Post-deadline Olshey Keep or Fire

[Schilly]

One thing that is always interesting to look back on is how are the players who are gone doing now? How are the players he missed on doing now? I lokk back over the list and there are only a couple guys I really think I would want back or wish had signed based on rumored offers. Will Barton, Hasaan Whiteside and maybe Nic Batum... maybe.

 

[Schilly]

Again, if you look back at the board comments in July 2016, there were plenty of people who opined:

A) $70M for Turner was ridiculous, even in the new economy;
B) $75M for Crabbe was unreasonable, even in the new economy;
C) $41M for Meyers made no sense, regardless of what any other team might have offered him;
D) Extending CJ was unnecessary, since we could just as easily max him in RFA summer of 2017.​

If a wide-swath of ignorant message-board geeks could reach several if not all of those conclusions at the time (not solely in hindsight), it's not unreasonable to think that Olshey should have been able to see some of them.

Like I said every GM does make mistakes. I don think the summer of 2016 isn't the best way to evaluate over pays... Were those guys overpaid sure, but it was ahuge leap in cap and Portland isn't remotely the lone team who over paid that year or any other year there was a big leap. Turners is the ugliest, in hindsight, but he also was a 13pt, 6.4reb, 6.5ast guy for Boston .

Locking a player like CJ up with an extension is a far safer thing than letting him have the option of signing a 1 year QO and walking.

 

[kjironman1]

Again, if you look back at the board comments in July 2016, there were plenty of people who opined:

A) $70M for Turner was ridiculous, even in the new economy;
B) $75M for Crabbe was unreasonable, even in the new economy;
C) $41M for Meyers made no sense, regardless of what any other team might have offered him;
D) Extending CJ was unnecessary, since we could just as easily max him in RFA summer of 2017.​

If a wide-swath of ignorant message-board geeks could reach several if not all of those conclusions at the time (not solely in hindsight), it's not unreasonable to think that Olshey should have been able to see some of them.

Kind of????
I will agree on Crabbe. I was one of the people saying let him walk. But i took a bunch of flak for saying it. Lots of people were sure he was gonna break out.
Meyers just had come off a very good playoff series against Marc Gasol. Quite a few people were saying he had finally found his spot and that Aldridge was actually hurting his growth. But i got to agree i thought 10 per year was a bit high.
Turner just came off what everyone considered a 6th man season. He was breaking out and most if not all figured he was gonna be the next nice piece. Trying to say people could see he was going to fizzle is just pure fabrication. I would venture as many as 9 out of 10 were on board with sewing Turner up.
Then there is CJ. If you don't extend CJ you have a problem with him feeling wanted on this team. You know it and so does everyone else. CJ has and still is a huge part of this team. Treating him like they did Leonard would have been wrong. You do not have the locker room you have today if you do not show CJ respect.

 

[Orion Bailey]

Again, if you look back at the board comments in July 2016, there were plenty of people who opined:

A) $70M for Turner was ridiculous, even in the new economy;
B) $75M for Crabbe was unreasonable, even in the new economy;
C) $41M for Meyers made no sense, regardless of what any other team might have offered him;
D) Extending CJ was unnecessary, since we could just as easily max him in RFA summer of 2017.​

If a wide-swath of ignorant message-board geeks could reach several if not all of those conclusions at the time (not solely in hindsight), it's not unreasonable to think that Olshey should have been able to see some of them.

Like I said every GM does make mistakes. I don think the summer of 2016 isn't the best way to evaluate over pays... Were those guys overpaid sure, but it was ahuge leap in cap and Portland isn't remotely the lone team who over paid that year or any other year there was a big leap. Turners is the ugliest, in hindsight, but he also was a 13pt, 6.4reb, 6.5ast guy for Boston .

Locking a player like CJ up with an extension is a far safer thing than letting him have the option of signing a 1 year QO and walking.

Did we sign CJ to the max he could get? I do not believe so. Is there anyone here who thinks we still would have if he went to RFA or would it have been another Crabbe situation, would it not? So locking him up early was actually necessary to not end up giving him the max as well, right?

