It's not Olshey

[jlprk]

In my defense, I've thought Leonard was worthless since we drafted him.

Same with me, but I had hope he'd improve till I saw him in Summer League after his rookie year, when he showed he had gotten even worse. Then another year of no change, and another. Finally last year, his contract year, he started trying for once. Now I at least see effort, unlike his first 3 years. Maybe a better defensive coach will help him at his next team. I've posted that attempted optimism for years...that he badly needs a new locale.

 

[jlprk]

By what metric are they better, your imagination? Toss out Chandler, Gortat, Jefferson, and Bogut as all being 32 or older and on the down side of their careers. Here's how the current season stats of the rest stack up:

Meyers Leonard: 24 years old, 15.8 mpg, 3.2 reb, .4 blk, 5.2 ppg
Miles Plumlee: 28 years old, 10.9 mpg, 1.9 reb, .3 blk, 2.7 ppg
Nikola Vucevic: 26 years old, 27.9 mpg, 10.9 reb, .9 blk, 12.9 ppg
Omer Asik: 30 years old, 16.7 mpg, 5.8 reb, .4 blk, 3 ppg
Kosta Koufos: 27 years old, 19.7 mpg, 5.8 reb, .6 blk, 5.7 ppg
Tyler Zeller: 27 years old, 12.7 mpg, 3.3 reb, .6 blk, 4.2 ppg
Cole Aldrich: 28 years old, 13 mpg, 3.8 reb, .6 blk, 2.9 ppg

Vucevic is clearly the stats winner, but he's playing almost 11 more minutes per game than Leonard. Leonard is the youngest of the group by a considerable margin, is coming back from a significant injury, and still is producing as much or more than the rest of those guys who are making about the same money.

I don't know what being young has to do with it. It just means that teams are more suckered by false potential.. You took out the top third of your 11-man list, but even that doesn't make Leonard better than the bottom 2/3. Every one of those players is better. Some posters are blinded by Meyers worship, and will still be in his 10th year if he's still here. I get it. You're a homer and have always opposed every proposed change, whether coach, GM, or player. Good for you, but more rational people must lead.

 

[chzbrgr]

it is neil tho guys. If by February we havent made a deal to make us better and save us from luxury tax hell he needs to see the door.

 

[e_blazer]

I don't know what being young has to do with it. It just means that teams are more suckered by false potential.. You took out the top third of your 11-man list, but even that doesn't make Leonard better than the bottom 2/3. Every one of those players is better. Some posters are blinded by Meyers worship, and will still be in his 10th year if he's still here. I get it. You're a homer and have always opposed every proposed change, whether coach, GM, or player. Good for you, but more rational people must lead.

You're showing your usual inability to follow a thread. I'm more than happy to trade Meyers at this point. I was just pointing out that his contract isn't out of line for similar players of a similar age. Next year, with the cap and lux tax going up again, superstar players will be getting $30 mill a year. Ten mil for a midlevel player will be the norm.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

I hear what you (OP)'re saying about Olshey.

HOWEVER: it seems to me that while he has a knack for finding bargain basement, um, bargains (like RoLo and Harkless) he has a poor drafting record that is obscured by his undoubted success in landing Lillard in a pretty weak draft.

He seems to have a predilection for scorers over well-rounded players, and values "character" above all. While that might be welcomed by those who regret the Whitsitt "chemistry?" years, he seems to have gone too far in the other direction.

Besides that I have two major concerns with Olshey:
First, he was hired from the Clippers on the strength of the Chris Paul trade. But it's looking more and more like that was luck more than anything (after the Lakers' trade was nixed, in an extraordinary move, by the league) and we just have very few assets to do a comparable one. (Furthermore I wonder how much being in LA helped him in ways he didn't realize before he came to small-market Portland)

Second, in LA he was trading players he hadn't drafted, whereas now he is wedded to Lillard and CJ in particular, and is less likely to be objective about a rebuild than somebody brought in fresh. I can't imagine him ever bringing himself to trade Lillard. That's fine if Lillard were a superstar like LeBron or even Durant, but he's at best a top 5 PG, whose defense will always be a problem.

It's a little annoying that Charlotte, with Cho at the helm, is looking much healthier than us.

 

[jlprk]

You're showing your usual inability to follow a thread. I'm more than happy to trade Meyers at this point. I was just pointing out that his contract isn't out of line for similar players of a similar age. Next year, with the cap and lux tax going up again, superstar players will be getting $30 mill a year. Ten mil for a midlevel player will be the norm.

Why did we negotiate what will be the norm a year later? In this thread more than once, your argument has been that we should pay players what they can negotiate in the future, not what is the going norm now. Why would we do that, if we can get today's norm, today? A can of soup will cost $20 in 2050. You'd better voluntarily give your grocer that price now.

