Rastapopoulos
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I'm going to post this before the draft on purpose, so we can see if people's views change. What do y'alls think of Olshey so far?
Here's my view:
Pros:
Drafted Lillard (qualification: maybe Drummond would've been the better pick. We shall see.)
Traded for Robin Lopez
So: he's responsible for 2/5 of the starters of the best Blazer team in a while.
Cons:
Traded for T-Rob when two teams had given up on him already, and we found out why
Drafted Leonard (looks a lot less bad than it used to, but still, like many other teams, passed on Draymond Green and Khris Middleton)
Drafted CJ (who I like a lot, but) instead of straight up better players like Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert, and players who could actually work well with Lillard, like maybe Steven Adams
Traded for Afflalo (giving up on T-Rob, Will The Thrill (sob!) and Victor Claver - which is okay, because they weren't going to work out, except that 2/3 of them ended up looking a lot better than Afflalo, and he gave up a pick, and possibly committed us to a long term contract)
Mixed bag:
Used our free agent money last summer on Kaman, which looked good at first, then looked bad, but might turn out good in a strictly mentoring capacity
Signed Mo Williams, who hit some big shots and was a nice guy but was also a defensive sieve
I can't remember: we can't pin Felton and Crawford on him, can we?
General impression: he's a bit like Pritchard (even looks like him) in that he's a good-looking glad-hander that you get the impression the awkward Aspie-ish Paul Allen rather admires. He seems to have a soft spot for ex-Clippers and in general people he has connections with from before (Williams, Afflalo, Kaman) even if they're not necessarily the best for us. Values "high character" (which is nice after the Jail Blazer years) but doesn't seem to value defense, except for the Lopez trade (still his high point for me).
He seems to have been careful and incremental and it seems to have worked out fine so far (except for the Afflalo trade, although apparently everybody thinks Afflalo would have been awesome if Wes had stayed healthy, even though one of the few bright spots of the playoffs was CJ's play, which only happened because Afflalo was so useless) but this off season is his biggest challenge, with most of the team free agents.
I could go either way with him. If he pulled off a few more trades like the Lopez trade, where a player was brought in whose effect on the team was far greater than could have been predicted from his stats, then I'm a fan. If he continues to fall in love with good shooters who can't play defense, and we end up watching a parade of layups by the other team, as at the low points in recent years, then I say show him the door. I do not expect to see him trade up for Porzingis, but would consider that a fireable offense.
It's interesting that his major accomplishment in LA was landing Chris Paul. Not really much likelihood of that ever happening in Portland, so the achievement he was hired for is not what he can do for us. He's had to show other skills. Of course, he also signed DeAndre Jordan to a huge contract. A lot of people would probably say that was genius as Jordan has blossomed into a big-name player. However, I continue to believe that Jordan is overrated for everything except rebounding, so that doesn't make me all that happy.
Here's my view:
Pros:
Drafted Lillard (qualification: maybe Drummond would've been the better pick. We shall see.)
Traded for Robin Lopez
So: he's responsible for 2/5 of the starters of the best Blazer team in a while.
Cons:
Traded for T-Rob when two teams had given up on him already, and we found out why
Drafted Leonard (looks a lot less bad than it used to, but still, like many other teams, passed on Draymond Green and Khris Middleton)
Drafted CJ (who I like a lot, but) instead of straight up better players like Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert, and players who could actually work well with Lillard, like maybe Steven Adams
Traded for Afflalo (giving up on T-Rob, Will The Thrill (sob!) and Victor Claver - which is okay, because they weren't going to work out, except that 2/3 of them ended up looking a lot better than Afflalo, and he gave up a pick, and possibly committed us to a long term contract)
Mixed bag:
Used our free agent money last summer on Kaman, which looked good at first, then looked bad, but might turn out good in a strictly mentoring capacity
Signed Mo Williams, who hit some big shots and was a nice guy but was also a defensive sieve
I can't remember: we can't pin Felton and Crawford on him, can we?
General impression: he's a bit like Pritchard (even looks like him) in that he's a good-looking glad-hander that you get the impression the awkward Aspie-ish Paul Allen rather admires. He seems to have a soft spot for ex-Clippers and in general people he has connections with from before (Williams, Afflalo, Kaman) even if they're not necessarily the best for us. Values "high character" (which is nice after the Jail Blazer years) but doesn't seem to value defense, except for the Lopez trade (still his high point for me).
He seems to have been careful and incremental and it seems to have worked out fine so far (except for the Afflalo trade, although apparently everybody thinks Afflalo would have been awesome if Wes had stayed healthy, even though one of the few bright spots of the playoffs was CJ's play, which only happened because Afflalo was so useless) but this off season is his biggest challenge, with most of the team free agents.
I could go either way with him. If he pulled off a few more trades like the Lopez trade, where a player was brought in whose effect on the team was far greater than could have been predicted from his stats, then I'm a fan. If he continues to fall in love with good shooters who can't play defense, and we end up watching a parade of layups by the other team, as at the low points in recent years, then I say show him the door. I do not expect to see him trade up for Porzingis, but would consider that a fireable offense.
It's interesting that his major accomplishment in LA was landing Chris Paul. Not really much likelihood of that ever happening in Portland, so the achievement he was hired for is not what he can do for us. He's had to show other skills. Of course, he also signed DeAndre Jordan to a huge contract. A lot of people would probably say that was genius as Jordan has blossomed into a big-name player. However, I continue to believe that Jordan is overrated for everything except rebounding, so that doesn't make me all that happy.
