Quick: Offseason plans

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illmatic99 said:
prolly nothing but some guy on the comments in blazers edge hinting at a 3 way w/ philly, and us ending up with siakam and george hill for CJ + DJ + picks.

I'd like to remind everyone that dame started following Siakam on twitter a few weeks ago, even though Pascal has been inactive for a while now.
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What do you mean by hint..
 
illmatic99 said:
prolly nothing but some guy on the comments in blazers edge hinting at a 3 way w/ philly, and us ending up with siakam and george hill for CJ + DJ + picks.

I'd like to remind everyone that dame started following Siakam on twitter a few weeks ago, even though Pascal has been inactive for a while now.
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I was really high on Siakam.... but I'm starting to come around more to just getting Simmons if it's possible. He's younger and I think he has a higher ceiling.
 
illmatic99 said:
prolly nothing but some guy on the comments in blazers edge hinting at a 3 way w/ philly, and us ending up with siakam and george hill for CJ + DJ + picks.

I'd like to remind everyone that dame started following Siakam on twitter a few weeks ago, even though Pascal has been inactive for a while now.
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I would love that, even Hill would be a good add.
 
Scalma said:
For nearly a decade, Neil Olshey has been making the decisions that shape the Trail Blazers’ roster, and never has he been faced with a more critical time than this summer.

Olshey has had two summit meetings with franchise star Damian Lillard this summer — a three-hour tete-a-tete June 19 at the team’s practice facility and a Las Vegas meeting on July 16 that included new coach Chauncey Billups. Historically, Lillard and Olshey have always had an open line of communication, and this summer has been no different.

In no uncertain terms, during the long meetings and back-and-forth text messages, Lillard has informed Olshey he wants upgrades to the Blazers’ roster. Lillard literally lost sleep over the Blazers’ first-round loss to Denver this season, and he wasn’t sure everyone else in the organization was as pained as he is. So he wants Olshey to surround him with better players, and more of them.

Since Lillard became the franchise player in 2015, he has periodically delivered similar messages to Olshey. But this time, it is clear Lillard is more urgent, illustrated in part by his decision to do so publicly. And as Lillard has noted, he is now 31 and racing against time, which has intensified his thirst for a title.

Lillard last week shot down a published rumor that he would ask for a trade in “the coming days.” That denial came during a media availability for Team USA after a practice in Las Vegas, hours before he would meet with Olshey and Billups. While Lillard made the trade-request denial, and said his intentions and heart were on staying in Portland, he stopped short of committing to Portland, where he is under contract for three more seasons, with a player option for a fourth. Lillard said he hasn’t made any “firm decisions on what my future will be.”

Within the Blazers — both on the business side and the basketball side — Lillard’s call for accountability and action has been met with the appropriate alarm. No one yet is convinced he will request a trade, and as one executive put it, “I don’t think he wants to leave. He has built an empire here. But we have to assume he is leaving to make sure he is not leaving.”

The franchise losing the best player — and person — who has ever donned the pinwheel logo is a fear within the halls of the Trail Blazers that has never been more real. Lillard wants to see meaningful improvement, which means the Blazers need to transition from being good to being great.

But what does that look like? A blockbuster trade? An overhaul of the roster? A key free agent signing? A move into next week’s draft, where the Blazers have no picks?

Here is a look at what Olshey and the Blazers are facing as the offseason officially begins next week with the July 29 draft, followed by the opening of free agency on Aug. 2.

JULY 29 — THE NBA DRAFT
The Blazers do not own a pick in the 2021 draft, the first round pick (No. 23 overall) traded to Houston last summer to acquire Robert Covington and the second round pick traded to Cleveland in 2019 to acquire Rodney Hood.

Teams are calling the Blazers and asking for CJ McCollum, and in return offering Portland a chance to get into the top part of the draft. But Portland is not entertaining those offers because they are in a win-now phase, and looking for veterans more than rookies to build around.

However, the Blazers are expected to try and buy their way into a second round pick to bolster a thin stable of youngsters that consists of Anfernee Simons, Nassir Little and CJ Elleby. Historically under Olshey, the Blazers have flourished in the second round, drafting players such as Will Barton, Gary Trent Jr., Pat Connaughton, Allen Crabbe, and Jake Layman, all who became NBA starters.

