The Portland Trail Blazers 2017 Exit Interview (The Ringer)

uhh...that's awesome.

 

Here's a quick question: How many mental midgets can anybody ever recall getting "cured" in year six of a professional athletics career?

 

It really frosted me how much the announcers last night kept focusing on the Warrior's injured backups, completely ignoring that the two backup centers the Blazers were constructed to rely on were both injured too. We were playing literally without a single functional center, and yet they kept harping on the Warriors injured coach and backups

 

Try some positive self-talk!

 

Wouldn't call McGee cured but he's certainly much smarter a player nine years in than he was after five.

 

Does golfer Kevin Chappell count? After 8 years, 179 tries (with some 2nd place finishes), he finally won a tourney. Don't know if he would qualify as a mental midget though. Really nice guy. Glad he won....

 

I don't like listening to Olshey now, but here's an extended summary:

He's talking about trading picks for players that can help now. With Olshey, I don't trust that these players will be true difference makers. Just guys that could get us back to the 5th seed... He'll mortgage the future for playoff mediocrity, I can see it coming now. Those picks aren't powerful enough to trade for any really good player.

At the start, he's already kissing Allen's ass, talking about how he loves not having to worry about Paul's profit, and how Paul's so dedicated to winning over profit, yadda yadda. ("Please don't fire me yet, the Lakers just got their new GM")

Olshey referencing advanced stats with Nurkic, I wonder how much things like DRPM. He's also defending Denver's trade, to hopefully make trades possible in the future.

I do like that Olshey references that we only have 60% of a starting lineup. What I really dislike is how he is saying that we still need to figure out if our guys are capable. We haven't yet figured that out yet?!?! How many years do we need to figure it out???

He references are stats with Nurkic, but doesn't reference how easy our schedule was. He's painting the picture the way he wants it to look. He's painting himself in a better light.

He says Nurkic allows other guys to "be what they are, not something they're not". Aka, they're mediocrity is less noticeable as the 4th-7th options instead of the 3rd through 6th options. Aka, they're not good enough to handle that big of a responsibility on a mediocre team. So how can they handle a responsibility on a contending team, if they can't on a mediocre team, with two big-time scorers next to them???

A bunch of obvious stuff: "Games early in the year bit us in the end." Duh. "It hurt our seeding." Duh. Why's that? No veterans and mediocre role players. Everyone was too comfortable, we didn't get the wake up call early enough, guys thought it'd be easy to flip a switch.

Olshey calling out Meyers lack of confidence. Basically saying Meyers has no more distractions or excuses anymore. Sounds like Meyers will be back next year. FUCK.

Olshey is spot on about tanking though. Can't build a winning culture by tanking. Can't look CJ and Dame in the face and tell them they'd rather have the 10th pick instead of the 15th pick. Can't get it in their heads that they might be told to tank if they have a February lull. Makes a good point about later picks. Sometimes they can be good, because it gives an opportunity to take a certain player without the reaction that they "reached", and puts less pressure on the incoming rookie if they're a mid-1st instead of a lotto pick.

Olshey is too much a players GM. He's not gonna trade players because of their contract, unless he's getting some sort of return. He won't dump contracts for nothing, because he won't want to come across as saying that player isn't worth that contract. For his own sake, because he gave them the contract, and for the player, who Olshey doesn't want to say is overpaid, since he's a players GM. Get ready for multiple years of Crabbe and Turner. He won't trade either. Leonard will probably back. This offseason is gonna be a letdown for nearly everyone. He'll trade a pick or two for an average backup C and he'll call it good.

Olshey talking about Vonleh is interesting. Talking about how Vonleh is the nicest player in the locker room, but wants Noah to be more mean on the court. I agree with this.

Turner will be back for sure. Olshey talking about getting Turner 100% comfortable with the offense and the other guys this off-season. Loves Turner guarding PGs. Still thinks Turner's versatility is a great asset. Apparently thinks Turner can play 4 positions... For fucks sake.

