Zach Collins and his return to the Blazers: ‘I’m definitely not rushing back’

More scientifically possible: Instead of a Christmas turkey, boney Collins could have fattened up on him.

 

Oh yeah, Al. I remember the 60s better than the 80s. Career-building time.

 

I'll settle the issue. Olshey greatly overestimated both Leonard and Collins. The former lacks the mind of an athlete. The latter is a career substitute, so he's better, which isn't saying much. I agree with this amount for Collins this summer:

But Olshey wouldn't cut bait after 1 year. He never recognizes a bad situation.

 

Zach's QO is just under 8 million. Look for an offer of 8-10 million for 4 years. $40 million. If a team wants to go $14-15 million (56-60 million) and front load it making it a "Toxic offer" then the Blazers will lose Zach. Business is Business.

 

Ha ha! And Olshey will do it! I'm crying as I laugh!

 

Well i guess if Meyers was (Wasn't) worth $40 million in 2016 then Zach could be worth $40 million in 2021?

 

Remember how everyone was AGHAST that after years of us criticizing Olshey for not trading the uncoordinated slow-learner Leonard, Olshey offered him a huge $40M! Then we were DOUBLE aghast as Leonard turned it down, gambling that he could make even more, if he greatly improved that season, which everyone except him and Olshey knew would not happen! All the next downhill season as the pinhead sucked even worse instead of impressing other GMs, Leonard sadly said he regretted not taking the $40M. So we said, the silver lining is that now, Olshey sees his error and will offer Leonard a fraction of that. Then we were TRIPLE aghast when Olshey INCREASED his offer to $41M!

 

Oh, for heavens' sake. I'm anything but a numbers guy. Seriously, every time you post it becomes more and more obvious how defensive you are because you have this weird, irrational Meyers' hate.

Where did you say in your first post, BTW, that Meyers was not better than Zach in his first three years? If you said that, my apologies, but all I recall seeing was you saying that Zach would get better than the minimum contract if Meyers could get $10M a year.

The implication being that Zach is head and shoulders and has been head and shoulders better than Meyers his first three years and continues to be, which nothing supports except that you either WANT Zach to be better or just can't stand Meyers.

 

Olshey has made bad mistakes on both sides bidding against himself with Meyers and CJ (giving CJ far more than anyone else would give him) and then bailing on Ed Davis instead of being able to get him for less. If Olshey drafts a guy he is highly highly overvalued and if he doesn't than he undervalues the guy.

 

Well, the thread's about Collins. Remember when Collins showed nothing as a shooter his rookie year, but learned a lot of defense from watching Ed Davis, our 3rd-best player who made the team's defensive rating actually decent that year? The board said, Davis is going to get PAID this summer. Reporters and the board looked shocked when Olshey gave him away. Olshey-lovers said, we can't afford him. He took the first offer at $4M under Olshey's advice, and ever since our defensive rating immediately regressed to the Stotts mean. The board said, it's okay because Olshey says Collins is a top shooter. I said, Davis never misses those tough little shots over many defenders' arms, while Collins sits on the bench in foul trouble when he tries it. And I see no shooting range from Collins, who if he's lucky may in a few years be as good as Davis...or may not. I was told, oh no no, Olshey says Collins is a star.

 

Again, not a lot for me to disagree with here. The only thing I'd add is that Zach getting healthy isn't anything we really can take for granted, and, even when he's been healthy, he hasn't played anywhere near the 10th pick in the draft.

Zach, BTW, has been one of the few exceptions for Stotts, it seems, in terms of letting a young guy play through his slumps. But it seems to me a fair share of posters seem to give Zach the same kind of pass based on his potential when I look at his performance and I don't see anything close to his potential and then I look at his stats and it's even worse than my eye test said it was. I don't know if it's because he played at Gonzaga so a lot of the people in the Pacific Northwest want to see him thrive more or what, but to try to say he's played well is stretching it. He's been average at best, and hurt at most.

 

Collins is a star, CJ is untouchable, Ant is the best athlete Neil's ever seen but yeah as I mentioned don't pay Ed Davis a discounted rate to keep him... the fact that people in here don't understand that Olshey is the root of our problems and that Stotts is a symptom is beyond me. The Vulcans should be shopping for a GM right now. Find one, fire Olshey in the middle of this season, announce the new GM the same day and tell the GM to find his own coach and to build a team around Dame that makes sense.

 

But but...Can you name the replacement?

(Requiring me to do the GM's job, admits that he can't do it.)

You can? Shit. Well, can you write the contract like a lawyer?

(There. I saved the status-quoers the work to write it.)

Uhhh..it's the players' fault. The coach or GM don't make a difference.

