Notice Joe Cronin New GM

[blazerkor]

I'm actually kind of enjoying the people going ballistic about Cronin.

why? because in 2015 when I started saying that the Blazers should fire Olshey because he was going to be the prince of mediocrity by going all-in on a Dame/CJ back court while wasting cap-space, I was the lone voice in the wilderness...the only passenger on the fire-olshey train. And I got shit-tons of abuse for that advocacy

after the 2016 spending spree a few more passengers boarded the train but there were still a bunch of olshey-does-no-wrong people pushing back hard on any suggestion that Olshey's ass should be sent packing. By the time that Olshey was finally shit-canned, the fire-olshey train was SRO

so yeah, after more than 6 years of being angry about the Blazer GM, it amuses me that people are going kind of bat-shit about Cronin after a trade deadline & 11 hours as GM.

Now, I've wanted CJ out of town almost as long as I've wanted Olshey gone. And I wanted this latest dumb-ass reboot of olshey-vision dismantled. So maybe the fact that Cronin did the absolutely needed tear-down makes me cut him more slack than I should

I've been right there with you on both Olshey and CJ... the whole time. As soon as I heard that CJ was going to be starting with Dame after Neil let LaMarcus walk without compensation I knew we were fucked. CJ was supposed to be Dame's backup and Neil had just shit the bed. CJ was better than I thought but Neil definitely overpaid him and he was never a fit next to Dame.

I just don't think, as you know, that Cronin got everything out of the four guys he traded that he could have but that's pure conjecture on my part... wasn't thrilled about those trades, obviously. So when we promote Cronin and basically keep the entire Olshey apparatus in place just without Neil at its head, I'm sorry but it is a huge disappointment for me. The vast majority of our front office including the guy we just gave a four year deal to lead it, are responsible right alongside Neil for our decade of water treading and bullshit.

I hope I'm just jaded by the decade of Olshey's half ass moves and condescension. I hope Cronin can do a lot better now that he's "cleaned up the books" and no longer has the interim tag hurting his credibility. I'm looking forward to that being the case but I was hoping for bigger change to our front office and turning the page completely on the Olshey era of management.

 

[MickZagger]

If Jeramie Grant is the extent of our offseason, we’re fucked.

 

[DDolla]

So why did we not interview any other candidates for GM? Is it maybe Cronin lack of experience is cheaper than going for an experience candidate? Just asking for a friend

 

[blazerkor]

3 years too late! You let his soap opera charm fool you!

I think all of us were giving him those first three years and maybe those of us who aren't should be doing the same for Cronin but it's hard to extricate Cronin from the last decade that he was for the majority, the right hand man of the guy so many of us wanted gone so badly.

It doesn't matter now though because he's the guy and we've got to root for him. He doesn't come off like an asshole whereas his predecessor did, so that's a plus. I'll just try to check my negativity and give the guy a chance because there will be plenty of time for belly aching if my negative inclinations end up being correct and I'd much rather those of you who are happy today are right and I'm wrong.

 

[blazerkor]

So why did we not interview any other candidates for GM? Is it maybe Cronin lack of experience is cheaper than going for an experience candidate? Just asking for a friend

Honestly I think it's both money and apathy from our ownership group. They might have tricked themselves into being enamored with Joe but really it was a whole lot easier than turning over almost the entire front office. Our ownership looks like they're into cutting costs and putting the team on cruise control right now and it fucking sucks.

 

[oldmangrouch]

You know, it may be time to just table this until draft day and free agent signings. I have every confidence that Cronin will be as bad as his former boss at roster building, and that we will soon have clear evidence that this hire was a mistake...and that there is no hope until Jody and the jerk-offs are sent packing.

I think that is the part that most frustrates me - pretty much nobody here thinks Olshey did a good job or that Jody is a good owner, but some people are happy that we hired their bastard child as the new GM.

 

[FlashWad]

"For the Blazers to make this decision without measuring Cronin’s plan against those of other sharp candidates is more than concerning. It’s borderline malpractice."

something about this doesn't add up. The guy did a horrible job and was just handed the job without even interviewing other people? Even the most pronounced Cronin fans can agree that we at least should of interviewed other candidates to see their potential plans. I saw this coming but was still extremely disappointed. Jody has no idea what she is soon we are in purgatory until the sale happens. when it rains for blazer fans it pours.

 

[SharpesTriumph]

I really don’t get the disconnect with some of you.
We wanted to clear money and not take money back in these trades…that’s what we accomplished.
There are reports out there that there were “better offers” on the table for some of these guys. Do we really think Cronin and billups were like na we’ll take the shitty offer?
We made moves that accomplished what we set out to do. Now it’s time to rebuild it.
None of us know the value of any of our assets. Let it all play out.
FYI if we didn’t take like we did we wouldn’t have the 6th best odds at the #1 pick. People seem to forget that. Our lottery pick is also a product of the trades as well

We'll never know what potential better offers there were, and neither will Cronin since he did the trade a week before the deadline.

