https://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/...ers-to-try-to-take-anthony-davis-hostage.html
I woke up Monday, heard the news, and wished Bob Whitsitt was still around.
Maybe you did, too.
Anthony Davis will not re-sign with New Orleans when his contract runs out in summer 2020. His agent informed the Pelicans on Monday. Davis would like to be traded to a franchise that gives him a chance to win consistently and chase an NBA championship.
“Trader Bob” would already have been busy plotting how to take Davis hostage via trade for the next 18 months, then convince him that Portland was both of those things. But he’s not. So Portland is about to watch another opportunist NBA franchise do what the Thunder did with Paul George and what the Raptors are doing with Kawhi Leonard.
Look around downtown Portland and what do you see? Cranes everywhere. They’re building toward the clouds. The developers aren’t making small plans. They’re taking acceptable risks and changing the landscape of the city.
General Manager Neil Olshey won’t get this done.
To be fair, I suppose it would be easier to write a column about all the reasons why Davis won’t be traded to the Blazers. At face value, he’s unlikely to re-sign in Portland in summer 2020. The Celtics want him badly. The Lakers covet him, and Davis and LeBron James share an agent.
There’s ownership uncertainty in Portland after Paul Allen’s death. I’m not sure the suits at the Vulcan mothership would be receptive to a massive roster shift given that they’re plotting the eventual sale of the franchise. Also, the Pelicans swept the Blazers in the first round of the NBA Playoffs a year ago.
But that’s where you need visionary leadership to disrupt the league’s narrative. It’s where you need a basketball operations side that believes so deeply in where it’s headed that it’s willing to take a massive risk, re-direct the course of franchise history, and go all-in trying to land a player that could change everything.
By all accounts, guard Damian Lillard is happy in Portland. His contract runs out in the summer of 2021. And while he’s made no public comment that would suggest he’s thinking about playing elsewhere, chasing Davis hard into the Feb. 7 trade deadline would send a strong message to Lillard that he’s in the right uniform.
I spoke to Whitsitt a few months ago.
When I suggested that it was difficult for Portland to land free agents as a small market, he waved it off as a small-minded excuse. Whitsitt took hostages via trade, then re-signed them. He made 19 trades in nine seasons in Portland. His teams went 426-280 (.603) and made the playoffs every year.
“I was told you couldn’t do it when I went down there," Whitsitt said. "We did it... everybody likes to have excuses. It’s a tough business. There aren’t excuses.
"The job is to get the job done. The job is to build a really good team, and that should also be the fun. To do that you’re going to have to take some chances, take some risks, and you’re going to have some thick skin.”
Olshey has made 24 trades since he was hired in the summer of 2012. Nine of them involved “cash” and they’ve hardly been the shape-shifting moves that marked the Whitsitt era. It’s why nobody ever called him: “Trader Neil."
Whitsitt wasn’t interested in saving cash and pleasing the analysts at Vulcan.
He tolerated the suits while trying to win a title.
Traded for Rasheed Wallace. Traded for Gary Trent. Traded for Scottie Pippen and Damon Stoudamire.
“Cash considerations” couldn’t guard those guys.
Davis makes roughly the same salary as Blazers guard CJ McCollum. You’d do that deal in a heartbeat. But the Pelicans wouldn’t. They’d be starting over and want a pile of assets to replace a generational star in Davis. Portland will have to be willing to risk future draft picks and promising young players such as Zach Collins, and it would have to take on New Orleans' worst contracts.
Basically, Olshey would have to be willing to risk his job security to get it done. And that’s where it totally falls apart, really. Because right now, the uncertainty hanging over franchise ownership is a ticking clock for the GM. He’s busy networking and auditioning for his next job.
It’s why the Blazers media relations staff put a note about Olshey in the game notes recently. It was greeted by media and a few other league executives who saw it with snickers. Mostly because, who does that? It noted that Olshey had 299 victories as a GM and was “the third executive to count 300 victories at the helm of the Trail Blazers.”
Cool.
The usher in Section 101 has 655 wins.
Look, I’m not sure Whitsitt would have pulled it off.
Landing a star of Davis' caliber is a high-wire act.
But man, it would have been fun to watch him try.