(Then you won't object to changing them, right?)

 

Basketball's not a beauty contest, though. I cringe watching Ant shoot, but, you know what? He makes a lot of them. Andre Miller had an ugly-looking style of play. Are you saying you'd want Zach over Andre because he fits your preconception of what a basketball player should look like? Would you want Charles Barkley or Adrian Dantley or Charles Oakley or Reggie Miller instead of Dontonio Wingfield or Michael Olowokandi?

I guess this is getting to the point. It's an aesthetics thing. People like Zach's look, the look of his game, and, because of that, they're going to throw his actual performance out the window. They see Zach and he's still on the team and they WANT him to play up to his potential, because here's this 7-foot guy with loose feet. They see Meyers and for goodness sakes he's still a whipping boy 2 years after he left the team because no one liked that he didn't look coordinated. He didn't even need brought into the conversation, but someone just needed to bash him for no reason.

Then you look at the numbers. If you never saw either guy play but just looked at their numbers, I don't think anyone would pick Zach over Meyers.

It's funny, though. CJ McCollum gets beaten up all the time here because of his advance metrics regardless of what the eyes says. Now the advance metrics mean nothing because we weren't confident in Meyers.

The final point being that this shouldn't be about Meyers at all. It's about Zach Collins. Like I said before, he might get money somewhere because all it takes is one team with money and need and a GM willing to take a chance to give it to him, but that doesn't mean he's earned it yet. It doesn't matter what anyone else did or made or whatever.

 

A good GM would have done this.

 

This is completely accurate. I think we agree that neither guy was a great pick and sticking with Meyers at a bad price was a mistake that will likely be repeated with Zach. As @AldoTrapani likes to point out far far too often there were a lot of better guys behind Zach, who we moved up for but the worse mistake than drafting him would be to overpay him to keep him here and that's regardless of if he blossoms once he leaves.

It's about making the right decision now and not in retrospect. Right now Zach's value is not good. He is injured way too often and when he's not shows bad hands and a propensity to make stupid fouls. That being said I think we should have cut bait with Meyers and I think if we can get Zach to understand that his value is not good and he should take a two or three year deal at a salary under his qualifying offer, then we should keep him. If he can't be convinced I wouldn't even give him the QO.

 

I think a lot of you guys under estimate Zach. Defensely he was very good his 1st two years and very good in the playoffs his 2nd year on defense the eye test and stats say so. Offensely he don't turn the ball over as much as you think it's 1.5 turnovers per game. His rebounding goes up every year. So did majority of his stats. Offensely he fit in role for this team set good screen that he very good at without fouling and very active on the offense boards by getting us extra shots. Scoring is about opportunities to score and with him being the 5th option most of his opportunities came from offense rebounding. I re watch some of the bubble games and the game I watch against Philly there were 18 attempts against him 13 misses 5 made. Zach try to contest everything around him and does make players miss around the rim a lot something we been missing all year for this team this year. Does he make mistakes sure but so does everybody else on this team. I am still high on Zach because he does the little things he does on this team to help them to win. How much is he worth it really depends on his health and more likely if he mends the right way and what I seeing on the defense side he just might be worth more then you think. If I was him I accept the QO and bet on myself and test the free agent market the following year. If I was Olshey I try lock him up for least 3 year with 3rd year as a option.

 

they still should have traded everything above the waist like his shoulders though. I wonder which half his wife would have went with?

 

The turnovers aren't accurate. He gives Dame turnovers because he can't catch a goddamn pass. Also having around two turnovers per game with the role he plays is not even close to acceptable. He doesn't have a high enough field goal percentage for the role he should be playing even if he does hit a three every other game. His rebounding was at 8.6 per 36 in the bubble and that's been consistent throughout his career, hardly an elite number. He fouls at a rate that makes him hard to keep on the floor but given those other numbers I don't know if we need to worry about keeping him on the floor. Rim protecting is the only thing he really does well. I don't hate Zach, I'm just pointing out the reality of his situation but what do you give him to lock him up on a three year deal?

 

Yeah. I think both guys might have been OK picks without the benefit of hindsight. We wanted a big to pair with our PG and Drummond had just gone off the board, so Meyers had the next best upside so they went with him ... we had so many needs at that point. Zach was intriguing because he was long and showed all this promise and performed so well in the NCAA tourney. I can't necessarily fault either pick at the time ... I might have liked someone better, and I definitely had reservations about trading up for Zach, but, you know, a compelling argument could be made for either one. In retrospect, they both look like misses.

Absolutely, this is about now. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of a market Collins attracts. I just hope the Blazers don't bid against themselves if they decide keeping him is worth the risk.