AUG. 2 — FREE AGENCY
The Blazers’ top free agent priority is re-signing Norman Powell, whom they acquired at last season’s trade deadline. The emphasis on retaining Powell comes from data that shows the starting lineup of Lillard, McCollum, Powell, Covington and Jusuf Nurkic last season had the NBA’s fourth best net rating among starters, behind Brooklyn, the Clippers and Philadelphia.

Although Olshey has never publicly admitted it, he knows he failed last season in not recognizing a bench centered around Carmelo Anthony and Enes Kanter was fatally flawed from a defensive standpoint. If he can secure Powell, it is believed Olshey will turn his free agent attention to deepening the bench with long, rangy players who can play multiple positions and easily switch which players they can guard on possessions. A wrench in the plan to reconstruct the bench is that Olshey will have to invest in a backup center now that Zach Collins has undergone his third ankle surgery in 10 months.

If Powell signs with Portland — which is far from guaranteed — the Blazers will have the tax-payer mid-level exception ($6 million). If Powell signs with another team, the Blazers will have the full mid-level ($9.3 million) to spend. During the same trip of the Lillard summit in Las Vegas, Billups met with Powell — who lives in Las Vegas — and communicated his vision to the wing. The hope is the hiring of Billups, who is a uniter and communicator, will inspire Powell to consider a deal in Portland, where Powell was part of the NBA’s best offense during his 28 games.

Whether the Blazers have the full mid-level or tax-payer mid-level, it’s a limited crop in which to improve the bench. At wing, the Blazers could parse a free agent field that includes Nic Batum, Tony Snell, Alec Burks, Bobby Portis, Reggie Bullock, Otto Porter Jr., and Torrey Craig. At center, there is Nerlens Noel, Daniel Theis, and Willie Cauley-Stein.

Because the Blazers don’t have significant money to lure a free agent, and because Portland isn’t a destination city because of the lifestyle, market and income tax, there are limited — if not non-existent — avenues for Portland to appease Lillard through free agent moves. Last summer, the Blazers with the full-mid level pursued Serge Ibaka, Marc Gasol and Paul Millsap — only to finish as runner ups to the Clippers (Ibaka), Lakers (Gasol) and Denver (Millsap). The Blazers ended up signing Derrick Jones Jr., beating out Minnesota, Sacramento and Memphis for his services.

TRADES
This is where Portland has the greatest chance to improve quickly, but history shows that Olshey is more likely to get aggressive at the midseason trade deadline than during the summer.

Olshey isn’t adverse to summer trades — it’s when he’s acquired Covington, Robin Lopez, Hassan Whiteside, Kent Bazemore and Mason Plumlee – but his impact moves have come at the mid-season deadline, when he has landed the likes of Nurkic, Hood and Powell.

Will Lillard’s urging tempt Olshey to be less conservative this summer?

It likely depends on what McCollum can garner on the trade market.

McCollum likely isn’t enticing enough to pry Ben Simmons from Philadelphia, even though their salaries virtually match. Olshey is known to be close friends with Daryl Morey, his counterpart in Philadelphia, but that friendship won’t be a factor whether Morey considers a McCollum-based offer, even if the pot is sweetened with young players like Anfernee Simons or Nassir Little.

The aim for Portland is to elevate its number two player, which currently is McCollum. In the NBA, teams are largely based around two star players. The Blazers feel like with Lillard, it’s a fair fight against nearly every other top player in the league. But while McCollum is a talented player, they have realized there’s a steep drop when pitting him against other team’s second-best players like Anthony Davis, Paul George, Klay Thompson and after his recent finals run, Khris Middleton.

So if Portland can’t improve its number two player, the focus shifts to upgrading the third, fourth and fifth best players in hopes that the sum of the Blazers’ parts can swing the pendulum in their favor.

It’s not an encouraging landscape for significant change, as it appears Portland is headed toward having the same starting lineup with a different supporting cast. It has undertones of the summer of 2018, in the aftermath of third-seeded Portland being swept by sixth-seeded New Orleans. Amid the clamor for massive changes, the Blazers mostly stayed the course, and reached the Western Conference finals the next season for the first time in 19 seasons.

There appears to be an inclination to run this group back again, with Billups holding the defensive reins more tightly than Terry Stotts, and seeing what a full season of Powell — should he return — could look like.

Running back the same starting lineup may not align with what Lillard was envisioning, but it’s easy to forget the Blazers (42-30) finished tied with the fifth best record in the West, and the eighth best record in the NBA, despite McCollum missing 25 games because of a broken foot and Nurkic missing 35 games with a broken wrist and strained calf.

