Rank the Blazers youngins

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Tince said:
I wonder how many non-title contending teams have a worse group of young players than the Blazers. I bet its a small list.
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I am not sure it even matters. We seem to go through this exercise about every 2-3 years guessing which young team based on their young talent has the best future, and most of those teams never stay together nor get anything in trades that make them title contenders. And who are the title contenders right now? I count about 26 teams who are not. And for those who will reply "well they are closer than we are" I say bull shit, things change quickly. (injuries and salary cap being the biggest factor)

We have 8 players on the team who are currently 22 or younger. (Collins being one of those) We only need around 3 (maybe 4) of those to contribute. The others are there for development purposes only. We will probably substitute two of those out for another 2 after the draft. Plus you have Nurk who is only 25. This team has decent young talent.
 
Pinwheel1 said:
I am not sure it even matters. We seem to go through this exercise about every 2-3 years guessing which young team based on their young talent has the best future, and most of those teams never stay together nor get anything in trades that make them title contenders. And who are the title contenders right now? I count about 26 teams who are not. And for those who will reply "well they are closer than we are" I say bull shit, things change quickly. (injuries and salary cap being the biggest factor)

We have 8 players on the team who are currently 22 or younger. (Collins being one of those) We only need around 3 (maybe 4) of those to contribute. The others are there for development purposes only. We will probably substitute two of those out for another 2 after the draft. Plus you have Nurk who is only 25. This team has decent young talent.
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Good stuff. Would be interesting to go back and look at which teams we thought had the best group of young talent and assests a couple years ago.

We've had Roy and LMA has pillars of hope 13-14 years ago. We had Dame and CJ 7-8 years ago as a strong base to build around. What young players do people think are on the roster down that will be leading the team 5 years from now?

Maybe we don't have that, so then what do we do? Sign high quality free agents? Do we have cap space and can we attract top free agents to Portland? Maybe we have to trade for those top tier players. What assests do we have that are on good contracts that could get us those types of players?

Seems to me we're in a tough position and if I had to forecast 4-5 years out, I'm not sure I would say we're in a better position than most.
 
Tince said:
I wonder how many non-title contending teams have a worse group of young players than the Blazers. I bet its a small list.
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The blazers aren’t a non title contending team. When’s the last time they were in the lottery?
 
Scalma said:
The blazers aren’t a non title contending team. When’s the last time they were in the lottery?
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I think I agree with you. We haven't been a title contending team this season. Now I can argue that our injuries have been a big reason why we haven't been a contender. If we had avoided all of our catastrophic injuries this season and made most of the moves that we made (signing Melo and trading away Skal being the two I would not see being made) we would have a team just as good, if not better than last season's team (who made it to the WCF, so were contenders). The rotation would look something like Dame, CJ, Hood, Collins, Whiteside, Ariza, Trent, Skal and Simons with Nurk being in that rotation by the playoffs. I think that's a better team than the Nuggets and Jazz and would be a tough out for the Clippers, Lakers and Bucks.

If you say that we weren't contenders last year because the Warriors swept us then I would have to strongly disagree with you. LeBron's Cavs that got swept by the Spurs in the 2007 Finals were contenders. A sweep doesn't negate that a team had a chance to win it all and I think making the final four shows you had a very good chance.
 
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Tince said:
June 2020.
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A team that hasn’t missed the playoffs (and if they miss it this year it’ll primarily be because of injuries) in seven years not having a stable of young talent isn’t much of a take. And despite that Olshey still drafts better than most. Trent for example is better than some of the guys taken in the lottery.
 
I suppose I'm on an island in actually liking a lot of what I have seen of Simons on the defensive end, especially given his age, and his path to the league.
I'd rank mine similar to a few of the others...
Simons - I think only one with star or semi-star potential. Semi-star being like a CJ type player. I remind those that have shit all over him this year to dig up the 2nd year CJ thread where everyone hated him. And then remember there's a 3 year age gap between the two. I still think he could be a better player than CJ currently is, and he looks to have grown a little, IMO.

Trent - Also super young, and gives a lot of us shades of Wes. He definitely projects to be at worst a solid 3&D player. It's unfortunate that often times, guys initially pegged with that just get assumptions made that they somehow can't develop beyond that. Like, we peg him as Wes, but what's stopping him from projecting to Klay?

Little and Gabriel probably a mix at the 3 and 4 spot. Similar yet different.

Hoard...meh

Moses Brown just looks like a career D-leaguer/overseas guy to me. So lost
 
Scalma said:
A team that hasn’t missed the playoffs (and if they miss it this year it’ll primarily be because of injuries) in seven years not having a stable of young talent isn’t much of a take. And despite that Olshey still drafts better than most. Trent for example is better than some of the guys taken in the lottery.
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I agree with your first point. My June 2020 was a joke (kinda). Though if fully healthy, I don't see how this group has a legit shot at an NBA title.

What are you basing your "Olshey still drafts better than most" comment off of?
 
Tince said:
What are you basing your "Olshey still drafts better than most" comment off of?
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The fact that the large majority of his picks are at least rotation players in the league. He really only has one bust on his record in Portland. Its pretty much the same story if you go even further back to his clipper days.
 
Scalma said:
The fact that the large majority of his picks are at least rotation players in the league. He really only has one bust on his record in Portland. Its pretty much the same story if you go even further back to his clipper days.
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I am not a big Neil fan, in fact I think Id be on the other side, but I think he’s done fairly well in the draft.
 
