Should this be GP2 nickname the next year? I imagine every game this year I watch him I will be thinking if his addition is worth a year of the Blazers being hard capped. Yes its unfair, as its not his fault he is the 7th guard Cronin put on the roster, or that Cronin decided to hard cap the Blazers. But I don't think I'll be able to help but judge Payton in this context.
The fascination with the hard cap on this sub the last week is nuts. Last season the Bulls, Cavs, Mavs, Rockets, Heat, Pels, Knicks, Thunder, Spurs, Raps and Wiz were all hard capped for various reasons. Seems like many of them were able to swing big trades.
those teams didn't care about the flexibility because they weren't horribly unbalanced like our roster currently is. And most of them did not have payrolls hugging the apron like ours currently is. so we are a team that needs to make some moves, but can't because we have no flexibility under the apron to do so.
What we've done this offseason tells me two things...targets fans were drooling over were just not obtainable with what we had to offer or in some cases didn't want to come here and the second being...the front office sees more upside in our young players than fans do in the case of B Williams Watford, Brown, Didi and Keon....also Walker and Sharpe. They also probably didn' t want to move Ant or Hart or Winslow for the same reason and resigning Nurk and Ant with the addition of Grant gave them the feeling they should see what they can get from the guys who are here already and on cheaper deals ..Chauncey wanted a team full of Josh Harts and could be he's got one now.
I don't get the horribly unbalanced spin you use here...at all or that most of them are not facing cap limitations...they are and if they aren't...they're lottery teams. The cap is to use...we used it. Teams shut down the phone lines with other teams when Durant asked out. No point wasting time chasing after that pie in the sky so I can see why they grabbed Payton when they did, waived Bledsoe and moved on...I think we'll be as usual the underdog going into the season that will surprise some media spin doctors
In the last couple years it was "Scheme". There is always something to complain about and a reason to complain if you look hard enough.
how is it a spin? we have no starting small forwards, six shooting guards (ant, gary, shaedon, hart, keon, didi), and no capable backup power forwards or centers.
we do have starting small forwards and Nurk, Brown, Watford Eubanks and Winslow can all play the 5 ..Nas .Hart and Payton and hopefully Sharpe are capable starting SFs as well .Sharpe is yet to determine but looks good so far..Walker is a backup PF and we can always mine the G league for a Moses Brown, Skal type big during the season if we need to. ...if it's height you're looking at...I like speed much more in today's game...we just signed the best guy in the league at steals...I'm stoked ...don't see how you can call anything about our roster horribly unbalanced unless you're writing off all our young guys as unplayable. The problem with having an offseason wish list is that many of the guys you think you want here don't want to come here for whatever reason...that's not because the front office doesn't try..it's just the reality of agents and player destinations.
Realistically, they just need one of Shaedon/Watford/Brown to show they are truly rotation level and the roster immediately becomes more balanced. You need contributors on cheap multi-year contracts. IF they do make the playoffs, these players are getting 30+ MPG: Dame/Ant/Little/Grant/Nurk/Hart. There's only room for one or two more rotation players. GP2 probably there. The other forward is probably Winslow for now, but think Watford has a good chance. Chauncey wants to play like the Clippers on offense, so I expect us to play 5 out a lot.
If one of our starting forwards gets injured though, good luck lol. I love Nas but knock on wood here. We got no depth.
So could Winslow actually...we have two way players that can guard 1-4 all over the roster now.....Chauncey wanted a team full of Josh Harts and we got them.....Hart was our trading chip and I'm glad we opted to not trade him ...that was something I'd hate to give up. Put Hart, Winslow, Nurk and Payton on the court you've got a defensive force to be reckoned with
The way some of these comments read they don't have any trust in the coaching staff to get anything out of the players on this roster. I guess the "Billups Sucks" is the writing on the wall at this point.
either that or Jody hates basketball....another lane I don't understand ...you'd think when she fired Olshey she'd become a fan favorite but she doesn't tweet much