 

[tester551]

Plus there are significant advantages to be up to the LT in salaries.

Name one...
There are several significant disadvantages (reduces the team's flexibility), but I can't think of one advantage.

 

[e_blazer]

Name one...
There are several significant disadvantages (reduces the team's flexibility), but I can't think of one advantage.

Denny said near the LT, not over. The advantage is that you have more salary to use in making trades than you would if you were just over the cap. The Blazers can package several players and take back players with big salaries as long as they don't put us into the LT. If they were just over the cap, there's not as much flexibility to take on a big contract because the salaries have to match within 125% plus $100K.

 

[e_blazer]

Why did we negotiate what will be the norm a year later? In this thread more than once, your argument has been that we should pay players what they can negotiate in the future, not what is the going norm now. Why would we do that, if we can get today's norm, today? A can of soup will cost $20 in 2050. You'd better voluntarily give your grocer that price now.

Whatever. Not really interested in arguing with you about it.

 

[Boob-No-More]

A player said it's his DREAM COME TRUE to play for his new particular team. He finds reasons to praise it, like, it's his home state, or, he admires the team's star. First time in history! So glad you found that unmotivated, indisputable info. It's hard to find a local Jason Quick introducing a new player to a fanbase, with the player gushing over his new team (with agent standing behind him holding a club).

Yeah, you're probably right. It's probably all some elaborate attempt at deception to make me look good in an anonymous internet forum. Now it all makes sense. Why else would he have chosen to live in MIN for the last 6 off seasons prior to signing with the Timberwolves? He obviously hates the place and took a bullet for me. Thanks Cole, I appreciate it!

If Olshey had offered $17M, Cole Aldrich would have forgotten where he was born.

Thanks for clearing that up for us. We would have never been able to figure that out on our own. So, let me get this straight. All we have to do to lure 3rd tier free agents to Portland is offer them $10 million/year more than the second highest bidder? Sounds about right.

BNM

 

[jlprk]

Whatever. Not really interested in arguing with you about it.

Aw shit! NOW who am I going to argue with for the next 8 hours. Let's see, what is Boob posting...

 

[jlprk]

Yeah, you're probably right. It's probably all some elaborate attempt at deception to make me look good in an anonymous internet forum. Now it all makes sense. Why else would he have chosen to live in MIN for the last 6 off seasons prior to signing with the Timberwolves? He obviously hates the place and took a bullet for me. Thanks Cole, I appreciate it!

Thanks for clearing that up for us. We would have never been able to figure that out on our own. So, let me get this straight. All we have to do to lure 3rd tier free agents to Portland is offer them $10 million/year more than the second highest bidder? Sounds about right.

My post answered your claim that there was no way Aldrich would have signed with us. Your proof was the fan mag article. I just said that such articles are standard and do not prove that he would have turned down the money given to Crabbe or Turner. Now you say, well duh. Flip flop!

 

[Boob-No-More]

My post answered your claim that there was no way Aldrich would have signed with us. Your proof was the fan mag article. I just said that such articles are standard and do not prove that he would have turned down the money given to Crabbe or Turner. Now you say, well duh. Flip flop!

I assumed the obvious was obvious. My bad.

BNM

 

[Orion Bailey]

My post answered your claim that there was no way Aldrich would have signed with us. Your proof was the fan mag article. I just said that such articles are standard and do not prove that he would have turned down the money given to Crabbe or Turner. Now you say, well duh. Flip flop!

You DID seek out a Boob Post to debate. LMAO@YOU. HAHAHA. I laugh because I like it.

 

[jlprk]

I assumed the obvious was obvious. My bad.

What as vacuus response. That's like saying, "I assumed that vacuum is the same as nothingness." Wrong-o! Or, "I assumed that since the word 'vacuum' has 2 u's, it has 2 c's." Double vowel wrong-o! Here's your home board game, and bring out our next contestant, Vanna.

 

[Boob-No-More]

Jesus H. Christ you're high maintenance.

In my original post, I actually started to type:

Sure, we could have offered Aldrich Turner type money, but then we wouldn't have been able to sign Turner.

But that just seemed too obvious to me, so I deleted it. Apparently, I was wrong.

Aldrich clearly wasn't Olshey's Plan C after Whiteside and Parsons fell through. That honor went to Turner.

Well then, we could have offered him Ezeli's money. But why? He got more from MIN than we gave Ezeli, and as you noted, we would have had to pay a significant premium to lure Aldrich away from his hometown team. After signing Turner, we didn't have enough left under the cap to offer Aldrich that significant premium.

I have no idea if Aldrich was even on Neil's radar, but unless he was higher on Neil's priority list than Evan Turner, the point is moot. And, since he offered that money to Turner, not Aldrich, it seems obvious (there's that word again), that Evan Turner, not Cole Aldrich, was Olshey's preferred Plan C.

