Olshey press confernce

[Fairly-Hard]

It's like the team gives zero fucks about quality or fan approval.

Read that again.

 

[illmatic99]

No roster that plays Melo and Kanter together has a chance of succeeding. Maybe in collective talent, but cohesively there is no chance we had the 3rd or 4th best roster in the conference.

not sure what this means.

olshey is by no means without blame for this roster construction but there were tangible improvements made to the personnel that were flat out not used. We kept running the same schemes we did 6 yrs ago.

All this said, i think the ONLY reason Neil is also not fired right now is because of his contract terms vs Terry's making it a harder pill for Jody to swallow than paying Terry to go fishing for a year.

 

[B-Roy]

If I were to boil my opinion down, it would be this: Olshey gave Stotts a very poor choice of options and while Stotts probably didn't optimally utilize those options, I don't think there was a series of buttons to push that lead to tremendous success.

Agreed. They were both heads on the proverbial hydra. And we should have cut both. Instead Olshey gets another year to tinker with a improper roster, but this time with even less tools than before. I can already see how this ends.

 

[calvin natt]

I seriously think some of you guys underestimate how easy it is to not be a dick.

Probably. But I think some of you guys are seriously underestimating what it is like to lose a series you should have won, at home, fire your coach, get grilled (all his job), be competitive, be angry, then sit down and be nice answering a bunch of questions from media members who really dont know a whole lot. His snarkiness is due to all of that. I know for sure if it was me I would be short/cold/pissed at some of these questions. Maybe I am not a nice person.

 

[B-Roy]

His snarkiness is due to all of that.

He's snarky all the time. He was just extra snarky today.

Also, he gets grilled twice a year. Compared to what the players have to go through (and considering how much he's paid), it's really not a big deal.

 

[SheedSoNasty]

I can’t listen to him and not think about how much of a dick he sounds like.

 

[wizenheimer]

You're definitely not alone, as many people on this forum think this is one of the best rosters in the NBA, turned mediocre by a single person, Stotts.

I think that people just want a simple answer--having to solve major structural issues with the roster is hard and means being far from a championship. Having one of the most talented rosters with just the worst coach in NBA history means you can win the title with one move.

This roster is massively flawed and not that talented. As it turns out, CJ was just playing over his head for a short time before his injury and has since shown he's a one-dimensional scorer who's pretty mediocre overall. Nurkic has talent in a vacuum, but his defensive strengths are mismatched for this era--you can pillory Stotts all you want for playing drop coverages, but he was protecting Nurkic--having Nurkic switch or even hedge would lead to equally terrible results and make Nurkic look inept. And those are, by far, Portland's two best players after Lillard. This is not a highly talented roster.

Let's not even get into Olshey rostering Melo "for the legacy." Maybe this team hemorrhages points because players like Melo had to play a bunch of minutes based on the roster construction. Maybe this team shouldn't have been 29th on defense based purely on personnel, but it should have been in the 20s.

really good post Minstrel, but the wind blowing from a lot of posters about Portland's great talent this year is real gusty. I think it's bogus too, Not only is there less talent than many are claiming, the talent there is, fits poorly. If there was the 3rd or 4th best talent in the West the Blazers wouldn't have trotted out a 6'3 SF who managed to pull down a total of 13 rebounds in 6 games. And they wouldn't have had a 30M/year man being outplayed by two guys combining to make less than 2M. How did Stotts make CJ play like shit?

 

[SlyPokerDog]

The timeframe for turning CJ into a better player has passed, IMO. The league already knows what he is.

I'm hoping we can break CJ down into more important parts, but that's also unlikely.

I would love to see what CJ could do in a D'Antoni system.

 

[Fairly-Hard]

"look", neil olshey will be full of bs

"At the end of the Day" he always is.

 

[UKRAINEFAN]

I seriously think some of you guys underestimate how easy it is to not be a dick.

I think I do underestimate it, probably because I am a real dick myself, as almost all of my significant others have pointed out.

 

[B-Roy]

not sure what this means.

olshey is by no means without blame for this roster construction but there were tangible improvements made to the personnel that were flat out not used. We kept running the same schemes we did 6 yrs ago.

