So let me get this straight: We won't be able to make any trades for contracts nobody wants. Our current young players have reached their ceiling and won't be able to help move the needle in the short team. The youngest team gets even younger while drafting players that could take up to three to four years to develop. We go into next season with essentially the same roster add three kids. Wow! I think the New York Jets will have a better off season.
Yes, that's actually what I am saying. I don't think there is a quick fix for where Portland are at the moment and making panic moves will only add problems instead of solving them. We could witness it last year when we could not get our targets in free agency (thank God Parsons went to Memphis but still) we went to Evan Turner and offered him a crazy contract, which does not help us at all now. A lot of teams fell into the same trap last season and hardly any of those contracts are now considered even mildly realistic: Parsons, Bazemore, Noah, Deng, Mozgov and even flavor of the playoffs Biyombo are all considered trash, impossible to move contracts. Would all these teams prefer to have $20M in cap space available to them this year? Yes, they would.
There are IMO only a select few viable options:
1) Trade for good players who become available due to their team situation and don't necessarily clog the cap space (see Nurkic). Problem with that is that there are few players like that and to get them, you need to offer some sort of value to the other team. We hit the jackpot with Nurkic while offering a player who wasn't really that strong but it won't happen too often. This is however possible and we should exploit that possibility but IMO only if the player we get still has the room to develop and fits my idea of 'let's compete in 3-4 years' project. So Richaun Holmes, not Thad Young.
2) Use draft picks to get prospects that you can develop into something better.
This is a viable option for us because a) we own three of them, b) best prospects available when we are drafting will almost certainly be players in positions which we desperately need to strengthen i.e. small forwards and power forwards. Again, I don't buy the argument that you need 5 years before your young player can play well. We've seen players in the last 3 years making an impact even in their rookie year that would probably elevate us to a new level had it been here. Some of the players who got drafted in 2012-2013 have now been stars for a couple of years or more. If you integrate them properly and they show the potential from the beginning, playing in an environment like Portland where you can get minutes and develop in your best position could quickly unleash the potential in them.
3) Try to flog our high contracts to become a player in free agency and move for players like James Johnson who would maybe consider us. Problem with that is that you would probably need to move 4-5 contracts to do that and you need to find someone who will take those deals. You will also likely find buyers for the better players first, but then could be left with the terrible ones and still no cap space. This is IMO as good as gone opportunity.
4) Try to pretend that players like Crabbe, Turner and Leonard have value across the league and swap them for players who will be more fit for our needs. Again, I doubt this can happen. Crabbe on $8M a year would be easily tradeable. Crabbe at $20M a year is not.
People have come up with solutions like 'trade CJ for PG13' which is basically a one-year rental that could put you in even deeper shit after that year when George inevitably leaves. Unless we manage to truly hit the jackpot, Nurkic like, three times in a row, we won't be competing for championship next year or the year after. It's about putting ourselves in position to compete when it's possible, not making panic moves to maybe get 3-5 more wins next season and then be in even more shit.
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