Notice Hassan Whiteside Trade Could Be Trail Blazers Hail Mary Move

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hoopsjock said:
Actually, that trade gave us the 7th pick in the 2006 draft which we used with cash from Allen to move up to # 6.

That pick was Brandon Roy.
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Ah, thanks.

I wanted Aldridge, Rudy Gay, and Tyrus Thomas in that draft. (In that order.)

You win some you lose some ;)
 
Nurkic will get a similar contact as what Whiteside got four-year, $98 million. Can we afford that?
 
blue9 said:
When it comes to determining a GM's ability to identify talent I find it VERY informative to know who he targets, and in what order. Whether he lands them is another story. To just ignore all the bad initial targets is turning a blind eye to a very important part of a GM's job. It's not a "what if" game.
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It is a "what if" game. Parsons could've been healthier. He could've fit better or worse with us than with Memphis. Everything about the summer of 2016 would've been different between not having Turner, which of our own free agents were kept, and how good/bad the team would've been that summer.
 
BigGameDamian said:
If he's better than Whiteside with a better attitude then why wouldn't he?
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Because this summer is a completely different climate than the summer of 2016. There aren't many teams that could even offer him that kind of contract and of that extremely small list most of those teams wouldn't be interested in Nurk at that price. Except for a handful of top tier NBA players the free agent market is going to be very shocking to players this summer. Heck even last summer a guy like Mason Plumlee only got 3 years, $41 million when his much crappier brother got 4 years, $52 million the year before.
 
hoopsjock said:
So just checking facts here:

Olynyk signed a 4 year, $50 million contract and averaged 11.5 points and 5.7 rebounds as a center.

Not a bad player but I wouldn't say "bargain" either. What am I missing?
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18/9/4 per 36 as a guy who can shoot and has a 61TS% and plays pretty good defense as well.. has a 2.9RPM. Most underrated big in the league (I've said Ed is, but Ed is 2nd)
 
hoopsjock said:
It is a "what if" game. Parsons could've been healthier. He could've fit better or worse with us than with Memphis. Everything about the summer of 2016 would've been different between not having Turner, which of our own free agents were kept, and how good/bad the team would've been that summer.
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No, it's not. It's a simple way to see the sorts of players he values. To date, his Free Agent talent-meter has been BUSTED. If you target a player, you are telling the world you value that player - getting or not getting that player doesn't change whether you over/under valued them. I just can't fathom how anyone could think that targets-not-acquired shouldn't be used in evaluating a GM - a target is a target.

As an extreme example: If Olshey were to attempt to trade Dame for Ball, but the Lakers rebuff the offer, would you not immediately fire Olshey despite the trade not executing?
 
blue9 said:
No, it's not. It's a simple way to see the sorts of players he values. To date, his Free Agent talent-meter has been BUSTED. If you target a player, you are telling the world you value that player - getting or not getting that player doesn't change whether you over/under valued them. I just can't fathom how anyone could think that targets-not-acquired shouldn't be used in evaluating a GM - a target is a target.

As an extreme example: If Olshey were to attempt to trade Dame for Ball, but the Lakers rebuff the offer, would you not immediately fire Olshey despite the trade not executing?
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I have already stated why twice but you just seem to keep ignoring it. Some players play differently or are better fits on other teams. It's impossible to know what would happen if someone signed with us instead of another team. Look at Turkoglu, he was coming off a good year playing with Howard but was a horrible fit in Toronto's offense. Who knows what he would have done that year playing with Roy, Aldridge, and Oden.
 
A
blue9 said:
No, it's not. It's a simple way to see the sorts of players he values. To date, his Free Agent talent-meter has been BUSTED. If you target a player, you are telling the world you value that player - getting or not getting that player doesn't change whether you over/under valued them. I just can't fathom how anyone could think that targets-not-acquired shouldn't be used in evaluating a GM - a target is a target.

