Zombie Fire Olshey

[oldfisherman]

You act like Olshey can't make trades. Since he can, he's not going to be paying the LT if he doesn't want to. It's really obvious. It's not the end of the world if he does pay the tax for a season to keep the guys he wants around.

The questions are if he wants to keep Plums, who has to go to make room for his contract. At least one player is going to be gone as it is, probably two.

To get under the LT next season, we don't re-sign Plums and trade Davis and Leonard for 2nd round picks. A lot of GMs would make those trades.

Improving the roster through trades is trivial. We have salaries to match all sorts of other teams' contracts, and players other teams would most certainly want. Being over the cap doesn't preclude making trades.

Other GMs would trade with us because our players on their roster makes their team better.

You must be watching re-runs of the Blazers 1991/92 games instead of this seasons games.

 

[Denny Crane]

You must be watching re-runs of the Blazers 1991/92 games instead of this seasons games.

Wow. that convinced me

 

[Pinwheel1]

We cannot keep him unless someone gets traded for a player significantly cheaper. We handed $100M to our backcourt and Meyers.

We have his Bird rights, why can't we go over the cap to sign him? We can always trade players later. Guys like ET and Meyers will be easy to trade (for little in return) if we want to.

 

[Denny Crane]

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/17734638/30-crazy-predictions-2016-17-nba-season-zach-lowe

The Pelicans have always been curious about pairing Anthony Davis with a low-post threat. The Blazers have a ton of center types, but it's unclear if any of them -- including Mason Plumlee, up for what could be a pricey extension -- represent the long-term answer at the position. Portland general manager Neil Olshey has chased back-to-the-basket types before. Speaking of which ...

19. Portland trades a salary for ... ?
The Blazers are not going to vault $20 million or $30 million over the tax next season. They will trade one of their high-priced guys -- or an impending free agent due for a raise. They don't need to trade a wing for a big man -- not with Mason Plumlee, Meyers Leonard, Festus Ezeli and Ed Davis scrapping for minutes -- but they are one of the few teams that could make that sort of swap if they find the right one.

Portland knows the league is poor on wings, and the Blazers bet massively on their guys having trade value -- especially when rivals strike out in free agency.

 

[Trackjack]

Olshey need ask himself if there going keep Plum next year and if he is then he needs to make moves to fit his salary in. It don't have to be this trading deadline. It could during the draft, but to keep under the LT it must be done. But if they decide not to keep him then trade him and get something out of him this year.

 

[tester551]

You act like Olshey can't make trades. Since he can, he's not going to be paying the LT if he doesn't want to. It's really obvious. It's not the end of the world if he does pay the tax for a season to keep the guys he wants around.

The questions are if he wants to keep Plums, who has to go to make room for his contract. At least one player is going to be gone as it is, probably two.

To get under the LT next season, we don't re-sign Plums and trade Davis and Leonard for 2nd round picks. A lot of GMs would make those trades.

Improving the roster through trades is trivial. We have salaries to match all sorts of other teams' contracts, and players other teams would most certainly want. Being over the cap doesn't preclude making trades.

Other GMs would trade with us because our players on their roster makes their team better.

You're delusional.... but keep on trying to argue that we're in a good spot.

1) You state to get under the LT, we have to get rid of Plumlee, Davis, & Meyers - and most likely we can get seconds for Davis & Meyers. This part is true, however you are forgetting that we would be getting rid of 3 front court players (and our best one by far in Plumlee). You are also forgetting the part where we would need to replace them, but have no money to do so while staying under the LT. What 'impact' player can we realistically get? Getting rid of Plumlee (and likely Davis) for 2nd round talent will make us WORSE.

2) Being over the cap doesn't hurt us, true... However, being within $500 of the LT does severely limit the trading options without a significant financial penalty. To act like it has NO impact on the Blazers future moving forward is being a little myopic.