Says we paid 2 years worth of money in 1 summer. Says he still hopes that they can "believe enough" in the roster can take the jump (ugh). Credits Paul with wanting to pay the money...

Says this is supposed to be year 2 of a rebuild... Sounds like an excuse for being mediocre, saying that not spending money would've burned up Dame's prime years, and losing would've been bad. Says that we're rebuilding while winning. This logic is very flawed. The young players we have won't be good enough, and the money we spent will burn up Dame's prime years because we can't improve upon mediocrity.

Says Dame is enough of a leader to the point where we don't need veterans... Lillard and Turner are the veterans. Says it would've been great to have Chris Kaman around in that 15th spot. Chris needs to be an assistant coach. Kaman would be a great big man coach for Nurkic. Says he would love Kaman to join Terry's staff but there's too many "Moose Elk" to hunt. Lol.

Apparently Terry did a "great job". He's a very "consistent" coach. Says Stotts is very emotionally grounded. This is a negative!!! Stotts doesn't defend his players from bullshit calls by refs, he doesn't get on his team enough when he needs to, as he's too emotionally grounded. Olshey said Stotts doesn't let refs have it, and says it like its a good thing. Ew. Ew. Ew. Popovich isn't emotionally grounded, and he's the best coach there is.

Says that everyone is excited for this draft, and Olshey says it's very deep. It sounds like he'd trade 26th for two 2nd round picks. Has already talked about teams wanting to move up to draft a guy that's not already in his range.

Olshey putting Canzano on blast. LMAO. Says he's glad Canzano's slam piece was written by someone who came to 2 games all year with the motivation to abuse his privileges as a media member to get tickets for his relatives to get pictures taken with the opposing PG while wearing the opposing PGs jersey. LMAO FUCK CRAPZANO. Neil says "clearly that's an unbiased opinion". Says the cultures good. Brings up a lot of good points about the culture.

Says he needs to do a better job selling the team and city when they're pursuing free agents.

Says we may have too many guys that don't know how to win. Says you get guys that are under the radar and can outperform the situation they were previously in, but the byproduct of that is that those guys usually haven't won, and don't know what it takes to win. (ex. Harkless, Aminu, Davis, Shabazz, etc.)

Says sending Layman and Quarterman to the D-League was a setback for them, and that they made more progress with the team. Sounds like he wants a D-League franchise based in the Portland area, where the Blazers control the team. I'd love having a D-League franchise here in Vancouver to be honest.

Thanks the media. Says last year it was really hard to get guys to do draft workouts last year because we had no firsts, but now this year we're at the top of the heap with guys willing to workout for Portland.

-----------------------------------
SUMMARY:
Looks like he'll only make minor tweaks. This team won't be much different. He's gonna ride or die with guys like Turner and Crabbe.

 

Did you write all of that up? That was a great, easy read. Liked the side comments too. Anyways....

 

Olshey isn't the type to let anyone in on what he's doing. I can't think of any deal he's made where we weren't caught off guard as a fan base.

I hope no Blazer fans thought he'd go to the exit interview saying we were going to be making some wholesale changes.

 

Yep, just typed it up while I listened.

 

Zach Randolph?

 

I'd take him on a rental next to Nurk.

 

This is a great point. Just when I started to think "Oh, GREAT....". Yeah, NO isn't gonna show his cards. Anything could happen....

 

All you guys scared of Terry making Nurk a 3pt shooter should watch his interview

 

I'm talking on-court performance.

 

He clearly referenced about the schedule getting easier after the all star break lol

 

It was hilarious! "Come on I can't make Nurk shoot threes--the Portland fans would say 'Oh great...we finally get a center and this Stotts guy has him shooting threes jeez" hahaha

Edit: I thought it was interesting that Stotts talked about Nurk including the three eventually in his game but right now he wants him to focus on what he's good at in the post. Why didn't we do that with Meyers then?! We just decided to throw him on the three line because he has a good shot.

 

Neil was refreshingly transparent. Wow color me surprised. Acknowledged he needs to be better and that they overestimated the team this year based on the late surge last year. Says they're gonna consider the whole season before making moves now