As an extreme example: If Olshey were to attempt to trade Dame for Ball, but the Lakers rebuff the offer, would you not immediately fire Olshey despite the trade not executing?
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Free agency for Portland in my opinion should be thought of as simply a bonus situation and nothing more. Sure, there are always value signings but it is so rare to land even a medium level free agent that it isn't worth evaluating the misses in my opinion. Players and agents sometimes take meetings to get leverage and as favors that can be cashed in later. You don't think Olshey tried to get a meeting with Durant that summer? Or how about when he landed a meeting with LeBron while with the Clippers? Should those be counted on his misses too?
 
BigGameDamian said:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bl...mors-portland-trail-blazers-nurkic-salary-cap

usa_today_10650038.0.jpg



Hassan Whiteside trade rumors are heating up across the NBA as the once-revered Miami Heatcenter expresses frustration with his playing time and role. If the salary cap stars were to align just right, this could be good news for the Portland Trail Blazers. The Blazers are desperately in need of a significant roster boost and just as desperately short of avenues to pursue same. If they could put together an admittedly-unlikely series of deals centering around free-agent center Jusuf Nurkic, they might be able to transform their lineup without breaking apart the duo of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. It’s a long shot, but one worth thinking about.

Why Whiteside Might Be Moving
Miami’s disgruntled center had a fine regular season, averaging 14.0 points, 11.4 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks per game. Those numbers represented a career high in per-minute points and rebounds, yet Whiteside’s per-game production didn’t get anywhere near the highs of the last two seasons. The reason was simple: he dropped from 32.6 minutes per game last year to just 25.6 this. His playing time desert only got hotter as the year progressed. In five playoff games, Whiteside only registered 77 total minutes, an average of 15.6 per game. (He averaged 29.1 minutes in twice as many games the last time the Heat made the playoffs in 2015-16.)

According to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, Whiteside is being vocal about his de factodemotion, wondering openly about his future with the Heat:

Asked what most frustrated him from a team perspective, Whiteside cited his own issues with playing time.

”Not being out there,” he said. “Not being out there. At least give me a chance to fight. At least give me a chance to fight. I can understand if I was playing 30 minutes and I played bad. At least give me a chance.”

This is not the first time Whiteside has expressed displeasure. Jackson adds that a prominent teammate is giving him little sympathy.

Dwyane Wade said the onus is on Whiteside to improve.

“Don’t give me excuses,” Wade said. “Just go into the summer and work.”

And finally comes the coup de grace...

The Heat is expected to explore a Whiteside trade, with the center due $24.4 million and $27.1 million in the final two years of his contract.
Whiteside vs. Nurkic
The Blazers already have a center in tow, restricted free agent Jusuf Nurkic. As happy as they may (or may not) be with Nurkic’s performance, before acquiring him in a mid-season trade in February of 2017, they reportedly courted Whiteside first. As Erik Gundersen reported for the Herald, Whiteside considered Portland his “second choice” behind re-signing with the Heat.

Nurkic’s per-game and per-minute numbers are not wholly dissimilar from Whiteside’s. The Miami center is clearly a better rebounder and shot-blocker; Nurkic has greater offensive range (though not as much as you’d think). Whiteside is the more efficient scorer, Nurkic the more versatile.

Despite Nurkic’s decent production, three issues plague him in Portland:

  1. His defense is intermittent and often a liability, leading to him sitting on the bench during critical moments.
  2. He wants to be a key offensive cog, but he’s not proven he can handle that responsibility (or, for that matter, the ball) and he doesn’t play with the same vigor when he doesn’t get to dribble and shoot.
  3. Even when he’s on, his offense is slow-developing. He’s a willing passer, but he tends to stall out Portland’s sets, allowing the defense time to key in on him rather than keeping them bewildered as the multi-faceted starting guards do.
Whiteside is not a cure-all for these ills. He also wants to be involved offensively. His scoring game is efficient, but not pretty. His passing game makes Nurkic look like Einstein. Perhaps most condemning of all, his defense is overrated. Whiteside’s stellar blocks and rebounds historically mask a fairly long list of defensive sins.

