I am willing to bet that PA is not stupid - and understands the cap issue the team has. If Neil is still around, that's probably because PA knows it is not his fault, or mostly not his fault.
Yeah he has nothing to show for it but 49 wins last season. This is a non sequitur; getting rid of Crabbe and Batum and Barton (for practically nothing, or more accurately: at a cost), cannot be directly correlated to the 49 wins. That's sloppy in my opinion. Also, talk about a strawman argument. Tim Brown is arguing these players were assets, and now we're talking about contracts? and PERs? Whatever. Furthermore, Brown could've gone much much further in the tale of assets that've walked. For example: Bazz could've for sure garnered a second round pick.
Whether it's his fault directly or indirectly, it was the contracts Neil handed out in the Summer of 2016 that continue to bite him in the ass. It seems like Paul has given Neil a Mulligan for the Summer of 2016. Neil seems to have learned from his mistakes. He hasn't handed out any ridiculous contracts since. The one big contract since the Summer of 2016 was to Nurk and that was a very team friendly deal relative to the to the impact Nurk has had on this team's defense. I think the real reason both Neil and Terry are both still around is the team continues to outperform expectations. Every off season, the "experts" predict the Blazers are going to miss the playoffs. Last year the consensus was POR would finish dead last in the NW Division. They did the exact opposite, they won the deepest, most balanced division in the entire NBA. That had to be a pleasant surprise, even to the nattering nabobs. I suspect the other reason Neil is still around is he drafts well, and since we have had zero success as a franchise (going way back before Neil Olshey) signing top name free agents, the only real chance this franchise has at improvement is through the draft. Right, or wrong, it's Paul's decision, not ours. BNM
I meant hating on Blazer management, not me. Using a lack of historical evidence to back up your point doesn't do a lot to support it. Pop has not made this a secret. What possible motivation would these multiple reporters have to conspire to convince us that Greg Popovic doesn't want to send stars to rival teams? Or is Neil Olshey behind this conspiracy as well? I bet Paul Allen has a Manchurian Candidate style program specifically for programming reporters to defend his GM... I just can't believe the lengths people are going to, just trying to justify their bitching. It's mind boggling to me.
You don't see the irony in the tweeter's tweet that desperately trying to retain assets like Crabbe is EXACTLY what got us into the situation we're in? If we would have let Crabbe walk for nothing and not matched BRK's offer sheet, we would have been better off. Bitching about losing "assets" for nothing when the alternative is overpaying to to keep below average players seems counter productive. And yes, how much a player is paid is part of their value as an asset. Crabbe on a cheap contract would be a very tradeable asset. Crabbe at $19,332,500, not so tradeable. We're just lucky BRN was dumb enough to still want him a year later. Napier was a free agent. We couldn't trade him without resigning him first. And why would another team give us a draft pick when they could just sign him themselves? BNM
Dude, you're on a different wave length or something. I really think you're misreading @RR7. From what I can see, he's saying this: San Antonio doesn't make a ton of trades.
Fact: Kawhi was traded to an Eastern Conference team. Fact: Every western conference team that asked was told no. Who's ignoring what?
Dude you literally said Harkless is a better shooter and noted only his percentage while ignoring that he makes less than half a three a game. Why not bring up Meyers Leonard's 43% while you're at it?
Oy. It's funny you're always calling people disingenuous. The framework is Brown's tweet. NOT all available arguments. But I'll give you that Crabbe wasn't a valuable trade asset. But also would argue that Batum, Barton, and the TPE (among others) were. Teams want players at different times, sometimes not just to sign them: see Afflalo to Portland.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your overall point but I would question if the Blazers have met or exceeded the expectations that they’ve set for themselves. I believe last summer (could be wrong) Neil said he had them projected at 53 or 54 wins - They won 49. Not to harp on the playoffs but I hope that performance wasn’t up to their expectations either. It goes back to my problem with NO he seems to always over sale and under deliver. Now in terms of the TPE am I shocked no one wanted to give us something useful for nothing? nope. The Blazers record has gone up every year the last 3(?) years too, so credit where credit is due he was the GM and put Dame on the roster and kept him there.
