No, but you're giving Presti credit for "swinging for the fences" when what he really did was a big fat whiff. If Olshey had done the same, given up valuable assets for a 1-year rental of Carmelo Anthony, only to waive and stretch him a year later creating 3 years at $9.3 million a year of dead cap space, you'd be all over his shit. People here are constantly bitching about the $4.7 million in dead cap space Olshey created by waiving and stretching Varejao and Nicholson. Presti creates twice the dead cap space and gets praised for "swinging for the fences".
You make it sound like they got Paul George for free. Yeah, I love Paul George and would love him on the Blazers, but it turns out, OKC didn't even get the better player in that trade.
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Paul George had a good season and made 3rd team All NBA. Oladipo had a great season, won MIP, was 1st team All Defense and also 3rd team All NBA.
And it wasn't just Oladipo that Pressti gave up to get Paul George, he also gave up Domantas Sabonis, who was better off the bench for IND than any big man OKC had.
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OKC gave up a 3rd team All NBA player who was also 1st team all defense, and completely gutted their bench to get Melo and PG13. A year later they managed to resign Paul George (who is two years older and makes $12 million more per season than Victor Oladipo - who is arguably a better player) and are paying Carmelo $9.3 million a year for the next 3 years to NOT play for them. And yet, you sing their praises.
And LOL, Nerlens Noel is NOT the answer. He barely played for one of the crappiest teams in the league last season. Both Damontas Sabonins and Enes Kanter, who OKC gave up (in addition to Oladipo) are better players than Nerlens Noel.
You mean like they did last year? Oh wait... Yeah, last year when they landed PG13 and Melo, EVERYONE penciled them in to run away with the NW Division and challenge GSW and HOU for the top spot in the West. How'd that work out? They improved by exactly 1 win and finished behind POR who got shit on for missing out on PG13 and Melo, yet managed to improve by 8 wins.
Yeah, Olshey isn't perfect. His summer of 2016 signings were disastrous, but to praise Presti while trashing Olshey is disingenuous to an extreme - and Presti doesn't even have the Summer of 2016 everyone got stupid money excuse to fall back on. Even after waiving and stretching Melo, OKC is still hopelessly over the tax threshold for the 2nd year in a row and have over $150 million in guaranteed salary for 2019-20, which will cement them as repeat offenders, which will further tie their hands when trying to "improve" their roster.
Keep in mind this is the same GM that lost Kevin Durant for nothing and gave away James Harden for peanuts. Yet, he deserves praise for "swinging for the fences", when what he really deserves is derision for repeatedly striking out.
BNM