 

[kjironman1]

That's pretty much three huge responses to that post. Care to come up with more huge mistakes Olshey made that a comment board knew better than to do?
Kind of sounds like the comment board knows what he did was what he was supposed to do to me?

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Did we sign CJ to the max he could get? I do not believe so. Is there anyone here who thinks we still would have if he went to RFA or would it have been another Crabbe situation, would it not? So locking him up early was actually necessary to not end up giving him the max as well, right?

The difference between his extension and the actual max was negligible.

 

[Orion Bailey]

The difference between his extension and the actual max was negligible.

But Meyers for 8 mill a season instead of 10 isnt? Or turner at 14 instead of 18 isnt?

Come on now....

 

[Denny Crane]

We used it to sign albatross Turner and Festus DNPzeli. We did waste the $25M in cap space.

No we didn't waste it.

By definition, we used it. Ezeli turned into ~$7M cap relief. ET, like him or not, started 28 games for us this year and did beat out our starting SF for those games.

 

[Minstrel]

If we didn't sign Turner, CJ's contract extension would pretty much eat up our entire cap space and we'd have wasted that $25M in cap space.

"Wasting cap space" is only relevant for a team that can use cap space efficiently. If the best Portland can do with it is to massively overpay mediocrities like Turner, then cap space isn't an important concept. Instead, the relevant number is "luxury tax space" (or, whenever Allen is willing to pay the tax, "apron space"). That kind of space is useful to have to re-sign the team's own free agents. Like if Vonleh had broken out as a star, the team would really have benefited from having space under the tax line to re-sign him. With Nurkic and Napier needing to be re-signed, it'd be nice to have more room under the tax line or the apron line.

That space wasn't "use it or lose it" unless the team was going to sign correctly-valued helpful free agents. Since they apparently weren't able to do that or capable of doing that, they'd have been better not spending that money and having more flexibility for re-signing their own guys.

 

[Denny Crane]

"Wasting cap space" is only relevant for a team that can use cap space efficiently. If the best Portland can do with it is to massively overpay mediocrities like Turner, then cap space isn't an important concept. Instead, the relevant number is "luxury tax space" (or, whenever Allen is willing to pay the tax, "apron space"). That kind of space is useful to have to re-sign the team's own free agents. Like if Vonleh had broken out as a star, the team would really have benefited from having space under the tax line to re-sign him. With Nurkic and Napier needing to be re-signed, it'd be nice to have more room under the tax line or the apron line.

That space wasn't "use it or lose it" unless the team was going to sign correctly-valued helpful free agents. Since they apparently weren't able to do that or capable of doing that, they'd have been better not spending that money and having more flexibility for re-signing their own guys.

The cap space was used efficiently and expertly.

It was use it or lose it. CJ's contract extension would have kicked in and used it all.

If Vonleh broke out as a star, our #6 or #7 in the power rankings might be #3. I'm reasonably sure NO would pay him next season, pay the tax this season, and even have used the TPE and even our 1st round pick to acquire someone like Tyreke Evans.

Moot point, though. It was in Vonleh's power/hands to make himself indispensable.

 

[AFully22]

OKay, Name a GM who would want to come here that didnt/// fuck up.

Ainge? LMAO....

Again the goal is to get better. So which of the few that didnt fuck up, do you really think wants to be in Portland?

They don’t have to be active GM’s, the most recent GM hires are first timers and have done pretty damn good in their first year. There’s plenty of people out there that can give a fresh look at the roster and prove themselves to be more than adequate. The philosophy behind not firing a guy who made detrimental errors because you don’t immediately know someone who would obviously do better is bad business strategy. Especially when the clock is ticking on your most important business asset.

People have to pay for mistakes for both parties to learn. You can’t be hesitant to make change to a plan with poor trajectory because of perceived unkowns. Imo it has reached the point where remaining status quo negatively outweighs the risk of taking a chance on someone who may or may not have less experience. You have to either make risks or get extremely lucky to win big, being apprehensive and playing it safe will only bring more mediocrity. And personally I’m sick of mediocrity.