3) "Other GMs would trade with us because our players on their roster makes their team better." How does that work when Crabbe and Meyers don't make the Blazers any better? Both are below replacement level players making significantly more. There is a massive opportunity cost associated with their salaries that you aren't factoring in. If a team has a chance to take Henderson at $9M per year or Crabbe at $22M (after trade kicker), the vast majority of GMs would take Henderson and spend the other $13M on other areas of the roster.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Compared to the other large contracts we handed out last summer Plumlee is the only one who earned it. $12-15 mill seems like a bargain. We need to keep him.

He certainly produces good numbers. But as with Lillard, only perhaps more so because the center position is ALL ABOUT defense in the modern NBA, the fact that he is not a great defender hurts us. I was so excited to have signed Ezeli for that reason. Certainly if we have not traded Plumlee (and the fact that he is about to be a FA will severely undercut his trade value) we WILL sign him, but only because, like Crabbe, we basically have to or lose an "asset" for nothing. But with the team playing so shittily, I'd be willing to let him go just to rebuild, or ideally trade him for a pick. Y'know, like Brooklyn did.

 

[Denny Crane]

You're delusional.... but keep on trying to argue that we're in a good spot.

1) You state to get under the LT, we have to get rid of Plumlee, Davis, & Meyers - and most likely we can get seconds for Davis & Meyers. This part is true, however you are forgetting that we would be getting rid of 3 front court players (and our best one by far in Plumlee). You are also forgetting the part where we would need to replace them, but have no money to do so while staying under the LT. What 'impact' player can we realistically get? Getting rid of Plumlee (and likely Davis) for 2nd round talent will make us WORSE.

2) Being over the cap doesn't hurt us, true... However, being within $500 of the LT does severely limit the trading options without a significant financial penalty. To act like it has NO impact on the Blazers future moving forward is being a little myopic.

3) "Other GMs would trade with us because our players on their roster makes their team better." How does that work when Crabbe and Meyers don't make the Blazers any better? Both are below replacement level players making significantly more. There is a massive opportunity cost associated with their salaries that you aren't factoring in. If a team has a chance to take Henderson at $9M per year or Crabbe at $22M (after trade kicker), the vast majority of GMs would take Henderson and spend the other $13M on other areas of the roster.

I'm not at all feeling the sense of panic you do. We're already quite deep at all positions. I didn't mention Ezeli's $7M contract doesn't have to be renewed.

I'm also not that big a fan of Plums. He's a good backup quality C, but he's not helping us win lots of games. As Zach Lowe wrote, he's not likely the answer for the Blazers at C long term. NO has been able to trade to get guys like him and Rolo - I'm not sweating his ability to do it again, at worst.

If Neil didn't sign our players, we'd still be minus players at various positions and much weaker.

The problems being at or under the cap are rather obvious. The Heat signed the big 3 with cap space, could not go over the cap with anything but exceptions, and ended up only able to sign ring chasers and vet minimum guys. They filled out their roster with guys like Eddy Curry, Mickell Gladness, Terrel Harris, Dexter Pittman, Ronny Turiaf, etc. The ring chasers were Juwan Howard (17 year veteran), James Jones, and Mike Miller.

We're not going to attract ring chasers.

 

[Pinwheel1]

3) "Other GMs would trade with us because our players on their roster makes their team better." How does that work when Crabbe and Meyers don't make the Blazers any better? Both are below replacement level players making significantly more. There is a massive opportunity cost associated with their salaries that you aren't factoring in. If a team has a chance to take Henderson at $9M per year or Crabbe at $22M (after trade kicker), the vast majority of GMs would take Henderson and spend the other $13M on other areas of the roster.

So why do we spend hours and hours every year discussing trading for players from shitty teams? Those players are not making their teams better. Not sure if you are a Nerlens Noel fan, but he certainly has not made Philly any better.

Sometimes a players meshes better with different players. But I agree with you, sometimes they jsut are not very good.

 

[Denny Crane]

So why do we spend hours and hours every year discussing trading for players from shitty teams? Those players are not making their teams better. Not sure if you are a Nerlens Noel fan, but he certainly has not made Philly any better.

Sometimes a players meshes better with different players. But I agree with you, sometimes they jsut are not very good.

I'd add that Crabbe and Meyers do make our team better. Without them we'd be much worse.