All this said, i think the ONLY reason Neil is also not fired right now is because of his contract terms vs Terry's making it a harder pill for Jody to swallow than paying Terry to go fishing for a year.

I think both Melo and Kanter are good players that can have roles on other teams BY THEMSELVES, and surrounded by better defenders. As much as I hated Melo I think in the right place he can contribute to a championship team in a limited role. Same with Kanter. Both will also win you games in the regular season against bad teams that cannot expose them defensively.

On this team though, I see no combination of players that would have led to a better result. We could have made the second round, but nothing more, and that's not really an accomplishment considering Denver was missing Murray.

Maybe if he played Nassir more the whole year and Nassir turned into a better player than he looks like at the moment. But no tinkering with lineups with RHJ, DJJ, and Giles would have made us a much better team overall. I'm fairly confident in that statement.

 

[B-Roy]

I think I do underestimate it, probably because I am a real dick myself, as almost all of my significant others have pointed out.

Also, I don't care if the guy is a dick if he's good at producing results. Olshey answers questions like he's Gregg Popovich, except without the 5 rings.

 

[UKRAINEFAN]

What this presser made me think; is that Olshey is not really a big picture guy. Every year he reacts to what happened the year before, instead of having a vision about the kind of team he wants to build.

 

[blazerkor]

if he didn't think Paul George or James Harden were the right pieces, what players would be right?

I saw a huge pivot on CJ today. He has never grouped CJ in with the rest of the roster and he did today. He has always said that CJ was the second superstar with Dame that can win a championship he explicitly said we could use one of those today which means he no longer sees CJ as that. The other thing is he didn't talk CJ up for one second and he talked up Norm a lot. Yep, in the past he wouldn't include CJ but now I think he's open to a lot of things that he wasn't to save his own skin. If he'll throw out Stotts, he'll throw out McCollum.

 

[wizenheimer]

I saw a huge pivot on CJ today. He has never grouped CJ in with the rest of the roster and he did today. He has always said that CJ was the second superstar with Dame that can win a championship he explicitly said we could use one of those today which means he no longer sees CJ as that. The other thing is he didn't talk CJ up for one second and he talked up Norm a lot. Yep, in the past he wouldn't include CJ but now I think he's open to a lot of things that he wasn't to save his own skin. If he'll throw out Stotts, he'll throw out McCollum.

I think it's meaningless

he's an asshole, and a bad GM, but he's not an idiot. He knows CJ played like shit against Denver. And he knows CJ got booed off the floor Thursday night. So he also knew he couldn't come out and give CJ the same kind of cover he always does. He had to include CJ in the possible changes. He had no choice

I don't believe for one second he intends to trade CJ. And if it comes down to a choice between Powell and CJ, which it very well could, he'll take CJ

I predict Olshey will do what he's done before: that is give the new coach no alternative but to play CJ and Simons lots of minutes. And he'll re-sign Zach for too much money and make it hard for Zach not to get lots of minutes

 

[BBert]

Olshey just threw Stotts under the bus.

"I will say that collective thought on the 29th defensive rating was not a product of the roster."

Of course he did. Olshey put together the roster. It MUST be the coaches' fault.

If I had to pick between firing Stotts and firing Olshey, I would have fired Olshey.

 

[B-Roy]

I don't believe for one second he intends to trade CJ. And if it comes down to a choice between Powell and CJ, which it very well could, he'll take CJ

I actually disagree, somewhat. I think if he had the option of just keeping one, and he had to give up the other, it would be Powell. But factors like Powell's free agency and CJ's contract means he's going to be more than likely forced into keeping CJ.

Like you said, he's not an idiot, he saw that Powell was better than CJ.

 

[illmatic99]

I actually disagree, somewhat. I think if he had the option of just keeping one, and he had to give up the other, it would be Powell. But factors like Powell's free agency and CJ's contract means he's going to be more than likely forced into keeping CJ.

Like you said, he's not an idiot, he saw that Powell was better than CJ.