 

[Denny Crane]

The math hurts. It is what the CBA is.

If we pay 3 guys ~MAX contracts, we have very little space under the cap and not much else to sign quality players to fill out the rister.

 

[dviss1]

I believe Evan is on record as saying he couldn’t turn down the MONEY and then backtracked, bottom line we overpaid to get him here.

Backtracked on what? Please show evidence that Turner had another contract offer. Until then, using that insinuation as a fact is a failure.

 

[Orion Bailey]

They don’t have to be active GM’s, the most recent GM hires are first timers and have done pretty damn good in their first year. There’s plenty of people out there that can give a fresh look at the roster and prove themselves to be more than adequate. The philosophy behind not firing a guy who made detrimental errors because you don’t immediately know someone who would obviously do better is bad business strategy. Especially when the clock is ticking on your most important business asset.

People have to pay for mistakes for both parties to learn. You can’t be hesitant to make change to a plan with poor trajectory because of perceived unkowns. Imo it has reached the point where remaining status quo negatively outweighs the risk of taking a chance on someone who may or may not have less experience. You have to either make risks or get extremely lucky to win big, being apprehensive and playing it safe will only bring more mediocrity. And personally I’m sick of mediocrity.

Names please........

Obviously everyone knows of these unknowns that would do better than NO, so lets hear some names.....

Its your opinion that he made detrimental errors. That is not a fact based argument, thus not worthy of firing.
But go ahead and let him go for.... who?

 

[kjironman1]

The cap space was used efficiently and expertly.

It was use it or lose it. CJ's contract extension would have kicked in and used it all.

If Vonleh broke out as a star, our #6 or #7 in the power rankings might be #3. I'm reasonably sure NO would pay him next season, pay the tax this season, and even have used the TPE and even our 1st round pick to acquire someone like Tyreke Evans.

Moot point, though. It was in Vonleh's power/hands to make himself indispensable.

I can't agree with this more. You have to be smart in the way you use the space available. Also if Vonleh becomes the player so many people were saying he was gonna become Neil goes all in on the guy. He didn't. Plain and simple. That is not Neil's fault. Blaming the GM for Players that get their chance but don't work out is just crazy talk.

 

[Schilly]

The biggest mistake Neil made was thinking free agents would come to Portland... but would he have been better off re-signing Matthews and Lopez and keeping Batum once Lamarcus left?

 

[kjironman1]

The biggest mistake Neil made was thinking free agents would come to Portland... but would he have been better off re-signing Matthews and Lopez and keeping Batum once Lamarcus left?

I'm still not sure on that either. He still might snag one this coming summer.

 

[lamlor]

Guess it's all in the way you look at things. I would have considered it a fail to NOT try to sign him.

Championships are not built on trying, they are built on succeeding. This isn't a; 'Everybody gets a participation trophy' league.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

But Meyers for 8 mill a season instead of 10 isnt? Or turner at 14 instead of 18 isnt?

Come on now....

Yes, because that negligible difference is less than $800K per year. $4M > $800K

And actually, since we extended him, we gave him 7.5% raises; if we'd waited and simply matched another team's max offer, he'd only have received 5% raises, which would actually have resulted in CJ receiving $4M less over the 4 year life of the contract. So we didn't really gain anything by extending him, except for eliminating the <.05% chance of him signing the QO.

And Meyers isn't a relevant example, because he shouldn't have been re-signed at all.

 

[Denny Crane]

Backtracked on what? Please show evidence that Turner had another contract offer. Until then, using that insinuation as a fact is a failure.

