Which is More Significant: Finishing 3rd in the West or the Playoff Sweep?

The Blazers have only one starter left from the 2015 squad (Dame) and only two other guys who were on that squad still remain (CJ and Meyers). Meyers hardly played last season. I think by any reasonable metric that’s a change of foundation and a rebuild.

 

Yes it was, in 2015. It's 2018.

 

2015 was the year Hailblazers correctly referred to as the start of the rebuild. It’s not done yet, unless you’re happy with Aminu and Harkless as starters.

 

Not happy with them, but they are going into their 4th year on the team. At some point what you have is what you have... there will be tweaks - but our rotation is fairly set right now.

Olshey's rebuilding plan is like a lot of my home improvement projects. They get 80% complete, and then they just languish away.

 

When is the end? How the heck is it not done yet?

We're not rebuilding. People just like to use than as an excuse when we get swept with HCA...

Rebuilding teams don't get HCA.

You can improve your team and still not be considered as "rebuilding". But I guess GS decided to rebuild after their championship... every team is looking to improve...

 

I think you missed what I was trying to say.

The context is competitiveness in regard to the rest of the league, not fan enjoyment.

 

Anyone who doesn't have their fan card should never get a fan card, IMO

 

Any mod bantering with a poster instead of their post should give up his fan card, IMO

 

Fan cards in regards to the conversation of what fans believe is more significant in regards to competitiveness in the NBA.

 

Seriously, you’re arguing that three years is an unusually long time to complete a rebuild? That’s quite a take, but you’re welcome to your opinion.

The Blazers undertook the most unusual of rebuilds: the no missing the playoffs, no lottery picks model. I don’t think that was the plan on Olshey’s part, but Dame and CJ didn’t get the memo about tanking in 2015-16. Olshey screwed up the summer of 2016’s cap space by blowing it on guys who haven’t helped much. He hasn’t been able to make a significant trade in that period other than Nurk (and I’m not sure he really was convinced that Nurk was going to be a keeper). He’s drafted well, but mainly from outside of lottery territory (got Collins by consolidating two lower picks). I’d say the rebuild being as far along as it is after three years like that is a testament to just how good Dame and CJ are.

The Blazers are still making do with stop-gap guys at PF and SF (Aminu and Harkless). Maybe Collins grows into the starting PF this year. Maybe Harkless finally matures and puts in a full season of quality work and earns the title of starting SF. If those things happen then, yeah, the rebuild is done. If not, the team needs a trade or some real draft luck.

But then, I think you’re a smart enough guy to know all of the above and you just enjoy arguing over things ad infinitum.

 

I'm not an analyst, but I thought I had an anal cyst once.

 

To get serious for a moment, I think what's a bit frustrating to some people is this

A. The Blazers refused to call it a rebuild, so why should we accept anything less than success

B. Rebuilds are usually saved for bad teams. The Blazers never got bad enough to rebuild. They refurbished or remodeled, so a lot of fans see no real progress since those same fans see a team that has no real chance at winning a title. This year, for example, a 49 win team added no one that will give them a legit shot at a title, and that's frustrating. They are good enough not to suck, and not good enough to be taken seriously

 

It's a bit of a semantics game as to what the Blazers did. They certainly didn't follow the traditional rebuild model of dumping assets and sucking long enough to get some top lottery picks. They retooled on the fly around Dame and CJ. But when there's only three guys still on the squad from the time LA said sayonara, I think it's pretty tough to not characterize it as some form of a rebuild. We've debated the tank idea ad nauseum. You could write everything I could say and vice versa. The fact of the matter is that the Blazers are at least one major piece away from being competitive. Would they be closer if they had tanked? That's anybody's guess.

The way I see it, they've got 2-3 years to put together the right guys around Dame. At the end of this contract, if he doesn't see any progress towards a title, he's going to want out and, frankly, the team would owe it to him. I'd expect your kind of a rebuild at that point. I really hope it doesn't come to that.

 

So a 6 year retooling by adding role players?

 

Most go into a rebuild wit ha 3-5 year plan. 6 isnt outrageous.