I have no idea why you're even arguing about this. MN was Aldrich's preferred destination, which was the entire point of my initial post on the topic. Of course, we could have lured him away if we'd been willing to grotesquely overpay him. Every man has his price. That doesn't mean we should pay it.

BNM

 

[jlprk]

Jesus H. Christ you're high maintenance.

In my original post, I actually started to type:

Sure, we could have offered Aldrich Turner type money, but then we wouldn't have been able to sign Turner.

But that just seemed too obvious to me, so I deleted it. Apparently, I was wrong.

Aldrich clearly wasn't Olshey's Plan C after Whiteside and Parsons fell through. That honor went to Turner.

Well then, we could have offered him Ezeli's money. But why? He got more from MIN than we gave Ezeli, and as you noted, we would have had to pay a significant premium to lure Aldrich away from his hometown team. After signing Turner, we didn't have enough left under the cap to offer Aldrich that significant premium.

I have no idea if Aldrich was even on Neil's radar, but unless he was higher on Neil's priority list than Evan Turner, the point is moot. And, since he offered that money to Turner, not Aldrich, it seems obvious (there's that word again), that Evan Turner, not Cole Aldrich, was Olshey's preferred Plan C.

I have no idea why you're even arguing about this. MN was Aldrich's preferred destination, which was the entire point of my initial post on the topic. Of course, we could have lured him away if we'd been willing to grotesquely overpay him. Every man has his price. That doesn't mean we should pay it.

For whoever brought up Aldrich in this thread, the point is, he should have been. So I agreed. Aldrich should have been a higher priority to Olshey than he was, since he could been had for, at most, what Olshey paid for shorter wings whom we didn't need. You say he wasn't. Duh. But he should have been.

I thought this point was obvious, but obviously I was wrong, since you thought we were saying that Olshey wanted him but botched it. No, the point was that Olshey didn't want him, at least not as much as wings/lesser players like Crabbe or Turner. Olshey's payment would have been less grotesque had he lured Aldrich, whom we need more, instead of one of them.

 

[BBert]

Not true. A 4 star restaurant in Portland is superior to a 4 star restaurant in NY or LA. Portland is considered one of the world's food mecca's.

Yeah, but do they have valet parking? One percenters don't like to soil their loafers and should not be expected to park their own cars. Donchaknow.

 

[BBert]

Why do we think we know what players Olshey did nor did not inquire about? This idea that Olshey didn't pursue a player because he didn't sign them, or didn't tender an official offer, continues to baffle me. I guess I'm going on the assumption that Olshey talks to every GM and every player agent and gauges players' interest in playing in Portland, and for how much, before sending out offer sheets. Because, you know, that's his job.

 

[Orion Bailey]

For whoever brought up Aldrich in this thread, the point is, he should have been. So I agreed. Aldrich should have been a higher priority to Olshey than he was, since he could been had for, at most, what Olshey paid for shorter wings whom we didn't need. You say he wasn't. Duh. But he should have been.

I thought this point was obvious, but obviously I was wrong, since you thought we were saying that Olshey wanted him but botched it. No, the point was that Olshey didn't want him, at least not as much as wings/lesser players like Crabbe or Turner. Olshey's payment would have been less grotesque had he lured Aldrich, whom we need more, instead of one of them.

Man I like a ton of your posts ,your funny as hell, but you are crazy if you didn't think we needed a defensive minded ball handling distributor as a wing.

Is Aldrich that much better than Plumlee? Different types of players, but they both serve a purpose. I think Turner was more important than another role playing center and I think NO feels the same. He couldn't land the elite center and he knew we have plenty of rol;e playing centers. He went for Ezeli for back up elite D. Would Aldrich provide that? no. SO Aldrich's value to us is less than Turner, but you'd still be willing to pay him?

 

[STOMP]

Is Crabbe overpayed? Maybe. Probably.

Keep going...2 more steps down and you'll reach the targeted destination of Hells Yeah!

Would he be overpayed if he were a starter? Not with the way the NBA is headed. Is he starter material? Stats say he is.

There are lots of bad starters in the league and almost all are on bad teams. A good GM fills their roster with good players on team friendly contracts. I heard you out as requested, no sale. Thusfar Crabbe is a poor man's Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and he's especially poor because he's paying him to be an All Star.

STOMP

 

[Denny Crane]

Name one...
There are several significant disadvantages (reduces the team's flexibility), but I can't think of one advantage.

You aren't restricted by the cap. That is, your payroll can be much higher.

Consider the Heat. Cleared enough cap space to sign Bosh, LeBron and Wade. At the cap, all they could add was vet minimum, even though $10M under the LT.