McCollum was having his best season at the time of his injury, which included a marked improvement in defense (according to cleaningtheglass.com McCollum finished in the 88th percentile of players in defensive points per possession). Paired with Powell, who finished in the 93rd percentile in defensive points per possession, Nurkic (97th percentile) and Covington (78th percentile), the Blazers are banking on improved coaching to tie the defense together. (Lillard, by the way, was in the 14th percentile in defensive points per possession, while Carmelo Anthony was in the 11th, Enes Kanter 23rd, Anfernee Simons 32nd and Nassir Little fifth).

Playing the patience card is a dangerous game for Portland, especially with Lillard’s unrest, but while the outside world is fixated on the word “change” for Portland, the operative word inside the Blazers’ offices is “improvement.”

In the coming weeks, it will be up to Olshey to determine how closely those two words align. The future of the franchise, and perhaps the heart of the franchise player, depend on it.
https://theathletic.com/2723147/202...ement-needed-to-meet-damian-lillards-desires/
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Replacing Stotts is already a big improvement
 
South East said:
If Minnesota would consider a big haul for Kat making it a 3 team trade with a guaranteed top 3 pick would look very attractive. This would set them up to build off a Edwards.

Portland
Out - CJ, Nurk, 22 1st, 24 1st
In - KAT, Love

Minn
Out - KAT
In - Nurk, 3rd pick, 22 1st, 24 1st

Clev
Out - Love, 3rd pick
In - CJ
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KAT and Love? Worst defensive front line in NBA history
 
blazers dont necessarily need another all-star, they need better supporting cast and better coaching

when you have dame/cj/powell/roco/nurk (if powell re-signs), you can seriously hurt anyone offensively, but not with terry stotts offense (lol), thats why you need to be versatile and this team can do that

well coached team that is well constructed can do wonders, so lets see if neil olshey can do exactly that and hope that billups can take this team to the next level (in theory, he sounds like the right guy for the job)
 
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damianlillard said:
Yet he’s not committed to staying for long term. This is Neil last chance at creating a championship type roster. Heck neil shouldn’t even be here but here we are
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As he shouldn't be, if the team isn't willing to do what it takes to be legit contenders.

What Dame is doing right now is good. It's forcing the organization to be more competitive.
 
Mr. Robot said:
blazers dont necessarily need another all-star, they need better supporting cast and better coaching

when you have dame/cj/powell/roco/nurk (if powell re-signs), you can seriously hurt anyone offensively, but not with terry stotts ofense (lol), thats why you need to be versatile and this team can do that

well coached team that is well constructed can do wonders, so lets see if neil olshey can do exactly that and hope that billups can take this team to the next level (in theory, he sounds like the right guy for the job)
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Totally agree. Strengthening the bench is a MUST. And players holding each other accountable is of the utmost importance. Tenacity from the bench would be an awesome add. I mention Josh Hart. If the Blazers added him in a sign & trade, he fits that mode. The Blazers need a little MEAN. People mention Dame and his improved defense in the Olympic exhibitions . He's always had glimmers of it. But he needs to commit more to it during the NBA season. That means his teammates can't be bricking shots off his passes. HELLO NURK. Finishing by everyone not named Dame will be expected, not hoped for. Winning is a mindset. And as Dame says, EVERYONE needs to up their game. Front Office, Coaches, Players, and Support Staff. We shall see. But it's too early to crap on this team's potential.
 
tykendo said:
Totally agree. Strengthening the bench is a MUST. And players holding each other accountable is of the utmost importance. Tenacity from the bench would be an awesome add. I mention Josh Hart. If the Blazers added him in a sign & trade, he fits that mode. The Blazers need a little MEAN. People mention Dame and his improved defense in the Olympic exhibitions . He's always had glimmers of it. But he needs to commit more to it during the NBA season. That means his teammates can't be bricking shots off his passes. HELLO NURK. Finishing by everyone not named Dame will be expected, not hoped for. Winning is a mindset. And as Dame says, EVERYONE needs to up their game. Front Office, Coaches, Players, and Support Staff. We shall see. But it's too early to crap on this team's potential.
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well, the trio of Dame-CJ-Nurkic are now 3-13 in the playoff games and 0-3 in playoff series. Maybe a better supporting cast would have turned around one of those series, but it wouldn't have made Portland a contender

and it sure doesn't look like Portland has the flexibility to keep the top-end of the rotation together and significantly upgrade the rest of the rotation. Dame-CJ-Nurkic + Powell + RoCo just got whipped by a Denver team missing their 2nd best player

