Congratulations Portland on winning your first playoff series since 2000. Now you got some difficult decisions to make concerning this team. Issue #1 what to do with Lamarcus Aldridge? Option 1: Pay him, there has been a lot of speculation that it will take 127/5 contract to keep LA in town. LA will be able to sign a 4 year deal as free agent in the range of 88-92 million with another team. That would presumably give Portland the advantage because they can offer him 35 million more and a 5th year. However, assuming LA signs in Texas, LA after taxes would only be leaving around 85,000 a year on the table. An amount he could surely make up in endorsements. The question then becomes is LA your guy? If he is then you got to bite the bullet and pay him 25 million a season. Option 2: Trade him, LA will draw significant interest if he is placed on the trade block. Cleveland has shown repeated interest in LA and have a shiny package of the #1 pick in a loaded draft and pieces to offer. A potential deal of Varejo, Thompson, Waiters, and #1 for LA and Wright would be intriguing. #1 overall Portland could take Embiid but considering Lopez's play and their history drafting centers he might not be the best option. They could also draft Jabari Parker his game is very polished for his age but he might not be athletic enough to dominate the NBA like he did college. Last option would be Andrew Wiggins, he is an athletic freak and has perhaps the highest ceiling of the group. How hard is willing to work will go a long ways in determing his overall success. Decision: Trade LA and draft Wiggins. I considered Embiid a lot here considering Portland's wing depth with Batum, Matthews and Waiters would be pretty strong. However, considering how raw he still is an with the increased expectations on this team after reaching the second round waiting on him to develop did not seem like an option. Wiggins athleticism and potential as a disruptive defender gave him the nod over Parker on my board. Issue #2: Rebuild the Bench Option 1: With resigning LA the team would have very little cap room to deal with. Resigning Mo and bringing in someone like Thabo Sefolosha would keep the bench from being a complete liability assuming Robinson, Barton, McCollum, Freeland and Leonard can continue to develop. Option 2: The trade with Cleveland fixed a lot of these issues. Portland would have Lopez, Leonard and Varejo at C. Thompson, Freeland and Robinson at PF. Batum, Barton and Wiggins at SF. Matthews, Waiters and McCollum at SG. Finding a back up PG for Lillard would be the main weakness. Portland could bring back Mo, sign someone like Patty Mills, Luke Ridnour or Ramon Sessions. Decision: Making the decision to trade LA was a big one and I am not comfortable just making that deal and only adding a back up PG. Therefore, I am going to make a few additional moves. SG I am not sold on Waiters he is aggressive with the ball in his hands but his defense is lacking and he is sloppy with his ball control. However, I think his aggressive play would make him a solid 6th man. Plus his contract is small enough to take a chance on him. I have no problem with Matthews but I think the team can do better. Matthews has not shown the ability to be a great bench player and eventually I believe that with the drafting of Wiggins that would be his role. I would love to see Portland sign someone like Lance Stephenson this summer. To do so Portland would need to trade Wesley Matthews. As an expiring contract with 3 and D skills Matthews would be an easy piece to move. He could easily net us a future first round pick. I would offer Lance Stephenson a 4 year, 46 million dollar deal if he signs elsewhere keeping Matthews would be a solid plan B. Okay this is getting much longer and more complicated than anticipated so I will post more later.
Good analysis, but I fail to see the blueprint of contenders or how we are trying to apply said blueprint.
IMHO, keep LA, make him a deserved max offer and see what he does. If he stays, great. If not, we have money for a FA. Seems pretty simple to me. That said, we should always listen to offers for him. I could see a team like SA wanting to replace Duncan with LA. They have nothing to offer us, but nonetheless I suspect my scenario will play out. LA will not be traded. As to "rebuilding" the bench, it seems to me we did that last year. I would make resigning Mo a top priority. He is a valued veteran 6th man and hard to replace. I also like the idea of grooming Barton to take his place in that role. The weak areas I see are a good backup SF & PG and trying to make Meyers better. Aside from that, I like our bench. The SF we can probably take care of by playing small ball with 3 guards. The PG situation needs more attention and I think we can look to the D-league or somewhere for that possibly.
Move everyone on our bench not named Barton/McCollum/Robinson. Try to pkg Mathews and move Batum to the 2. Retrieve a better backup PG than Mo Retrieve a backup Center Retrieve a a new SF
Everyone on our bench is easily open for discussion to trade, including Barton/CJ/Trob, again EVERYONE
He knows the offense and Stotts is clearly comfortable with him. Plus we could do a lot worse than Mo in a back up PG.
With the current team assembled Portland could let Thompson and Robinson battle throughout the season to see who would remain as the teams back up PF. Next Summer the main goal would be to sign Kevin Love. Now I know most of you are probably wondering why get rid of LA just to pay Love a max salary. Here is the difference LA 30 years old 5 years 127 million Kevin Love 26 years old 4 years 81 million. Even if you believe LA is a better player than Love right now at 4 years older I have a very hard time believing that many of you would willingly pay LA 5.4 million more a season. Here is the Blazers potential 2015-2016 roster: PG Damian Lillard (Keep) PG Mo Williams, Luke Ridnour, Patty Mills, or Ramon Sessions (resign or sign this summer) SG Wesley Matthews or Lance Stephenson (Keep or trade and sign this summer) SG Dion Waiters (LA trade) SG Andrew Wiggins (LA trade #1 pick) SF Nicolas Batum (Keep) SF Will Barton (Keep or trade) PF Kevin Love (Sign next summer) PF Tristan Thompson/ Thomas Robinson (LA trade/ Keep, trade one or could keep both if Love does not sign) PF Joel Freeland (Keep or trade) C Robin Lopez (Resign next summer) C Anderson Varejo (Resign cheap or trade at deadline) If Portland can trade LA for Waiters, Thompson, Varejo and the #1 pick and then sign Kevin Love the team would have a lot more depth and they could trade Matthews, Robinson or Thompson and Varejo for picks or additional pieces.
I suspect (or maybe hope is a better word) that Mo becomes a lot more effective with another legitimate scoring option off the bench
I wouldn't go near Stephenson... He just seems to be enough head case to not deal with him. Indy isn't going to keep Lance and Turner. Turner might be a trickle down guy a team could steal for MLE.
I was thinking the same thing. I think that is all he is worth at this point, but I still think he is a good fit next to Dame.
Turner is a ball dominant SG without much of a jumper he could be an effective 6th man for someone if they let him play iso ball and attack the basket but in this offense he would flounder next to Lillard.
Kevin Love is a stat stuffer and injury prone freak accidents or not. he has missed a ton of time. It's a bigger gamble to sign an injury prone player who's 26... than resigning a 29 year old Aldridge when he re-signs as a Blazer. Kevin Love has a replacement does not =/= contender.
This sounds like the blueprint of a disaster. Don't break up a second round playoff team after we've spent a decade and a half building one. What the hell is wrong with people here?