That said, Whiteside is probably a better fit in Portland than in Miami, and a better fit for Portland’s system than Nurkic is. The Blazers don’t require a straight-up defensive wizard at center as much as they do a goalie. Their system (and relative speed executing it) usually puts their big men in position to make plays near the rim. The key question is, what happens after? With Nurkic they roll the dice. Occasionally he’ll make a big splash, often it’s nothing special, sometimes the play turns into a disaster. Whiteside would be much more effective erasing lane shots allowed by Portland’s somewhat-permissive backcourt. His rebounding ability would allow teammates to leak out on the break, facilitating fast-break points missing from Portland’s offense.

The New Starters
Whiteside alone wouldn’t transform the Blazers into contenders. To maximize his effect, they’d need a couple developments from the 2017-18 season to continue into 2018-19.

  • Al-Farouq Aminu would need to remain on the roster and continue shooting three-pointers at a 37% clip.
  • Zach Collins would need to step into a significant role while developing his offense, both extended post moves and open three-pointers.
If both of those things happened, the Blazers could then field one of the best defensive frontcourts in the NBA, if not the best. If Aminu could slide to small forward with Collins starting at power forward, their combined defensive prowess would intimidate, finally relieving the pressure on Lillard and McCollum. Failing that, Aminu and Whiteside starting while Collins backed up both positions would still provide non-stop defense. If Collins works on his three-point shot and the Blazers keep either Aminu or another shooter at small forward, everyone on the floor except Whiteside could hit from range. Whiteside could get enough shots to keep him happy, plus he’d be free to crash the offensive glass for put-backs.

Neither of those developments is guaranteed, which is part of the rub. The other part: Portland’s cap situation makes a Whiteside deal problematic.

Problematic Finances
Whiteside is scheduled to make $25.4 million next season, $27.1 million on a player option in 2019-20. With NBA budgets getting tighter, he’ll likely pick up that option. This is part of the reason Miami will consider moving him. You don’t want to be paying $25 million a year to a player you can’t trust to stay on the floor. When a player reaches the million-dollar-per-minute level, he’d better be LeBron James.

$25 million is an exorbitant amount to add to Portland’s already-strained cap ledger, but if the Blazers can get Nurkic to agree to a sign-and-trade to Miami at a reasonable price—they don’t have to cheap him out, they just can’t go ballistic—they can offer him with other assets to relieve their own cap burden. Sign and trades are rare nowadays because Max Contract rules and Base Year Compensation technicalities make the needle hard to thread. A player compensated at Nurkic’s level should fit through the gap, however, as his salary won’t be maxed and his BYC variance would be around $6 million...well within tolerance levels in a deal with a $25 million player.

Nurkic would have to agree to a salary far short of max and stick with it for three years. If another team offered him more in Restricted Free Agency than the Blazers/Heat were, the deal would be off.

As with all things financially-related for the Blazers nowadays, the deal wouldn’t be easy. They’d not just be in the luxury tax, but bumping up against the “apron”, the maximum theoretical limit beyond which they cannot trade. If Portland had not stretched the contracts of Anderson Varejao, Andrew Nicholson, and Festus Ezeli, a potential trade for Whiteside would be much simpler. The roughly $5 million tied up by those three departed players now mandates a raft of cuts and an extra trade in order for the Blazers to consider bringing Whiteside on board.

Prospective Deals
If salary-matching restrictions were the only thing at stake, the Blazers might re-sign Nurkic for $12 million-ish, get Shabazz Napier to play for the one-year qualifying offer, and trade Nurkic, Napier, and Moe Harkless to Miami for Whiteside.

BUT...because of the apron limit, the Blazers would need to release Pat Connaughton and Georgios Papagiannis AND move Meyers Leonardor Evan Turner for a player or players making marginally less money (ideally a couple of players who matched their salary, minus a couple million) in order to squeeze that deal through. Again we see how those stretched contracts and/or a couple million to Turner in years past makes an out-sized difference. Frankly, those extra dollars turn a prospective Whiteside deal from “tough, but doable” to “near impossible”.

That’s assuming Miami would take such a deal, of course. If they weren’t in love with Nurkic, all of this is moot. They may not be, but it’s fun to dream, right?

