Reading Quicks latest article...doesn’t look like there’s going to be any major move, and I actually think it’s the right thing to do.
“We are going to stay disciplined,” Olshey said. “That doesn’t mean we are not going to stay opportunistic, OK? But the bar for how big of an impact somebody has to make to really make an outcome-related impact is higher.”
What does “disciplined” mean, exactly?
“The discipline comes in that the starting lineup next year is Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Rodney Hood, Zach Collins and Jusuf Nurkic,” Olshey said. “And we are going to get there. Now, some of those guys will be back this year, and some won’t. But what we are not going to do is give away long-term assets that can help get this team to where we really want to be — and where we thought we were back in September — for some incremental upgrade today.”
In other words, the Blazers (10-15) are not going to sacrifice their long-term blueprint for a title to save this shipwrecked season.
That doesn’t mean that Olshey is punting on this season, but it’s safe to say the expectations changed sometime between Collins’ separated shoulder in the third game of the season and Hood’s ruptured Achilles last week. Throw in Pau Gasol’s retirement last month after his foot never recovered after surgery, and the Blazers are nowhere near the team they envisioned when they
talked title at their team dinner.
“We are now down three starters,” Olshey said, including center Jusuf Nurkic, who is still rehabilitating from his broken leg. “We are also down our identity. Nobody understands that. We have been an elite rebounding team for the last three years. We were number one in the league in offensive rebounding last year. We take a lot of mid-range jumpers. We rely on jumpers, which is okay if we are cleaning up those points with putbacks — guys like Enes (Kanter), guys like Nurk — real elite rebounders. Hassan (Whiteside) is doing his part, but having only one interior presence to rebound and protect the rim at the level we are accustomed to wasn’t the plan.”
Olshey thought they had enough rebounders — it’s why the team committed to starting the 7-foot Collins at power forward alongside Whiteside — and why they signed Gasol to come off the bench while Nurkic set sights on a midseason return. When Collins and then Gasol went down, Olshey brought in Carmelo Anthony to bolster the frontline.
“But now suddenly we are playing a completely different brand of basketball that we chose to play, and honestly, it was going OK,” Olshey said. “With Melo, we had the sixth-ranked offense and the 20th-ranked defense, which equates to a 47-, 48-win team. Then, Rodney goes down. So the problem now is we are asking everybody, for the most part, to be something they are not. We are asking backups to be starters. We are asking third-string guys to be backups. Guys who were supposed to be in the G League this year developing are trying to play rotation minutes.”
The Blazers do have some tools to make a quick fix. They have two large expiring contracts in Whiteside ($27 million) and Kent Bazemore ($17 million), but dangling those contracts as potential cap space isn’t as enticing to teams in non-destination markets, especially with an unremarkable free-agent class on the horizon.
And while the Blazers have, and will continue to be linked to big-name targets like Kevin Love, Danilo Gallinari, LaMarcus Aldridge and Blake Griffin, remember those players will likely have to include more than an expiring contract and a draft pick. And the sense in talking to Olshey is that Lillard, McCollum and Nurkic are untouchable in trades, and teams would have to make a very aggressive offer for the Blazers to consider moving promising youngsters Anfernee Simons and Collins.
“Yeah, there’s guys on the market,” Olshey said. “But we are not taking one step forward and two steps back.”