Short of a major roster overhaul, or a dramatic change in the top of the rotation, I don't see any potential to be excited about. And until he proves me wrong, I remain completely unconvinced Olshey will do what it takes to change that situation
 
blazers needs to follow what phoenix suns and utah jazz did, simple as that, just replicate that shit (what their players, coaches & front office did)

if dame played on these teams instead booker & mitchell, im not sure hed be unhappy... that should be doable, if not, well, fuck them all, from top to bottom

@wizenheimer do you like suns & jazz and do you think blazers can do the same, cause it doesnt look to me like they did some unbelievable job, rather a well planned one
 
Mr. Robot said:
blazers needs to follow what phoenix suns and utah jazz did, simple as that, just replicate that shit (what their players, coaches & front office did)

if dame played on these teams instead booker & mitchell, im not sure hed be unhappy... that should be doable, if not, well, fuck them all, from top to bottom

@wizenheimer do you like suns & jazz and do you think blazers can do the same, cause it doesnt look to me like they did some unbelievable job, rather a well planned one
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That seems to be the impasse right there. Over Neil's tenure, I'm not sure I would ever call his leadership 'well planned'.

I don't disagree with the sentiment.... I just don't think Olshey is able to pull that off.
 
Mr. Robot said:
blazers needs to follow what phoenix suns and utah jazz did, simple as that, just replicate that shit (what their players, coaches & front office did)

if dame played on these teams instead booker & mitchell, im not sure hed be unhappy... that should be doable, if not, well, fuck them all, from top to bottom

@wizenheimer do you like suns & jazz and do you think blazers can do the same, cause it doesnt look to me like they did some unbelievable job, rather a well planned one
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All Utah did was hit on draft choices, and all Phoenix did was hit on lottery draft choices. It’s not a hard plan to follow
 
wizenheimer said:
well, the trio of Dame-CJ-Nurkic are now 3-13 in the playoff games and 0-3 in playoff series. Maybe a better supporting cast would have turned around one of those series, but it wouldn't have made Portland a contender

and it sure doesn't look like Portland has the flexibility to keep the top-end of the rotation together and significantly upgrade the rest of the rotation. Dame-CJ-Nurkic + Powell + RoCo just got whipped by a Denver team missing their 2nd best player

Short of a major roster overhaul, or a dramatic change in the top of the rotation, I don't see any potential to be excited about. And until he proves me wrong, I remain completely unconvinced Olshey will do what it takes to change that situation
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I'm not gonna deal in absolutes. Especially in sports. You can be a juggernaut on paper, and half way through the season a key injury dooms your team. We don't know who will win it all next year. We can only hope we make enough key moves, and improve, to compete. A little luck staying healthy is also welcome. But i'm not gonna crap on this team's chances. I have hope. And no matter what, I'm a Blazer Believer, FOREVER!
 
Mr. Robot said:
blazers dont necessarily need another all-star, they need better supporting cast and better coaching

when you have dame/cj/powell/roco/nurk (if powell re-signs), you can seriously hurt anyone offensively, but not with terry stotts offense (lol), thats why you need to be versatile and this team can do that

well coached team that is well constructed can do wonders, so lets see if neil olshey can do exactly that and hope that billups can take this team to the next level (in theory, he sounds like the right guy for the job)
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This team doesn't have problems with scoring there problem is stopping the other team in scoring.
 
Internally, team sources view a lot of the reported offers floated around the league as transparent attempts to lower Simmons' trade value below where it actually is. The Sixers are uninterested in packages returning multiple role players and picks in exchange for Simmons, according to a source familiar with the situation. As one specific example, a source told PhillyVoice the Sixers would not even entertain a discussion with the Sacramento Kings save for the inclusion of guard De'Aaron Fox in a potential deal, which they view simply as a starting point for talks.
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https://www.phillyvoice.com/sixers-...en-simmons-offers-damian-lillard-deaaron-fox/
 
James lamphear said:
This team doesn't have problems with scoring there problem is stopping the other team in scoring.
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they had problems with scoring when they didnt make shots as they had no "plan b", thats all coaching... but yeah, our starting five have really good scoring potential

neil olshey needs to work his magic and bring better defensive personnel, and it starts with not bringing kanter and carmelo back

getting nerlens noel would be a home run, but i think hell get more than blazers can offer
 
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