 

[Minstrel]

and trade Davis and Leonard for 2nd round picks. A lot of GMs would make those trades.

[citation needed]

 

[Denny Crane]

[citation needed]

Davis makes ~$7M, a bargain.

Leonard is a bargain, too, at $9M. For comparison, the Bucks signed Mirza Teletovic for a similar amount and for similar production. Same with Jon Leuer, Dwight Powell, and a few others.

What makes you think teams wouldn't want him, especially if they don't have to give up players in return?

 

[GDiama]

Leonard isn't a bargain at 41M/4 years. I kind of agree with Davis and Aminu too (if we add him in the conversation), but Meyers is no bargain. He is just a player being paid 10 times his value. If we had the cap space for Olshey's illusions I'd be ok with it, but right now the fact we pay this guy is a terrible decision. And how we would be worse without him since he doesn't win us any games?

 

[Minstrel]

Davis makes ~$7M, a bargain.

Leonard is a bargain, too, at $9M. For comparison, the Bucks signed Mirza Teletovic for a similar amount and for similar production.

Davis is actually plausible, since he has a good performance history before this season.

Leonard isn't a bargain. He's a gigantic overpay because he's currently not an NBA-caliber player. His Offensive Rating is terrible and his Defensive Rating is terrible. His Rebound Rate is terrible. His PER is terrible. And he's not on the upswing, he's regressed year-over-year-over-year (counting this season).

Teletovic is equally bad this year, but the Bucks didn't pay him for what he's doing this year. They paid him for what he had done at the point that they signed him. He had a 16.2 PER last year (Leonard had an 11.3 PER last year).

The main players destroying the Blazers' salary structure are Leonard, Crabbe and Turner. I don't think any of those players could be traded for a second-round pick. The only way you're getting rid of those players, in my opinion, is by packaging them with a real asset (like a first-round pick) and taking back a less-bad contract.

 

[Denny Crane]

Davis is actually plausible, since he has a good performance history before this season.

Leonard isn't a bargain. He's a gigantic overpay because he's currently not an NBA-caliber player. His Offensive Rating is terrible and his Defensive Rating is terrible. His Rebound Rate is terrible. His PER is terrible. And he's not on the upswing, he's regressed year-over-year-over-year (counting this season).

Teletovic is equally bad this year, but the Bucks didn't pay him for what he's doing this year. They paid him for what he had done at the point that they signed him. He had a 16.2 PER last year (Leonard had an 11.3 PER last year).

The main players destroying the Blazers' salary structure are Leonard, Crabbe and Turner. I don't think any of those players could be traded for a second-round pick. The only way you're getting rid of those players, in my opinion, is by packaging them with a real asset (like a first-round pick) and taking back a less-bad contract.

Leonard is a 24-year-old 7' guy who rebounds decently well and hits 3pt shots at .355 rate. There's demand.

The other two are simply not albatross contracts.

 

[riverman]

The Spurs have been the best at finding D league bargains and for some reason the Blazers have never used the D league to their advantage or Euro league....we could stand to learn from Pops scouting team.

 

[tester551]

Davis makes ~$7M, a bargain.

Leonard is a bargain, too, at $9M. For comparison, the Bucks signed Mirza Teletovic for a similar amount and for similar production. Same with Jon Leuer, Dwight Powell, and a few others.

What makes you think teams wouldn't want him, especially if they don't have to give up players in return?

Two of these players aren't like the others:

Powell & Leuer contribute significantly more than Meyers does

 

[GDiama]

50% TS, unbelievable! even Napier is at 51.5%

 

[Denny Crane]

Two of these players aren't like the others:
View attachment 12072
Powell & Leuer contribute significantly more than Meyers does

Misuse of stats.

Win Shares is a measure of how well the team (Blazers) are doing, which is underperforming. If the Blazers were over .500, his numbers would be much better.

In fact, his WS/48 was .078 last season, and .158 in a 51 win season (only Powell in your list topped that).

EDIT:

His career WS/48 is .091, Teletovic's is .079, and Leuer's is .116 (consider that he played for Memphis 6 seasons)

 

[Denny Crane]

heh...

