contribute. The others are there for development purposes only. We will probably substitute two of those out for another 2 after the draft. Plus you have Nurk who is only 25. This team has decent young talent.
Whenever I see him, I think he is about maxed out. Then that is followed by shades of Raymond "donut" Felton.
Good stuff. Would be interesting to go back and look at which teams we thought had the best group of young talent and assests a couple years ago. We've had Roy and LMA has pillars of hope 13-14 years ago. We had Dame and CJ 7-8 years ago as a strong base to build around. What young players do people think are on the roster down that will be leading the team 5 years from now? Maybe we don't have that, so then what do we do? Sign high quality free agents? Do we have cap space and can we attract top free agents to Portland? Maybe we have to trade for those top tier players. What assests do we have that are on good contracts that could get us those types of players? Seems to me we're in a tough position and if I had to forecast 4-5 years out, I'm not sure I would say we're in a better position than most.
I think I agree with you. We haven't been a title contending team this season. Now I can argue that our injuries have been a big reason why we haven't been a contender. If we had avoided all of our catastrophic injuries this season and made most of the moves that we made (signing Melo and trading away Skal being the two I would not see being made) we would have a team just as good, if not better than last season's team (who made it to the WCF, so were contenders). The rotation would look something like Dame, CJ, Hood, Collins, Whiteside, Ariza, Trent, Skal and Simons with Nurk being in that rotation by the playoffs. I think that's a better team than the Nuggets and Jazz and would be a tough out for the Clippers, Lakers and Bucks. If you say that we weren't contenders last year because the Warriors swept us then I would have to strongly disagree with you. LeBron's Cavs that got swept by the Spurs in the 2007 Finals were contenders. A sweep doesn't negate that a team had a chance to win it all and I think making the final four shows you had a very good chance.
A team that hasn’t missed the playoffs (and if they miss it this year it’ll primarily be because of injuries) in seven years not having a stable of young talent isn’t much of a take. And despite that Olshey still drafts better than most. Trent for example is better than some of the guys taken in the lottery.
I suppose I'm on an island in actually liking a lot of what I have seen of Simons on the defensive end, especially given his age, and his path to the league. I'd rank mine similar to a few of the others... Simons - I think only one with star or semi-star potential. Semi-star being like a CJ type player. I remind those that have shit all over him this year to dig up the 2nd year CJ thread where everyone hated him. And then remember there's a 3 year age gap between the two. I still think he could be a better player than CJ currently is, and he looks to have grown a little, IMO. Trent - Also super young, and gives a lot of us shades of Wes. He definitely projects to be at worst a solid 3&D player. It's unfortunate that often times, guys initially pegged with that just get assumptions made that they somehow can't develop beyond that. Like, we peg him as Wes, but what's stopping him from projecting to Klay? Little and Gabriel probably a mix at the 3 and 4 spot. Similar yet different. Hoard...meh Moses Brown just looks like a career D-leaguer/overseas guy to me. So lost
I agree with your first point. My June 2020 was a joke (kinda). Though if fully healthy, I don't see how this group has a legit shot at an NBA title. What are you basing your "Olshey still drafts better than most" comment off of?
