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IMO, the Blazers aren't bad enough to tank in this 'draft of the century tank-a-thon'. We'd have to jettison some of our best players, just to enter a lottery to try to hopefully to pick a transcendent player, and not fuck it up again. That ship has sailed. We need to develop a winning program and continue to look for opportunities to acquire a player who can get us over the top.
 
Nikolokolus said:
Sure making the playoffs gets you experience.

I don't really want to speak for MM, because he doesn't need my help, but what I assume he was saying is that he doesn't think especially highly of our chances in the playoffs (if we get there) because of a combination of not enough elite talent and not enough experience, with more weight given to the former than the latter.
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But here's the thing: actually making the playoffs gets you that experience for free, without giving up any member of the team that got you to the playoffs. If we don't make the playoffs, or look really questionable in February, then yeah, let's open up the trade talks. But we're on the up side of the bell curve still; the stats around defense and offense are improving the more we play, not getting worse. You can have some real fool's gold winning, like Crawful's great games coming only in blowouts... wasted stats. But my eye-test shows more resilience than that team had (thank God!)
 
Mediocre Man said:
I personally think LA moves on anyway
Being in the lottery gives you a chance at a difference maker
The Horncats don't get our pick if we are bottom 12
What do second round draft picks have to do with a difference maker?

I have said numerous times that I don't feel the team will sustain this. The Blazers made their bed this summer by keeping LA and adding enough pieces to be good enough to be adequate. They shouldn't have.
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There are 12 team in just the EAST with .500 or below records. You think this Blazer team is less sustainable than those 12 teams?
 
BBert said:
IMO, the Blazers aren't bad enough to tank in this 'draft of the century tank-a-thon'. We'd have to jettison some of our best players, just to enter a lottery to try to hopefully to pick a transcendent player, and not fuck it up again. That ship has sailed. We need to develop a winning program and continue to look for opportunities to acquire a player who can get us over the top.
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I agree that Allen and Olshey have chosen a different course and they're going to have to commit to it for the next several years ... for better or worse. We'll see what happens.
 
Nikolokolus said:
This is an old argument, but what the hell.

Jabbari Parker, Andrew Wiggins and/or Julius Randle look like they have the potential to be franchise altering talents. While Aldridge and Lillard are both very good, neither is really in that tier. Getting one of those players improves your odds of (eventually) capturing a championship in a lot of peoples' mind (I include myself in that camp). The "egalitarian" model (five very good but no superstars) has really only worked once in recent memory and that was the Pistons with Rip, Chauncey, Sheed, Wallace and Prince.

The odds of a team winning it all is low even if you get stud because you also need some luck and a lot of health, but take away the superstar and what are your chances if history is any guide?
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Put the S2 Board into the Way-Back Machine, dial in 2007, replace Wiggins and Randle with Oden and Durant, and then fast forward to today and tell me how many titles either of the teams that drafted those guys have won. I'm not sure how you think you could engineer things to get a top-5 pick in this draft, but say you could, I'll take the odds that Olshey can build around what we presently have and have at least a shot at a Conference Finals vs. 5-6 more years of suckitude as the newbie superstar to be learns how to play in the NBA and then decides Portland's media lights and weather don't suit him.
 
How does a team that is 10 games over .500 this early in the season get in a position to win the lottery?

Why don’t all the fanatics who want to see the Blazers lose give it a break for this season. If you want the team to tank bring it up next summer because there is zero chance of it happening this season. Shut up and enjoy rooting for a team that the biggest market in the US would love to trade rosters with.
 
Further said:
repped.


This is interesting and i think speaks to the threes as being sustainable over the course of the season. sure, there will be a bad 3pt game here and there, but a stat like that shows me this is fairly repeatable.
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I think the number of 3s taken and the clip at which Portland shoots the 3 says a lot more. In relation to the other teams, the percent assisted is fairly ancillary.
 
Nikolokolus said:
I agree that Allen and Olshey have chosen a different course and they're going to have to commit to it for the next several years ... for better or worse. We'll see what happens.
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They do have a trapdoor in 2016, with all the contracts expiring then, so it's not an all or nothing for several years thing.
 
Blazer Fanatic said:
So then that goes back to my original point, that you are advocating a fire sale, correct?
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I guess at this point I'm in the boat of you have to ride this out, for better or worse.