CJ's WS/48 this year is .125. If that's how you measure how good a player is, Powell and Leuer are better players.

 

[tester551]

I'm not at all feeling the sense of panic you do. We're already quite deep at all positions. I didn't mention Ezeli's $7M contract doesn't have to be renewed.

I'm also not that big a fan of Plums. He's a good backup quality C, but he's not helping us win lots of games. As Zach Lowe wrote, he's not likely the answer for the Blazers at C long term. NO has been able to trade to get guys like him and Rolo - I'm not sweating his ability to do it again, at worst.

If Neil didn't sign our players, we'd still be minus players at various positions and much weaker.

The problems being at or under the cap are rather obvious. The Heat signed the big 3 with cap space, could not go over the cap with anything but exceptions, and ended up only able to sign ring chasers and vet minimum guys. They filled out their roster with guys like Eddy Curry, Mickell Gladness, Terrel Harris, Dexter Pittman, Ronny Turiaf, etc. The ring chasers were Juwan Howard (17 year veteran), James Jones, and Mike Miller.

We're not going to attract ring chasers.

I'm not panicked. I just don't believe that NO made very good decisions this last summer.

Plumlee is severely under-rated by Blazer fans. He's our 3rd best player and it isn't close IMO. Because he doesn't block shots, people claim he sucks at defense - but he is at least average... He's just not a 'shot blocker'. Due to the defensive deficiencies at the guard position, a lot of undeserved blame gets put onto Plumlee. If he was playing with guards that can actually 'guard', I think a lot of people would see how much he contributes to the team.

I agree there are challenges with being at or under the cap. However, those challenges pale in comparison with being within $500 of the LT. Apparently you have a mindset that it's all or nothing. Portland would have significantly more options to make trades and roster changes if they were $5M below the LT.

 

[GDiama]

I'm not panicked. I just don't believe that NO made very good decisions this last summer.

Plumlee is severely under-rated by Blazer fans. He's our 3rd best player and it isn't close IMO. Because he doesn't block shots, people claim he sucks at defense - but he is at least average... He's just not a 'shot blocker'. Due to the defensive deficiencies at the guard position, a lot of undeserved blame gets put onto Plumlee. If he was playing with guards that can actually 'guard', I think a lot of people would see how much he contributes to the team.

I agree there are challenges with being at or under the cap. However, those challenges pale in comparison with being within $500 of the LT. Apparently you have a mindset that it's all or nothing. Portland would have significantly more options to make trades and roster changes if they were $5M below the LT.

But don't you agree that since we don't have guards than can guard then we need a C that can guard very well? I'm with you he is good and he is probably the 3rd best Blazer, but he is also not really helping right now. We miss defense more than playmaking from the C spot.

 

[tester551]

Misuse of stats.

Win Shares is a measure of how well the team (Blazers) are doing, which is underperforming. If the Blazers were over .500, his numbers would be much better.

In fact, his WS/48 was .078 last season, and .158 in a 51 win season (only Powell in your list topped that).

EDIT:

His career WS/48 is .091, Teletovic's is .079, and Leuer's is .116 (consider that he played for Memphis 6 seasons)

WS/48 is impacted a little by how your team is, but it's definitely a useful indication of how useful a player is. It's one of the only stats that actually inherently takes into account both sides of the ball (hence why CJ is not much higher that Plumlee).

Fine, if you only want to say that WS/48 is a team only stat... then how can you say that Meyer's provides positive contributions to the team when he's ranked 10th and is significantly below league average of 0.100.

 

[Denny Crane]

I'm not panicked. I just don't believe that NO made very good decisions this last summer.

Plumlee is severely under-rated by Blazer fans. He's our 3rd best player and it isn't close IMO. Because he doesn't block shots, people claim he sucks at defense - but he is at least average... He's just not a 'shot blocker'. Due to the defensive deficiencies at the guard position, a lot of undeserved blame gets put onto Plumlee. If he was playing with guards that can actually 'guard', I think a lot of people would see how much he contributes to the team.

I agree there are challenges with being at or under the cap. However, those challenges pale in comparison with being within $500 of the LT. Apparently you have a mindset that it's all or nothing. Portland would have significantly more options to make trades and roster changes if they were $5M below the LT.