To this point, i think this has to do with roster construction and pairing with Dame more than anything.

I believe Dame + Norman > Dame + CJ. But in a vacuum, CJ > Powell.

And given their contract situations, the value CJ brings back > value Powell brings back.

 

[blazerkor]

I think it's meaningless

he's an asshole, and a bad GM, but he's not an idiot. He knows CJ played like shit against Denver. And he knows CJ got booed off the floor Thursday night. So he also knew he couldn't come out and give CJ the same kind of cover he always does. He had to include CJ in the possible changes. He had no choice

I don't believe for one second he intends to trade CJ. And if it comes down to a choice between Powell and CJ, which it very well could, he'll take CJ

Talking up Norm so much in this press conference was really really stupid if your last sentence is correct. If he wasn't ready to move on CJ and keep Norm then I think he would have said nothing about Norm. Instead Norm was talked about in the press conference more than anyone else... I seriously think that Olshey brought up Norm on his own more times than he brought up Stotts or Dame and he didn't bring up any other person on his own besides Jody Allen and Bert Kolde.

 

[BBert]

"Our trades have been for high impact players: Robert Covington, Jusuf Nurkic, Norman Powell"

He forgot to mention Anderson Varejao, Andrew Nicholson, and Kent Bazemore.

Olshey never tires of self-marketing. Just keep telling everyone how great you are and enough people will believe it. (Not mentioning any names....)

 

[blazerkor]

To this point, i think this has to do with roster construction and pairing with Dame more than anything.

I believe Dame + Norman > Dame + CJ. But in a vacuum, CJ > Powell.

And given their contract situations, the value CJ brings back > value Powell brings back.

If keeping CJ means losing Norm and the best we can get for CJ is Tobias Harris while adding a pick... Norm and Harris is so much better than just CJ that I think even Neil's cocky ass knows he'd have to do it or something like it.

 

[B-Roy]

To this point, i think this has to do with roster construction and pairing with Dame more than anything.

I believe Dame + Norman > Dame + CJ. But in a vacuum, CJ > Powell.

I don't disagree with that. But I also don't think the talent discrepancy in a vacuum is that much in favor of CJ. Maybe just a bit.

There are plenty of teams that would rather have Powell than CJ even if both were being paid 30M per year.

Part of me wants to believe a new coach that holds CJ accountable for dribbling 18 seconds of the shot clock away will actually be able to turn him into a better player. It's wishful thinking, but there is no other positive thoughts I could have about CJ. We are more than likely stuck with him, so I'm hoping for the best...

 

[Wizard Mentor]

"review coaching records, playing records, etc." I wonder if "etc." is "jail records",

 

[illmatic99]

There are plenty of teams that would rather have Powell than CJ even if both were being paid 30M per year.

ya i'd disagree with that.

 

[B-Roy]

ya i'd disagree with that.

That's fair. But I think if you gave any of the eastern championship contenders the option of a 30M bench shooter, they'd take the one with the better defense.

 

[HailBlazers]

What this presser made me think; is that Olshey is not really a big picture guy. Every year he reacts to what happened the year before, instead of having a vision about the kind of team he wants to build.

Having a vision is fine and dandy but this isn't a video game where you can trade for anyone and sign whatever free agent you want.

 

[Labinot41]

• Mike D'Antoni won't be the Coach

• He used to say best Backcourt in the league, not today, but even if he wants to trade CJ, i dont think teams are interested in him. His options are very limited

• to me doesn't seem like he wants to make a big move and he hopes a new coach will fix everything, well we need a big imo

 

[BBert]

I also didn’t get the sense that he believes it’s time to break the backcourt up. Not only that, but he also made it seem like the three guard lineup is here to stay if it were completely up to him.

I thought he said

anyways it’s gonna be Billups and when people ask about the lack of experience he’ll point to his days with the pistons and the defensive squads they had and the championships they won. If one thing olshey is its predictable.

Plus he will have a built in excuse for the team's failures: The coach (not the roster).

 

[Labinot41]

not looking good guys

 

[Scalma]

Maybe I’m just a dick