However, if it were my team, I would have tanked like shit this year, which is what I answered.
 
BlazerCaravan said:
But here's the thing: actually making the playoffs gets you that experience for free, without giving up any member of the team that got you to the playoffs. If we don't make the playoffs, or look really questionable in February, then yeah, let's open up the trade talks. But we're on the up side of the bell curve still; the stats around defense and offense are improving the more we play, not getting worse. You can have some real fool's gold winning, like Crawful's great games coming only in blowouts... wasted stats. But my eye-test shows more resilience than that team had (thank God!)
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Agreed. I think we've moved on from tanking. There's so much hit and miss in the lottery anyway. We've got a great core, time to let them jell and experience some playoff success. Finding the right pieces and chemistry is what wins. We put together a solid season, maybe get to the second round, might see a nice FA piece interested in joining in the offseason to put us over the top. Seems like the blend of characters is great on this squad. My Giants won 2 of the last 4 WS and they had no where near the top talent but a great group of guys that all got behind each other got them hardware.
 
e_blazer said:
Put the S2 Board into the Way-Back Machine, dial in 2007, replace Wiggins and Randle with Oden and Durant, and then fast forward to today and tell me how many titles either of the teams that drafted those guys have won. I'm not sure how you think you could engineer things to get a top-5 pick in this draft, but say you could, I'll take the odds that Olshey can build around what we presently have and have at least a shot at a Conference Finals vs. 5-6 more years of suckitude as the newbie superstar to be learns how to play in the NBA and then decides Portland's media lights and weather don't suit him.
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You quoted me but apparently skipped over my concluding paragraph.

The odds of a team winning it all is low even if you get a stud because you also need some luck and a lot of health, but take away the superstar and what are your chances if history is any guide?
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I'm not talking about guarantees, just (slightly?) increasing your odds. Anyway, it doesn't matter, the time for a firesale and "tanking" has passed. We have zero shot at the transcendent talents in this draft and are committed to a completely different tack. That's why I said it's an old argument, it's not its age, the argument is irrelevant (for now).
 
Nikolokolus said:
You quoted me but apparently skipped over my concluding paragraph.



I'm not talking about guarantees, just (slightly?) increasing your odds. Anyway, it doesn't matter, the time for a firesale and "tanking" has passed. We have zero shot at the transcendent talents in this draft and are committed to a completely different tack. That's why I said it's an old argument, it's not its age, the argument is irrelevant (for now).
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No, I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure that the title or bust mode is the best way for a sports franchise to be run. Because there are no guaranteed paths to success, I think that a GM has to keep an eye on building incrementally and keeping options open to shift course if things don't look like they're going to work out. Olshey has done that by bringing in guys who complement the existing talent very well, letting us have a chance at some playoff basketball, while still having the option to pull the plug and reboot after next season. I like what he's done.
 
Mediocre Man said:
I guess at this point I'm in the boat of you have to ride this out, for better or worse.

However, if it were my team, I would have tanked like shit this year, which is what I answered.
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I think this ties into the thread Chris started. The most fun part of winning a title is the journey along the way. Once a title is won its over, celebrate for two days then its only history. All the fun is in the struggles to get there, the doubt, the challenges, the possible losses or the possible wins. Having a team lose intentionally for 5-10+ years is a very shitty journey. It would take away from the fun of winning a title.
 
e_blazer said:
Put the S2 Board into the Way-Back Machine, dial in 2007, replace Wiggins and Randle with Oden and Durant, and then fast forward to today and tell me how many titles either of the teams that drafted those guys have won. I'm not sure how you think you could engineer things to get a top-5 pick in this draft, but say you could, I'll take the odds that Olshey can build around what we presently have and have at least a shot at a Conference Finals vs. 5-6 more years of suckitude as the newbie superstar to be learns how to play in the NBA and then decides Portland's media lights and weather don't suit him.
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Fact is that no one taken in the top twenty of that 2007 draft has won a championship...other than Corey Brewer (deep bench on the Championship Dallas team)
 
Mediocre Man said:
I guess at this point I'm in the boat of you have to ride this out, for better or worse.

However, if it were my team, I would have tanked like shit this year, which is what I answered.
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Understand please, your response was in the present tense, as in, we should be tanking right now. Which solicited my equally ridiculous response to hush.

