Dame - next....
CJ - Gone. Trade him for the best wing player you can find. Success in the league is not from smallish, ball dominant back-courts. End of Story
Ariza - Keep....as long as you have someone else that can keep his minutes under 30. Great 'glue' guy doing the little things.
Mel0 - Gone. We already have a high volume, low efficiency shooter who doesn't play much defense in CJ.
Whiteside - Keep. If he is really willing to split time with Nurk and will do it for around the same contract as Nurkic, then Yes.
Nurkic - Keep...but understand you need a legit backup because he just hasn't been able to stay healthy. Less minutes is better, hence HW.
Hood - Keep. Would be great paired iwth Ariza at SF but he might not ever be the same.
Collins - Keep. The perfect 4/5 to fit with Nurkic/Whiteside and to fill in when there is an inevitable injury.
Ant - Keep. Haven't been impressed with him yet but he is only 20.
Trent - Keep. The possible successor to CJ.
Little - Keep. Getting better everytime he does manage to get a few minutes.
Gabriel - Keep. Amost every time he is on the court, he does something that few if any of our other bigs can do.
Swanigan - Gone. If Biggie is playing, you are not a good team.
Hezonjia - Gone. (See Biggie)
Hoard - Keep. Nice end of the rotation guy.
Brown - Gone. Was hoping to see a little more development out of him this season. Great size but little basketball skill.
the biggest difference I'd have is with the Nurk-Whiteside-Zach rotation at C-PF. Not enough minutes to make it workable long term IMO. I also don't agree that Zach would be the perfect PF. Pascal Siakam, or Bam Abedayo or Jaren Jackson would be much better fits. I worry about Olshey's obvious man-love of Zach and Zach being due for an extension this summer. Another stupid bloated contract on the way?
keeping the young guys makes sense because of cheap rookie scale deals, but Trent will be RFA after next season so a big decision point on him is on the horizon too
and I have no friggin clue why Olshey gave Hezonja a 2 year deal
And you'd rather give up on CJ before exploring what they can do with Terry?
CJ's ceiling I think can be as a top 25 player if he can keep up this sorta efficiency. There is no way you're getting fair value in a move for him. Watching him become an all star in the east would be painful to recover from.
this is CJ's 5th year as the starter, and his 5th year being option 1b. He's not going to sustain this recent 3 game efficiency once Dame comes back. Nearly 400 games together as the starting back court prove that.
Dame puts up stellar numbers too when CJ is out. I think a big reason both do better without the other, statistically, is that Portland actually runs more team offense when one is out vs all the iso ball when it's the
'my-turn-your-turn' tag team they run together. They have no real mesh or synergy that I cans see. But as lead guards there's more assisted baskets for everybody, including them
in the last two games, CJ's usage rates have been 37.4% and 36.1% (Dame's at 30.6% for the year). That's why his production is up, he's simply using more possessions. But the interesting thing is he's still being single covered. Teams are not going out of their way to double, hedge, and trap him like they would with Dame. Obviously, other teams have a belief that CJ won't beat them...
which brings up some numbers CJ fans don't talk about: Portland is 1-3 this year without CJ; and they are 1-4 without Dame. But of course, they are an injured roster with all kinds of issues. However, over the course of the 3 previous seasons, Portland is 8-8 with CJ as lead and Dame is out. But they are 12-2 with Dame as lead and CJ out. That's a big difference. Small sample sizes to be sure but it justifies teams defending CJ normally; and it also justifies all the lengths teams go thru to blanket Dame with their defense
Curry and Monta Ellis had as little synergy as Dame and CJ. But the Warriors had the good sense to break up that back court and go another direction. They backed out of the cul-de-sac that pairing drove them into, and chose another street. I wish Portland would do the same