 

[hoopsjock]

Please stop saying we don't know if there were better offers. Cronin himself literally said they took less value to appease both Norm and CJ. Both LAC and NO are on record as saying they didn't envision a scenario where they got the players they did for so little. Multiple writers are saying other front office executives couldn't believe how little the Blazers got in return for trading those players.

If you say we don't know if there were better offers, you're calling the GM who you're trying to support a liar.

 

[SlyPokerCat]

If Jeramie Grant is the extent of our offseason, we’re fucked.

Inevitably multiple posters will go on about how we are contenders, and we will end up playing in the play-in and somehow they will point to that as a success.

Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat.

 

[Phatguysrule]

You know, it may be time to just table this until draft day and free agent signings. I have every confidence that Cronin will be as bad as his former boss at roster building, and that we will soon have clear evidence that this hire was a mistake...and that there is no hope until Jody and the jerk-offs are sent packing.

I think that is the part that most frustrates me - pretty much nobody here thinks Olshey did a good job or that Jody is a good owner, but some people are happy that we hired their bastard child as the new GM.

If Jody and the jerkoffs are shit you can't expect them to hire a good GM.

As a fan, all you can do is hope... That's where I'm at.

He's obviously not afraid to pull the trigger. He got about the value I thought was realistic for CJ. A less haralded player who plays both ways and has a far better contract. If we'd have gotten a lotto pick as well for Nance that would have been a steal, IMO. Worth the shot.

The Clips deal was about what I expected as well. Had to give up RoCo to get somebody to take Norm's contract. Not great, but fine.

And I think he was dealing with some mandates. So I'm good with it.

People who've worked with him say he is smart, thoughtful, and deliberate. And that he's well respected.

Fingers crossed.

 

[TBpup]

I'm actually kind of enjoying the people going ballistic about Cronin.

why? because in 2015 when I started saying that the Blazers should fire Olshey because he was going to be the prince of mediocrity by going all-in on a Dame/CJ back court while wasting cap-space, I was the lone voice in the wilderness...the only passenger on the fire-olshey train. And I got shit-tons of abuse for that advocacy

after the 2016 spending spree a few more passengers boarded the train but there were still a bunch of olshey-does-no-wrong people pushing back hard on any suggestion that Olshey's ass should be sent packing. By the time that Olshey was finally shit-canned, the fire-olshey train was SRO

so yeah, after more than 6 years of being angry about the Blazer GM, it amuses me that people are going kind of bat-shit about Cronin after a trade deadline & 11 hours as GM.

Now, I've wanted CJ out of town almost as long as I've wanted Olshey gone. And I wanted this latest dumb-ass reboot of olshey-vision dismantled. So maybe the fact that Cronin did the absolutely needed tear-down makes me cut him more slack than I should

Not the only one.... We have shared the mediocrity opinion regarding high Neil's plan and Dame/CJ's ceiling for years. Met Neil early on, and his oily used car salesman traits are on full display. Left with the impression of needing a seriously hot shower.

 

[Mediocre Man]

Not the only one.... We have shared the mediocrity opinion regarding high Neil's plan and Dame/CJ's ceiling for years. Met Neil early on, and his oily used car salesman traits are on full display. Left with the impression of needing a seriously hot shower.

Ya. I have had the “pleasure” of meeting Neil a few times as well. He is a piece of shit

 

[bigbailes]

I have a random thought and question, and I'm doing this without reading the rest of the thread...

But what if they said no to that contingency and they said take this current trade or nothing at all.

Would everyone have been okay with still having CJ here? What would the narrative have been had they not traded CJ at all?

It's revisionist history, yes, but I ask because the alternatives could have been declined and this was the best we could get. (Which in my opinion, this is better than having CJ and get out of that awful contract).

I was mad the pick didn't convey, but we don't know what contengicies he tried for either so it feels weird to blame him for not having contingencies when he very well may have, but was rebuffed.

And this is coming from a guy who still hates the LAC trade, but that was about timing and optics lol.

Most of any of our thoughts are speculation, as obviously none of us were at the table or have the details, but what fun would a message board be if we DIDN'T speculate. At that point I walk away from the table ... there were still two more days before the deadline! You had CJ wanting to go to NO, you had NO in desperate need of a player to help them catch a spark and you walked away without getting a lottery pick. I think that was the most frustrating part for me, was that he made this deal so early in the process, when it doesn't seem anyone else was knocking down the door wanting to go to the Pelicans like CJ was. I think it's idiotic to let a player dictate where he's going in this situation, but I understand it, what I don't understand is the rush to make a deal. Let the Pels linger for a day and see if you can extract more out of them. It's not like they were asking for Zion or some crazy demand, it was making sure a pick conveyed in the lottery. I guess this deal, coupled with the LAC deal along with his background has me seeing Cronin as a guy pretty good with the cap but a crap negotiator. I hope he proves me wrong and I'll give him the summer but my hopes aren't high.

