Blazer fans similarly “knew” that Aminu & Harkless sucked and had to go. When they finally got their wish we went from a 53 win team with an average/above-average defense to nearly the worst defense in the NBA every year since and barely playing 0.500 ball since.
sure, but just because teams have no money available and his own team can take advantage of it and underpay him a lot, that doesnt mean thats his real value
It means it's his value in a salary cap constrained sport like the NBA. No player in the NBA gets their "true market value" since the NBA isn't a free market. If Nurkic was clearly worth $20-25M in this environment, teams would make room for him. If Kawhi Leonard were a free agent this off-season, teams would make room for him to give him a max.
I don't think Aminu and Harkless ever had a similar role ever since. Blazers seasons were the best of their careers which shows they were nothing special. The fact we even managed to have worst duos ever since doesn't mean they were players we should keep forever. In similar fashion with Nurk on the floor we cannot sniff a playoff win while with Kanter we went to WCF. Does this mean Kanter is better?
They were special enough to get us to 53 wins and rising at the time. They fit pretty well with what the Blazers really needed in that they shored up our most glaring weakness. The problem wasn’t Amina or Harkless or Nurk. It was having one star player on one side of the ball just doesn’t get you to sniffing the top eshelon. Kanter playoff run was a small sample, so no.