The Blazers had to offer more than the Celtics could. Since he had signed a 2 year deal, he had no bird rights. So they had to make a considerable offer. The knicks also had interest.

https://hardwoodhoudini.com/2016/06/07/celtics-lose-evan-turner-new-york-2/
Could Celtics Lose Evan Turner To New York?



https://www.boston.com/sports/bosto...ny-ainge-says-hed-like-to-re-sign-evan-turner

Danny Ainge says he’d like to re-sign Evan Turner

 

[PtldPlatypus]

The Blazers had to offer more than the Celtics could. Since he had signed a 2 year deal, he had no bird rights. So they had to make a considerable offer. The knicks also had interest.

https://hardwoodhoudini.com/2016/06/07/celtics-lose-evan-turner-new-york-2/
Could Celtics Lose Evan Turner To New York?



https://www.boston.com/sports/bosto...ny-ainge-says-hed-like-to-re-sign-evan-turner

Danny Ainge says he’d like to re-sign Evan Turner

Didn't the Celts sign Horford that summer? Didn't they have to renounce their early-bird rights on Turner to open up that cap-space?

If the Knicks had signed Turner, then we'd probably have been able to sign Courtney Lee, which would have made us much better off, IMO.

 

[Orion Bailey]

The Blazers had to offer more than the Celtics could. Since he had signed a 2 year deal, he had no bird rights. So they had to make a considerable offer. The knicks also had interest.

https://hardwoodhoudini.com/2016/06/07/celtics-lose-evan-turner-new-york-2/
Could Celtics Lose Evan Turner To New York?



https://www.boston.com/sports/bosto...ny-ainge-says-hed-like-to-re-sign-evan-turner

Danny Ainge says he’d like to re-sign Evan Turner

BAM!

 

[Orion Bailey]

Didn't the Celts sign Horford that summer? Didn't they have to renounce their early-bird rights on Turner to open up that cap-space?

Gordon HAyward

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Gordon HAyward

Nope--that was 2017. We're talking about 2016

 

[Denny Crane]

Didn't the Celts sign Horford that summer? Didn't they have to renounce their early-bird rights on Turner to open up that cap-space?

They could re-sign him, regardless. The amount was limited to the point it'd have been a pay cut for him, though. He was seriously underpaid there.

The Blazers intended to sign Parsons and DHoward but both went elsewhere. The Blazers went after Pau Gasol, too. ET wasn't the Blazers' first choice, obviously, but he did sign and he has played and contributed.

Napier's play has turned ET from our 3rd PG into a plain old SF, which isn't really his strength.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

They could re-sign him, regardless. The amount was limited to the point it'd have been a pay cut for him, though. He was seriously underpaid there.

If the Celtics wanting to re-sign him is being introduced as evidence to suggest that the $70M/4y deal was necessary to prevent him from returning to Boston, the limitations on the potential of the Celts' offer invalidates its use in this context. Not that complicated, Denny.

 

[hoopsjock]

The difference between his extension and the actual max was negligible.

Not if another team put in a huge trade kicker.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

Not if another team put in a huge trade kicker.

Talking about value, not ancillary terms. But yes, I'll agree that kind of thing is an item for consideration in making such a decision.

 

[hoopsjock]

The biggest mistake Neil made was thinking free agents would come to Portland... but would he have been better off re-signing Matthews and Lopez and keeping Batum once Lamarcus left?

Actually, Neil has said several times (including right before free agency that year) that he would never have free agency be a big part of building a team in a small market situation like Portland. He puts it into four categories: Draft, Trades, Player Retention, and Free Agency. He puts free agents last and says they are more of a bonus if they signed instead of treating them like a viable option.

 

[AFully22]

Names please........

Obviously everyone knows of these unknowns that would do better than NO, so lets hear some names.....

Its your opinion that he made detrimental errors. That is not a fact based argument, thus not worthy of firing.
But go ahead and let him go for.... who?

The fact that all you need is names means you’ve missed the point completely. But since you asked so nicely....

Troy Weaver
Brian Wright
Chauncey Billups
Tommy Shepard
Austin Ainge
Dave Lewin
Brian Pauga.

All with promising futures and/or have had an integral part in building a contending roster in more ways than one. Troy Weaver will be someone’s GM within the next couple years, might as well be ours.