 

[Hoopguru]

If Jody and the jerkoffs are shit you can't expect them to hire a good GM.

As a fan, all you can do is hope... That's where I'm at.

He's obviously not afraid to pull the trigger. He got about the value I thought was realistic for CJ. A less haralded player who plays both ways and has a far better contract. If we'd have gotten a lotto pick as well for Nance that would have been a steal, IMO. Worth the shot.

The Clips deal was about what I expected as well. Had to give up RoCo to get somebody to take Norm's contract. Not great, but fine.

And I think he was dealing with some mandates. So I'm good with it.

People who've worked with him say he is smart, thoughtful, and deliberate. And that he's well respected.

Fingers crossed.

All of us that spend hours upon hours on this site is because we all HOPE for the team to contend from one year to the next. And HOPE is addicting, the nba knows this.

 

[Hoopguru]

For years we’ve wanted a guy that would take risk and swing for the fence. Any GM that does this successfully wins some and loses some.

 

[Hoopguru]

Pelinka was given sainthood after getting bron & davis. Now he’s made the worst trade in the NBA in years. Should he be fired?

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Pelinka was given sainthood after getting bron & davis. Now he’s made the worst trade in the NBA in years. Should he be fired?

Yes.

Anyone giving him credit for Lebron and Davis was fooling themselves.

 

[wizenheimer]

Please stop saying we don't know if there were better offers. Cronin himself literally said they took less value to appease both Norm and CJ. Both LAC and NO are on record as saying they didn't envision a scenario where they got the players they did for so little. Multiple writers are saying other front office executives couldn't believe how little the Blazers got in return for trading those players.

If you say we don't know if there were better offers, you're calling the GM who you're trying to support a liar.

I don't have any problem calling him a liar. Same with Olshey. They can hide it behind GM-speak and technicalities, but GM's are politicians at heart...so there you go

if there were better offers out there I think we would have heard of some by now. The only two we've heard about were not better offers. I will continue to say there were no better offers until I hear of one that was.

there could have been other offers but those offers were likely in the no-fly zone of Portland taking on significant future payroll, and that, pretty obviously, was counter to instructions that Cronin had from Seattle.

 

[Natebishop3]

Nevermind.... I just have the other thread on ignore. LOL

 

[Ed O]

I have a random thought and question, and I'm doing this without reading the rest of the thread...

But what if they said no to that contingency and they said take this current trade or nothing at all.

Would everyone have been okay with still having CJ here? What would the narrative have been had they not traded CJ at all?

It's revisionist history, yes, but I ask because the alternatives could have been declined and this was the best we could get. (Which in my opinion, this is better than having CJ and get out of that awful contract).

I was mad the pick didn't convey, but we don't know what contengicies he tried for either so it feels weird to blame him for not having contingencies when he very well may have, but was rebuffed.

And this is coming from a guy who still hates the LAC trade, but that was about timing and optics lol.

I'd MUCH rather have the team we had before the trade deadline than the one we do now.

Why? Because I think we could get deals at least as good as the ones we got. And we'd have the offseason to decide what to do with them. And CJ's contract (the reason he isn't worth that much) would be shorter, so teams might be more willing to give value for him.

The main downside of not making those trades is that we might not have lost so many games, but I don't know where our lottery ball will fall, so even that might not have been a big deal. The garbage we got from the trades themselves has done/will do us no favors.

But... it got Cronin the permanent GM job somehow. Just amazing.

 

[RR7]

I'd MUCH rather have the team we had before the trade deadline than the one we do now.

Why? Because I think we could get deals at least as good as the ones we got. And we'd have the offseason to decide what to do with them. And CJ's contract (the reason he isn't worth that much) would be shorter, so teams might be more willing to give value for him.

The main downside of not making those trades is that we might not have lost so many games, but I don't know where our lottery ball will fall, so even that might not have been a big deal. The garbage we got from the trades themselves has done/will do us no favors.

But... it got Cronin the permanent GM job somehow. Just amazing.

One of the big hang ups of dealing CJ in the offseason is the loss of financial flexibility. A team would have to send us 26 million or so to be able to take him on. So maybe we get an extra pick out of it(doubtful), but we'd take on an extra 12-16 million in salary, which then means we're in the tax almost immediately upon signing simons and nurk.

 

[illmatic99]

I'd MUCH rather have the team we had before the trade deadline than the one we do now.

