Should Neil be on the hot seat?

CJ at both guard spots? Guess we are throwing defense out the window, hunh?

 

Sorry this is long but I haven't posted all day...

When healthy, I loved the starting five we had more than any team since the Drexler/Porter/Duck/Buck/Kersey era. That said, when players play well they demand bigger contracts, simple supply and demand. And with three of them becoming free agents this off-season it seemed inevitable that we couldn't keep everyone. We all knew change was coming, just not how much.

I don't feel good about giving a guy $15m/yr after an achilles injury, even if he was my favorite player. And as much as I loved him, I don't think it would have been smart to bring Lopez back at $13m/yr. We're not going to compete this year and we already have a bunch of young bigs with potential. They saw the warning signs with Batum leaving, and after last year, I suppose it was time to trade him and get something in return. I like Blake, but he and Afflalo didn't exactly set the world afire last year.

So it comes down to Aldridge. I know some on here warned he was leaving a year in advance (congrats, you're so special), and even more are now playing Monday morning quarterback. And although the warning signs were clearly there, I think it's unfair to assume it was a foregone conclusion. If there's even a chance of keeping him, and I believe that Aldridge led him to believe there was (at least until it was too late to trade him), I can't blame Olshey for holding out hope. He's the 2nd best PF in the world.

So I don't get this Olshey hate. The difference between us, and say the Clippers, is that even though we swung and missed with resigning a star, and even after losing 80% percent of our starting five, we're actually in decent shape going forward. We've got an all-star, a lot of young talent, not a single bad contract, a lot of tradable assets, and still almost $30 million in cap room to take on contracts. This is not going to be our final roster.

I know emotions are high, and it sucks to rebuild, but at the end of the day what are we really rebuilding from?

We're rebuilding from an inconsistent wing, another wing coming off an achilles injury, a likable but average center, and a star who didn't want to be here and who had a ton of baggage. Like Quick's article said, now we don't need to deal with his insecurities, his jealousy, or his pettiness any longer.

We're rebuilding from a single playoff series win, and the guy who won it is still here. I loved the team, but it's not like we're dismantling a dynasty. And given the reasons I just listed I don't think this will necessarily be a prolonged rebuild anyway.

 

These are my thoughts. We kept our most important piece, and now we have enough flexibility and assets to rebuild a team that fits around him.

 

Neil is getting ripped to shreds on twitter and various non-blazer nba forums.

He has a lot of PR work to do.

 

I honestly thought Lamarcus was staying up until a couple days before the draft when those reports came out. I felt in his exit interview he wasn't set on leaving. He referred to some things in past tense but when he said things like "it's been a great 9 years here and lf
Course I wouldn't want that to end" and "when the time comes me. My agent, Neil, and Paul will sit down and figure it out.". I was confident he was staying. It kinda was pretty rare. Two 50 win seasons, when has a player ever left after that? But yeah, those rumors and nic being traded started to make me question it all.

 

So if Neil had tried to keep everyone with what they signed new contracts for, the Salary Cap for the Blazers would look something like this:

Aldridge - 19.8
Matthews 15.0
Lopez - - - 14.0
Batum - - -11.9
Afflalo - - - 8.0
Kaman - - -5.0
Lillard - - - 4.2
Leonard - -3.1
McCollum 2.5
Blake - - - 2,1
Crabbe - - 0.9
Frazier - - 0.9
Wright - - 5.0*
Gee - - - --2.3*
Total - - $105.6

The last two salaries are approximate assumptions of what those players might bet but you get the idea. That is so far over the cap and into the luxury tax and would be the highest team salary in the NBA.....and I don't think that team wins a title.

 

We will always be bitter about LMA but this is the bright side. We can build guys as well as have proven guys. Look what happened when cj and Meyers got more playing time. They blossomed. Took a couple years but they got better and gained confidence. There was a time where we thought Meyers was garbage, fouling out in seconds and lacked confidence with any playing time. Dude shot 40 percent from three as a seven footer and is athletic and can still get better defensively and offensively. That's a scary dude.

 

They were ridiculously over-paid.

 

You think Aminu will start at SF? He's not a good shooter or perimeter defender, he's more suited for PF. We don't really have a SF on this roster right now. I hope we re-sign Gee and pick up someone else.

 

Of course they were but if that is what the market is, it would have taken close to that to bring them back...hence the $100M+ salary schedule.

 

Maybe Paul did not want to go into luxury tax for a 1st round exit team. I think it's smart to be the team that gets players on the upswing, before they demand huge contracts. That way you have cap space to work with to add a piece if the opportunity comes. It's the desparate teams that go out every year and over-pay.

 

The comments in question were made in an interview published July 8th, 2014. In the article Aldridge was quoted, saying:

"I'm happy to stay, happy to be here, happy with the direction the team has gone the last year or two... This has no impact on my interest in staying in Portland. I just want to get a five-year deal. I feel like that's the best decision on my part."

Aldridge's statements went well beyond the financial:

"I want to be the best Blazer — ever. If I stay the rest of my career, I should be able to catch Clyde by then. I should be able to leave a mark on a big-time franchise that is going to be seen forever. And I will be able to say I played here my whole career. This city has embraced me and grown with me. I have so much history, it just makes sense to stay."

"This was not the situation," the source tells Blazer's Edge. "Olshey wanted Aldridge to sign an extension badly. Aldridge was reluctant. He was not sure he wanted to play in Portland and he told Olshey he wouldn't extend. Olshey knew it would look bad and wouldn't help Aldridge, the team, or his own image. He asked Aldridge to call Freeman and tell him those things to keep the pressure off. This was premeditated, set up by Neil."

http://www.blazersedge.com/2015/7/4...agent-news-neil-olshey-portland-trail-blazers


NO has been a mixed bag so far. He was sold as being a GM who could lure players to Ptd. He couldn't lure Hawes or the player he went after the year before. Didn't convince LA to stay nor lure Monore or any other big name and the exciting summer where we had lots of cap space he got T-Rob and Lopez. When you look past the well grooming smooth talk person, he is an average GM at best.

 

Yah he has been clearly below average, Fuck Olshey and the plan he rode in on.

 

Bullshit; he doesn't have jack to do from a PR perspective. How long did John Nash stick around while being "We just signed Chuck Person, Juan Dixon, and Steve Blake" bad? Olshey's a fucking wizard compared to him.

 

ignorant huh . .. you twist facts as smoothly as Olshey and then call me ignorant. First Olshey didn't build a contender, He added Lillard and Lopez to an already existing roster of LA, Matthews and Nico. Second, making it to the second round is hardly what most would consider a contender. The team was not deep and never reallt=y a threat to contend for the title .. . but hey saying NO built a contender in one off-season sounds great.

Nic was the starting SF on the "contender" team and some consider the best starting 5 in the NBA. He gets traded for a 19 yr old player with 25 games under his belt averaging 3.3 pts and 3.4 rebounds a game

If NO didn't know LA was leaving he was the only one. Kim Hughes knew LA wasn't coming back . . . and really so did NO which is why he starting trading proven vets for young player with potential

A good GM might have done something with LA before it turned into a catastrophe . . . exciting new image? Nothing exciting about the lottery to me.

Sound like you are buying all the BS Olshey is shoveling . . . and you call me ignorant?