"I guess at this point I'm in the boat of you have to ride this out, for better or worse", would not have solicited my original response.


The question was "right now", and your reply was "absolutely". Which is the opposite of "at this point I'm in the boat [if] you have to ride this out."

You WOULD HAVE set the team up to tank a 2nd year in a row. I think that WOULD HAVE been a bad idea, but we can agree to disagree. That we should tank RIGHT NOW? Crap.
 
To get Wiggins or Parker I would tank right now. They're going to be that good. Unfortunately (?) 12 wins puts us too far "behind" the teams that have a realistic shot.
 
Blazer Fanatic said:
I think the number of 3s taken and the clip at which Portland shoots the 3 says a lot more. In relation to the other teams, the percent assisted is fairly ancillary.
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While all matter, I don't think it's ancillary at all. This signifies that these threes, even the huge number of them, are taken in the offense as designed, and not just heaved up bad shots that happen to be falling. Theses are from LMA passing back out or from Lillard or Williams driving and kicking back our, then a pass or two around the perimeter to the open man.

The high assist rate (shockingly high) is also evidence that the Blazers are truly playing as an unselfish unit, taking the extra pass to make sure the shot is open. This stat is much more telling than you give credit for. It shows design and execution, and I don't see reasoning why these issues will drop significantly.
 
There is NO FREAKING WAY we should be tanking. There is no guarantee that any of those players will be franchise altering. We are doing something different. I like it. I don't know if it will work or not, but it's entertaining right now.
 
Mediocre Man said:
The question was should we still be tanking. My response is yes.
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That rush of wind you hear was the last or your credibility getting sucked out an airlock.

You need to learn patience. Portland didn't even make the playoffs last year, and now your concern is that if they make the playoffs, they won't go far enough, so therefore they should give up, throw away any improvements they've made, and hope to hell they can turn their 12-2 start into a top two draft pick?

We've got a team playing hard and together and so far winning. A lot of great peices. Why not at least try? As a Blazer fan, you of all people should know it could be worse...
 
Nikolokolus said:
To get Wiggins or Parker I would tank right now. They're going to be that good. Unfortunately (?) 12 wins puts us too far "behind" the teams that have a realistic shot.
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What is happening now is that the guys are building PDX into one of THE destinations. Rather than getting Wiggins or Parker as a rookie and letting them grow, we'll get them after they've matured and they want to come to the ultimate winning destination.

It could happen. :)

Gramps...
 
BlazerCaravan said:
They do have a trapdoor in 2016, with all the contracts expiring then, so it's not an all or nothing for several years thing.
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This is a good point. As I understand it, Olshey has created a Plan B in two years if things don't work out by having nearly our entire team expire at the same time.
 
This might be the first time in history a team has a 10 game winning streak and there's people that are mad because we should be tanking.

Eh.
 
Mediocre Man said:
No, but a lot of other factors do, like relying on the 3 pointer for the majority of your offense, and being incredibly thin up front, and no one on the roster with a lot of playoff experience
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Having a coach who has never had a winning record or a decent defense doesn't help.
 
Strenuus said:
This might be the first time in history a team has a 10 game winning streak and there's people that are mad because we should be tanking.

Eh.
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And I always thought blazer fans were smarter than most other fans, but I'm starting to think I was wrong. Everyone wants a LeBron, even he had to desert his team and form a super team because he couldn't get it done alone. We have an incredible core right now and half of them are still improving. Portland has never been a more desirable place for a high talent free agent than right now. If a player is willing to sacrifice the stage and beach parties, this is the place to win jewelry.
 
the best opportunity we had to tank would have been trading LMA for the #1 pick last summer and getting Oladipo. Could still make the Lopez and Robinson moves and be building around Dame/Oladipo/Batum/Robinson with a fair amount of cap space and some nice trade pieces still on the roster. That team would still win some games but still be bad enough for a top 10 pick this year. As it stands now it looks like we'll make the playoffs and get bounced when teams rotations shorten up and they take advantage of our lack of inside scoring. But enjoy the win streak while it lasts, it is certainly fun and the regular season should be an enjoyable ride. The playoffs will bring a rude awakening though. idk if making the playoffs for a couple years will be enough for LMA. He's done that before, he's ready to win a ring.
 
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