The super Melo to Portland thread + The Big Blockbuster

That's the holdup. Houston only has shit that NY doesn't want. To match Carmelo's salary, they'd have to get them to take Ryan Anderson, who just happens to play the same position as Porzingis, and include Ariza, or Gordon, or basically everybody else on their roster. No way is that going to fly unless there's a third team willing to facilitate. One question that keeps floating around in my head is how many first round picks could Olshey milk out of Houston and/or NY in order to be the facilitator?

 

Haynes has good connections.

 

well its his personal opinion, not inside info
I think he break the story about one big trade this summer, not sure who it was

 

I honestly doubt he turns down the $27 million player option in 18-19. His next contract will likely be half that.

Even if he does bolt, getting the longer term contracts off the books is going to be a huge help. There is very little downside to this deal.

 

When your boy had the info from the jump:

I pretend like I don't know things... It's fun to see ya'll speculate.

 

Mt. Tabor, now!

 

Okay, now I believe it.

 

not sure I get this Jason Quick tweet

 

He had plans to write about people who are now going to be traded. Ruined his article concept.

 

What I think about our defense if we added Melo:

The addition of Melo would make us slightly better as a team and a whole lot more fun. The perimeter defense would be pretty bad. However, this poor perimeter defense would be minimized by the defenders we have at PF and C. Aminu is a great fit defensively with Melo, as Aminu could guard the better forward with Melo sliding onto the worse forward. In certain situations, Aminu could take the best guard, with CJ guarding a SF (Ex. CJ on Ariza would be fine, allowing Aminu to guard Harden and Melo to guard Anderson, who would actually be a decent matchup for Carmelo). Vonleh has also shown the potential to guard SFs and has shown to be a good defender. Two good defenders at PF make it easier to take Melo with our backcourt.

The other reason we wouldn't struggle terribly on defense is because we have two excellent rim protectors in Nurkic and Collins. This minimizes the bad perimeter defense, as Dame, CJ, and Melo would be able to extend and take away the 3pt line. This personnel would actually be the best fit Stotts has ever had for his defensive system. Good perimeter defenders take away most or all good looks from an offensive player. Bad perimeter defenders can still take away something from the other team, and with Stotts, it's 3pt shots. In previous years, however, the opposing team would get a great shot anywhere inside the arc, as Plumlee wasn't much of a rim protector. With a great rim protector at C who can take away and make any shot within 5 feet extremely tough, that means that Portland could effectively take away everything but mid-range shots, even with their bad perimeter defense.

Essentially, with the way our frontcourt is defensively, adding Melo would improve us. If we had an average or limited frontcourt in terms of defense, Melo would probably make us worse, because taking away the 3pt line (which is the easiest thing for bad defenders to do), would result in layups with no rim protector. I don't think adding Melo would result in more foul trouble to our centers and PFs because we already try to take away the 3pt line anyway.

Cohesiveness matters defensively. Big men can either magnify a perimeter defenses inability to guard, or they can greatly reduce it.

@Mediocre Man don't complain about defense unless you can argue these points.

 

so hes reffering to Blazers players if Im correct... thats an interesting timing given this Carmelo rumor, and hes insider so I guess he could know somethning, whether its about Carmelo or some other trade involving our players

or hes just joking eh

 

Chris Haynes is one of the best in the biz

Idk why you hate him he was a huge homer when he worked here. Don't you love homers?