Scalma said:
The fact that the large majority of his picks are at least rotation players in the league. He really only has one bust on his record in Portland. Its pretty much the same story if you go even further back to his clipper days.
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I don't think he's a horrible GM when it comes to the draft, but here is a list of the picks I believe he's made:

Pick Name
8 Al-Farouq Aminu
54 Willie Warren
37 Trey Tompkins
47 Travis Leslie
6 Dame Lillard
11 Meyers Leonard
40 Will Barton
10 CJ McCullom
31 Allen Crabbe
39 Jeff Withey
40 Marko Todorovic
10 Zach Collins
26 Caleb Swanigan
24 Anfernee Simons
37 Gary Trent
25 Nassir Little
 
Tince said:
I don't think he's a horrible GM when it comes to the draft, but here is a list of the picks I believe he's made:

Pick Name
8 Al-Farouq Aminu
54 Willie Warren
37 Trey Tompkins
47 Travis Leslie
6 Dame Lillard
11 Meyers Leonard
40 Will Barton
10 CJ McCullom
31 Allen Crabbe
39 Jeff Withey
40 Marko Todorovic
10 Zach Collins
26 Caleb Swanigan
24 Anfernee Simons
37 Gary Trent
25 Nassir Little
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exactly? He also drafted Eric Bledsoe, Blake Griffin, and deandre Jordan btw. Also missing Connaughton.
 
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Scalma said:
exactly? He also drafted Eric Bledsoe, Blake Griffin, and deandre Jordan btw. Also missing Connaughton.
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Good catch. I knew there were some missing. I was using this site, but it's not always easy to tell. https://www.basketball-reference.com/executives/olshene99x.html

It seems to me, after Dame (which by many accounts was already Portland's #1 target when he arrived), he's drafted 1 starter and 4-5 role players in 11 picks. Tough to compare GM's given all the variables, but I'm assuming there are plenty of other GMs who can match that resume considering there are 150 starters in the league.
 
Tince said:
Good catch. I knew there were some missing. I was using this site, but it's not always easy to tell. https://www.basketball-reference.com/executives/olshene99x.html

It seems to me, after Dame (which by many accounts was already Portland's #1 target when he arrived), he's drafted 1 starter and 4-5 role players in 11 picks. Tough to compare GM's given all the variables, but I'm assuming there are plenty of other GMs who can match that resume considering there are 150 starters in the league.
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Id like to hear some names and then we can compare. I’d put Olsheys draft resume up against most GMs.

btw missed Layman as well.
 
Scalma said:
Id like to hear some names and then we can compare. I’d put Olsheys draft resume up against most GMs.
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Fair enough. I'll try to find a couple GMs with a similar tenure to him.
 
Tince said:
Fair enough. I'll try to find a couple GMs with a similar tenure to him.
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  1. Sam Presti, Thunder (GM/executive VP): June 7, 2007
  2. Bob Myers, Warriors (GM/president): April 24, 2012
  3. Neil Olshey, Trail Blazers (president): June 4, 2012
  4. Dennis Lindsey, Jazz (GM): August 7, 2012
  5. Masai Ujiri, Raptors (president): May 31, 2013
 
Tince said:
I don't think he's a horrible GM when it comes to the draft, but here is a list of the picks I believe he's made:

Pick Name
8 Al-Farouq Aminu
54 Willie Warren
37 Trey Tompkins
47 Travis Leslie
6 Dame Lillard
11 Meyers Leonard
40 Will Barton
10 CJ McCullom
31 Allen Crabbe
39 Jeff Withey
40 Marko Todorovic
10 Zach Collins
26 Caleb Swanigan
24 Anfernee Simons
37 Gary Trent
25 Nassir Little
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12 picks as Blazer GM. 2 are currently making a significant contribution for Portland. Give him .5 for Trent. His 3rd best Blazer pick is now in Denver....is that a "+" or a "-"? Every other guy on that list is either a flop or a "project."

That might be OK for a big market team that makes major trades and can sign FAs - for a small market team that needs to do well in the draft it just isn't good enough.
 
Well the only one i really know of is Dame’s boy, but i don't think he is quite old enough to rank yet. I do expect him to be playing high school varsity by fourth grade though.
 
oldmangrouch said:
12 picks as Blazer GM. 2 are currently making a significant contribution for Portland. Give him .5 for Trent. His 3rd best Blazer pick is now in Denver....is that a "+" or a "-"? Every other guy on that list is either a flop or a "project."

That might be OK for a big market team that makes major trades and can sign FAs - for a small market team that needs to do well in the draft it just isn't good enough.
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In my opinion you can't really blame Olshey for Zach's injury. That's 3 of 5 starters he's drafted if healthy.
 
hoopsjock said:
In my opinion you can't really blame Olshey for Zach's injury. That's 3 of 5 starters he's drafted if healthy.
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I agree with you on this. We don't know if Zach is an up and coming star, a solid starter, or if he's not good enough to be a full time starter. Would've been great to find that out this year.
 
hoopsjock said:
In my opinion you can't really blame Olshey for Zach's injury. That's 3 of 5 starters he's drafted if healthy.
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Fair enough. I would split the difference and give him a .5 as he has not established himself as a starter.
 
hoopsjock said:
Yeah, I'd put it as more of a TBD. Olshey did think enough of him to clear a path for him to be a starter.
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Of course, Olshey also cleared a path for Simons to be our primary backup guard and gushed over his talent. Guess when the overall experience level is low you pick some guys and throw 'em in with the sharks and see how they do.
 
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