As i see it, the more money you spend on the roster, the better the team should be. That assumes higher paid players are better than lower paid ones. It's obvious that you'd want to spend to $500K of the tax if you're not going over.

Given the choices facing Olshey, there were no better players to be had. Only worse ones.

There are no more options to make trades if $5M under the LT. The more money you spend on the roster, the better it should be. If we need to take back more in salary than we send out in a 1-for-1 trade, we make it a 2-for-1. Cap ballast is used in trades all the time.

 

[Denny Crane]

WS/48 is impacted a little by how your team is, but it's definitely a useful indication of how useful a player is. It's one of the only stats that actually inherently takes into account both sides of the ball (hence why CJ is not much higher that Plumlee).

Fine, if you only want to say that WS/48 is a team only stat... then how can you say that Meyer's provides positive contributions to the team when he's ranked 10th and is significantly below league average of 0.100.
View attachment 12073

He doesn't play many minutes on a team with a losing record.

In similar minutes, or even less, his WS/48 was better as the team's w/l was better. Look at his career year by year numbers.

 

[tester551]

But don't you agree that since we don't have guards than can guard then we need a C that can guard very well? I'm with you he is good and he is probably the 3rd best Blazer, but he is also not really helping right now. We miss defense more than playmaking from the C spot.

I think we need defensive upgrades across the board. I'm not against 'upgrading' Plumlee, but I wouldn't let him walk because he's not an ideal fit with CJ & Dame. Honestly, I would entertain the idea of trading one of them because I don't think they will ever be able to make it past the 2nd round.

I'm of the mindset that Crabbe, Turner, and Meyers contracts screwed us out of many opportunities moving forward. At this point, Portland is going to have to take some bad medicine to be able to move forward.

 

[tester551]

As i see it, the more money you spend on the roster, the better the team should be. That assumes higher paid players are better than lower paid ones. It's obvious that you'd want to spend to $500K of the tax if you're not going over.

Given the choices facing Olshey, there were no better players to be had. Only worse ones.

There are no more options to make trades if $5M under the LT. The more money you spend on the roster, the better it should be. If we need to take back more in salary than we send out in a 1-for-1 trade, we make it a 2-for-1. Cap ballast is used in trades all the time.

Ok. I'm done... You & I will never see eye to eye. We'll just have to wait to see how this plays out.

However, I don't want to see you in here complaining within the next year when NO isn't able to make any trades that change the direction of the team.

 

[Denny Crane]

If NO had let Crabbe walk, who would be getting his ~30 minutes right now?

Layman? He's not beating out Crabbe now, nor was he so good NO would let Crabbe walk.

Aaron Brooks off the scrap heap? Name names you're sure we could get.

I'm not seeing this vision of a better team without these guys.

 

[oldfisherman]

If NO had let Crabbe walk, who would be getting his ~30 minutes right now?

Layman? He's not beating out Crabbe now, nor was he so good NO would let Crabbe walk.

Aaron Brooks off the scrap heap? Name names you're sure we could get.

I'm not seeing this vision of a better team without these guys.

Turner is play fewer than his career average mpg, he could easily pick up 7-8 mpg of Crabbe's.
I would like to see Tim get some mpg.
And yes Jake should get more mpg.

If you are not going to play the young guys, why even bother to bring them on the roster? They need development time.

Let Tim & Jake compete for the 20-23 mpg.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

If NO had let Crabbe walk, who would be getting his ~30 minutes right now?

Layman? He's not beating out Crabbe now, nor was he so good NO would let Crabbe walk.

Aaron Brooks off the scrap heap? Name names you're sure we could get.

I'm not seeing this vision of a better team without these guys.

It's arguable that even if Layman is better than Crabbe right now (which I'm not claiming), it would be detrimental to the team as a whole to elevate Layman ahead of Crabbe before having an opportunity to gain value from that asset.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if in the alternate universe in which Layman had been playing Crabbe's minutes from day 1, his development would be such that he would presently be producing better and more consistently than Crabbe is at present.