The Verdict?
Would Whiteside’s skills entice you into making a move, providing the Blazers and Heat could get a deal done? Would losing Nurkic, Napier, Harkless, Connaughton, and Meyers Leonard be too great of a price? How close would the Blazers be to having a complete and contending roster with Whiteside on board?​
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A good article......
 
blue9 said:
This doesn't take into account all the near-misses of his Free Agency career as Blazers GM. The Spencer Hawes', the Chandler Parsons', the [I forget who else, but he's had a bad track record of targeting Free Agents, and has luckily been saved by those players choosing to play elsewheres'].
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Monroe
Kanter
 
Post All-star Break Nurkic was a better player that Whiteside has ever been. And he's younger, has a better attitude, will come cheaper, we already have so we wouldn't have to give up assets to trade for, and isn't a black hole (we're already last in assists... Whiteside makes that worse).

Trading for Whiteside and letting Nurk go would go down as one of the worst moves in Blazers history.
 
BonesJones said:
Kanter has actually shown to be worth the money. His defense isn't as bad as people think, and his locker from presence and offensive game make him extremely valuable.
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Yeah, I wasn't even mad about the Kanter offer. Kanter off the bench could be nice. I know it's sacrilege to even think this, but his offensive production may be more useful than Ed's defense.
 
BonesJones said:
Kanter has actually shown to be worth the money. His defense isn't as bad as people think, and his locker from presence and offensive game make him extremely valuable.
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blue9 said:
Yeah, I wasn't even mad about the Kanter offer. Kanter off the bench could be nice. I know it's sacrilege to even think this, but his offensive production may be more useful than Ed's defense.
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Hindsite is 20/20 though. At the time, I beleive I recall the bulk of this board saying it was a bad move.

Kanter has really come to life on the East coast on a lottery team, but would he be the same on a contender?
 
Orion Bailey said:
Hindsite is 20/20 though. At the time, I beleive I recall the bulk of this board saying it was a bad move.

Kanter has really come to life on the East coast on a lottery team, but would he be the same on a contender?
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Doesn’t your perspective presuppose that the blazers are contenders in this situation? Cause they are NOT contenders what so ever.
 
chzbrgr said:
Doesn’t your perspective presuppose that the blazers are contenders in this situation? Cause they are NOT contenders what so ever.
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Not following. Are you asking me that if we had got Kanter then would we be contenders? Thats impossible to answer because his role would probably be less significant for us than it is for them for one. Two if we get Kanter, odds are we don't get Nurk.

Too many variables to even start to address your questions, that is if I am reading your question correctly.
 
I'll just say one more thing about this idea: It sort of proves that Nurkic just wasn't good enough last year. If he had been, there wouldn't be anybody talking about trading him for a do-nothing, like Whiteside -- Bargaining phase in full effect.
 
Nikolokolus said:
I'll just say one more thing about this idea: It sort of proves that Nurkic just wasn't good enough last year. If he had been, there wouldn't be anybody talking about trading him for a do-nothing, like Whiteside -- Bargaining phase in full effect.
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Wow, what a really sad stretch you just made. A hypothetical trade that isn't even possible by a writer means that the team thinks Nurk wasn't good enough and are using Whiteside as leverage?

Give me a break.
 
Orion Bailey said:
Not following. Are you asking me that if we had got Kanter then would we be contenders? Thats impossible to answer because his role would probably be less significant for us than it is for them for one. Two if we get Kanter, odds are we don't get Nurk.

Too many variables to even start to address your questions, that is if I am reading your question correctly.
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You are not reading it correctly. You asked what would he look like on a ‘contender vs lottery team’ scenario. But we were talking about the blazers almost Getting him. So I was asking if you were suggesting the blazers would be the ‘contender’ then I stated after that they unequivocally are not a contender.

My point is you could expect his role to be the same if not bigger on the blazers as it is now on the knicks cause the front court we have is weak af.
 
chzbrgr said:
You are not reading it correctly. You asked what would he look like on a ‘contender vs lottery team’ scenario. But we were talking about the blazers almost Getting him. So I was asking if you were suggesting the blazers would be the ‘contender’ then I stated after that they unequivocally are not a contender.

My point is you could expect his role to be the same if not bigger on the blazers as it is now on the knicks cause the front court we have is weak af.
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Gotcha and i agree. We would bit be contenders. We are better off with nurk at a smaller salary.
 
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