Let's see. We've got Oden, who gets injured just by thinking about playing basketball. We've got Roy, who used to be a star and is now a nobody. We've got an aging point guard whose best days are behind him. We've got a guy named Rudy, who was a star in Europe but is nothing very special here. Hmmmm . . . I'm about ready for another makeover. Yes, it's a gamble, but I'll take my chances with a new crew. This one is too broken down to ever accomplish anything, and if we're going to be mediocre I'd rather at least be watching some new faces. I hope Cho and Company are thinking the same thing. Blow it up, Cho! Make it interesting in Portland again.
I think you need to Blow up. Our roster is solid, just needs some tweaking and some health. If we didn't have our PF playing center and our SF playing PF we could have taken Dallas and be in the WCF right now.
Yea Wave that Magic wand and make it happen would ya. Oh and get it done STAT, want the All-Stars to be ready for summer camp. With/If B-Roy in game shape I can honestly say we've never had this many good pieces on a Blazers roster ever, That's not to say our offense doesn't needs some serious work. IDK maybe the pieces just don't fit together, so trade a couple, but Blow it up?
The probelm is when you blow things up, most people stop watching. And paying. They are all supportive for a while. But that changes quickly as fans get impatient. I think they are one player away. One really really really good player. We need a D Rose in the Rose Garden.
So ... does "blowing it up" now mean keeping the best players and replacing the scrubs/injured/older players?
Keep LMA ... everyone else is and should be viewed as expendable (though I won't complain if Wallace, Wesley and Batum are retained).
I pretty much agree with this. We are probably gonna make some moves and as long as we keep LMA i'm fine with it. I'm still a huge Oden supporter but for the right price we let him go.
When I hear “blow it up” I think of undertaking a long-term rebuilding phase through the draft and acquiring young players that have not reached their potential. Those young players have deficiencies in their games and have not yet refined their skills to help the team win. To get the truly great players in the draft you have to get very high draft picks, to do that you have to be a very bad team. Not just a lottery team that barely misses the playoffs, but a lottery team in the bottom 10 that has a chance at top 3 picks. You use cap space to acquire draft picks and future talent; you do not use cap space on players that have a positive impact in the current season! You need to stay at that level of being far out from the playoffs for a good 5 years to acquire many young assets right before they hit their prime. There is also some luck involved, you need a couple ping pong balls to land your way and all-star players to be in the draft slots at the years you have high picks. But then when you’ve finally acquired enough of these young draft picks that are above average starters the team enters the next phase of rebuilding. The future studs will be coming off rookie contracts so the team can use the final year or two of cap space to acquire impact players and make efforts to add contributing veterans. To effectively blow up this team we need to start by trading away LaMarcus Aldridge. He is too good of a player now to be on a team looking to tank in the next 5 years in order to acquire young players with potential. LaMarcus will help us win many games, but if we want to start a complete rebuild we need to lose those games. Gerald Wallace should also be dealt, he won’t have as high of a return as LaMarcus but he can still get at the least a few draft picks. Gerald will help the team win now but not nearly as much in 5+ years.
I think blowing it up is... silly. Or not a good idea with this team, at least. We don't have a veteran core that has value and that, by moving, would strip our team of serviceable players. The guys who really MATTER on the roster are the guys we should keep, all other things being equal. The ones who are more valuable to other teams than to ours... they should be traded. As always. Ed O.
Or we could just try to add talent with a few lucky late draft picks, decent trades, and handing out reasonable contracts, and using cap space better than other teams. We can hope for a Billups signing or Rasheed trade that took the Pistons from a lower playoff team to NBA champs. There is some luck required in this plan, we need a lucky draft pick or a lucky free agent signing or a lucky trade. But I believe that is a much smaller amount of luck needed than blowing up the whole roster and hoping we get a bunch of all-stars in the draft. If Roy is an amnesty cut we only have LaMarcus and Wesley on the roster next summer, possibly Gerald if he doesn't use his ETO. We can retool this roster on the fly without tanking multiple seasons.
Good lord. There's absolutely no way should we be talking about blowing this team up. Didn't we learn anything from the last rebuild? It takes 5-10 years and a whole lot of good luck (when has that ever described the Blazers?) in order to rebuild through the draft. That said, of course the team needs some adjustments in order to improve from being a 1st round out. Re-sign Miller and add a younger and better backup PG who maybe can become the PGOTF. Add a backup PF so Wallace doesn't have to play out of position. I'd prefer that this new PF be a starting-quality guy so that the Blazers have the option of playing Aldridge at the 5 spot. If Oden can be re-signed and contribute, the Blazers are a contender. If not, they've got a solid chance of playing into the 2nd round or later, depending upon injuries and luck.
Blow it up?? No. Retool? Yes. Back in the 80's we build a team through the draft and a couple of trades. Our highest draft pick was #14 Drexler. Our biggest find in trade was Buck (for Bowie and pick). Along the way we drafted Kersey (2nd Round) and Porter and traded for Duckworth (1st Rd pick for 2nd Rd Pick). We have good pieces of the puzzle now in Aldridge, Wallace, Matthews, Batum, and maybe Oden most of all. We're not that far away IMHO. A couple more good Free Agent signings like Matthews, and more solid picks in the draft and we're able to go shopping for the last piece or two. If Oden comes back - we're a much better team. If EWilliams returns to athletic level prior to surgery - we've got a better bench. If Babbitt realizes potential - we're a deeper bench. If Roy can swallow pride and become a contributing bench player - our bench is great! Time to blow it up?? What a joke. Of course not.