Why? Because I think we could get deals at least as good as the ones we got. And we'd have the offseason to decide what to do with them. And CJ's contract (the reason he isn't worth that much) would be shorter, so teams might be more willing to give value for him.

The main downside of not making those trades is that we might not have lost so many games, but I don't know where our lottery ball will fall, so even that might not have been a big deal. The garbage we got from the trades themselves has done/will do us no favors.

But... it got Cronin the permanent GM job somehow. Just amazing.

exactly my sentiment as well. there was nothing to be gained by rushing to make that CJ deal especially.

 

[illmatic99]

One of the big hang ups of dealing CJ in the offseason is the loss of financial flexibility. A team would have to send us 26 million or so to be able to take him on. So maybe we get an extra pick out of it(doubtful), but we'd take on an extra 12-16 million in salary, which then means we're in the tax almost immediately upon signing simons and nurk.

in reality what is this so-called flexibility actually getting us? the Non-tax MLE vs the tax MLE? i don't see this as much of a value add given our history with MLE caliber FAs.

unless we actually use it for value, we essentially salary dumped 4/5ths of our starting lineup and our best bench player.

 

[RR7]

in reality what is this so-called flexibility actually getting us? the Non-tax MLE vs the tax MLE? i don't see this as much of a value add given our history with MLE caliber FAs.

unless we actually use it for value, we essentially salary dumped 4/5ths of our starting lineup and our best bench player.

If the team doesn't want to go too high in to the tax, it allows us to keep two of our better players. It opens up trade options with the TPE that weren't otherwise there. There doesn't have to be one specific move, but it's better to have the flexibility than locked in to a super expensive roster that isn't going anywhere.

 

[illmatic99]

If the team doesn't want to go too high in to the tax, it allows us to keep two of our better players. It opens up trade options with the TPE that weren't otherwise there. There doesn't have to be one specific move, but it's better to have the flexibility than locked in to a super expensive roster that isn't going anywhere.

i don't care about saving Jody $.

I only care if we're competitive. Jury's out if this current build will actually amount to anything more than the Dame/CJ build, and not maximizing our assets is a terrible start.

But back to the point, Cronin getting this job was a foregone conclusion. I am just hoping he realizes that he needs to eek out every last bit of value he can from his so-called flexibility. I remain skeptical that can do that. It's why I really would like some oversight above him.

 

[RR7]

I dont care about saving her money either, just being realistic. Gone are the days of SPAM. Worrying about the tax for management is a real thing, when you're a mediocre team. It's the unfortunate reality. So ignoring it as a fan and just saying spend more isn't realistic, IMO.

 

[illmatic99]

Quick said there was no real search for other candidates.

But how does anyone know for sure? How can franchise chair Jody Allen, or her right-hand man Bert Kolde — or whoever is making the decisions these days — know? There was no search. No candidates flew in for an interview. No phone calls were made to feel out if people were interested. No nothing.

“They were never opening it for a search,” one prominent agent said.

Another agent was more colorful in his disgust but didn’t want to be quoted. It was clear the lack of process was not only confusing but also laughable.

---


For the Blazers to make this decision without measuring Cronin’s plan against those of other sharp candidates is more than concerning. It’s borderline malpractice.

Wouldn’t you feel better today as a fan knowing the Blazers chose Cronin after listening to what Chicago’s Marc Eversley thinks? Or after the Blazers weighed Cronin’s plan against those of up-and-comers like Sacramento’s Wes Wilcox, Brooklyn’s Jeff Peterson, the Clippers’ Michael Winger or Memphis’ Chris Makris? Heck, do the bare minimum and listen to what old-school guys like Ed Stefanski or Jeff Bauer thought about the job.

---

I don’t care about the length of the contract, or that Cronin was hired. It’s the process that stinks, which is unfortunate for Cronin, who may very well be up for the task ahead. Right now, it’s safe to say the jury is still out on how Cronin has fared. There are some in league circles who joke that Cronin was recently voted the MVP for the New Orleans Pelicans and LA Clippers for his deals that greatly enhanced his rivals while doing little for Portland aside from net “financial flexibility” and Josh Hart. Those inside the Blazers say people around the league are telling them they did well in unloading the bloated salaries of CJ McCollum and Norman Powell and the creaky knees of Robert Covington.

 

[THE HCP]

BUMP
Outstanding work.

 

[Wade Garrett]

Wouldn’t you feel better today as a fan knowing the Blazers chose Cronin after listening to what Chicago’s Marc Eversley thinks? Or after the Blazers weighed Cronin’s plan against those of up-and-comers like Sacramento’s Wes Wilcox, Brooklyn’s Jeff Peterson, the Clippers’ Michael Winger or Memphis’ Chris Makris? Heck, do the bare minimum and listen to what old-school guys like Ed Stefanski or Jeff Bauer thought about the job.

Not one bit.