Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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Phalanx
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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Superstar max-contract recipients Lillard and McCollum go a combined 9 of 34 from the field with 9 turnovers and 2 assists vs. Golden State tonight. Crabbe, after promising to get more aggressive, goes 3 of 10 for 6 points. Evan Turner was 2 for 7 for five points. Those four players represent just under $86,000,000 on next year's payroll. The salary cap for next year is estimated at around $102 million. Add another $10 million for Myers Leonard (two points tonight) and you're almost there just with those five players (remembering that Varejao counts at close to $2milllion against the cap for the next four years as well).

Maybe Olshey dug this ridiculous hole on purpose to show how great he is at getting out of it. It doesn't make any sense to me.

P.S. Napier took only six shots and scored 10.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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your ideas are so outside the norm -- not a single GM in the association would have let lillard or 3J walk away, everyone would have signed them to those deals -- it's kind of hard to respond to, honestly.

i get the frustration with many of the other deals (turner, crabbe, meyers).
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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And when CJ/Dame aren't playing good, it ain't even close.

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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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oregontrack wrote:your ideas are so outside the norm -- not a single GM in the association would have let lillard or 3J walk away, everyone would have signed them to those deals -- it's kind of hard to respond to, honestly.

i get the frustration with many of the other deals (turner, crabbe, meyers).
Which part of my post are you responding to, the part where i stated what each player scored last night, or the part where I cited what they will be making next year?

P.S. You have no idea what other GM's would have done. All you know is that every GM but one is paying their team less, and the one paying more won the championship last year. Next year, the Blazers will be the highest paid team in the association, and they will still struggle to finish in the top half of the league.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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we sure do know what other GM's would have done. we have 30 years of free agency history to tell us that everybody locks up their talented young franchise point guard. for a team that cannot attract talent, you don't throw away young all stars when they fall to you in the draft and want to be here.

like i said, i can live with all your criticisms save the ones you go after extending lillard and 3J. i share many of those same criticisms. i criticize olshey for TRYING (and thankfully failing) to offer a max to chandler parsons. but balking at 3J and especially lillard is absurd to the point of lunacy.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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oregontrack wrote:we sure do know what other GM's would have done. we have 30 years of free agency history to tell us that everybody locks up their talented young franchise point guard. for a team that cannot attract talent, you don't throw away young all stars when they fall to you in the draft and want to be here.

like i said, i can live with all your criticisms save the ones you go after extending lillard and 3J. i share many of those same criticisms. i criticize olshey for TRYING (and thankfully failing) to offer a max to chandler parsons. but balking at 3J and especially lillard is absurd to the point of lunacy.
:lol:

It doesn't make any difference to me whether or not you can live in reality. The reality is that a number of players are better than both Lillard and McCollum with smaller contracts. This fact shows that there are GM's doing a better job than Olshey distributing cap room. Once again, your position, complete with the insults, will always be undermined by the fact that the Blazers have the 2nd highest payroll, highest next year, but they aren't close to contending. They have a higher payroll than the team that is currently making mincemeat of them in the playoffs! That is the real lunacy.

If these guys suddenly become giant slayers and take the league by storm, I will happily eat my words. I don't think it will happen, however. In fact, I would bet money it won't. The only way out of this is to get rid of some of these players and their ridiculous salaries. You can argue about it for more pages if you want. You are still wrong, as you have been all season.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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Phalanx wrote:
oregontrack wrote:we sure do know what other GM's would have done. we have 30 years of free agency history to tell us that everybody locks up their talented young franchise point guard. for a team that cannot attract talent, you don't throw away young all stars when they fall to you in the draft and want to be here.

like i said, i can live with all your criticisms save the ones you go after extending lillard and 3J. i share many of those same criticisms. i criticize olshey for TRYING (and thankfully failing) to offer a max to chandler parsons. but balking at 3J and especially lillard is absurd to the point of lunacy.
:lol:

It doesn't make any difference to me whether or not you can live in reality. The reality is that a number of players are better than both Lillard and McCollum with smaller contracts. This fact shows that there are GM's doing a better job than Olshey distributing cap room. Once again, your position, complete with the insults, will always be undermined by the fact that the Blazers have the 2nd highest payroll, highest next year, but they aren't close to contending. They have a higher payroll than the team that is currently making mincemeat of them in the playoffs! That is the real lunacy.

If these guys suddenly become giant slayers and take the league by storm, I will happily eat my words. I don't think it will happen, however. In fact, I would bet money it won't. The only way out of this is to get rid of some of these players and their ridiculous salaries. You can argue about it for more pages if you want. You are still wrong, as you have been all season.
but my position is not that the blazers have managed the cap well. once again, we agree on that. this team is loaded with unfriendly, bloated contracts. i've listed several. i merely disagree that lillard and 3J are among them. that's where you're being ridiculously critical to the point of absurdity. a poor GM (which I believe olshey is) can still manage to do something right, especially when that "something right" falls in the no-brainer category like re-signing your young, all star point guard.

you even use bad examples to make points i still agree with. there are a LOT of GM's out there better than olshey at distributing cap room, but players better than lillard or 3J making less money doesn't show that. 3J signed his deal after the new CBA came into effect. he signed a maximum extension, and a maximum extension now is worth more than a max extension under the old deal. other teams and players will catch up as new contracts are handed out. certain teams hit the lottery -- like golden state, the team currently making mincemeat out of us in the playoffs. steph curry is on one of the great team-friendly deals in nba history because when he was up for his extension they were worried about his ankles being made of glass. his market was limited and nobody was going to offer him a max deal. his injury concerns turned out to be nothing, and he's won two MVPs while being the 5th/6th highest paid player on his team. draymond green believed in what they were doing in GSW and i believe he took less money to stay put -- unless the 5th year gsw was able to offer made it a wash. not sure. klay thompson signed his max extension in, like, 2014, prior to the new cba. it's the same basic structure as 3J's, but because klay was eligible for his extension by way of coming into the league several years prior to 3J, it looks pretty nice compared to the new, bloated salary cap teams have to work with. in summary: golden state would not be able to re-sign all these guys again unless they all agreed to take drastic pay cuts. it's a new cba world, and you're comparing apples to oranges.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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oregontrack wrote: but my position is not that the blazers have managed the cap well. once again, we agree on that. this team is loaded with unfriendly, bloated contracts. i've listed several. i merely disagree that lillard and 3J are among them. that's where you're being ridiculously critical to the point of absurdity. a poor GM (which I believe olshey is) can still manage to do something right, especially when that "something right" falls in the no-brainer category like re-signing your young, all star point guard.

you even use bad examples to make points i still agree with. there are a LOT of GM's out there better than olshey at distributing cap room, but players better than lillard or 3J making less money doesn't show that. 3J signed his deal after the new CBA came into effect. he signed a maximum extension, and a maximum extension now is worth more than a max extension under the old deal. other teams and players will catch up as new contracts are handed out. certain teams hit the lottery -- like golden state, the team currently making mincemeat out of us in the playoffs. steph curry is on one of the great team-friendly deals in nba history because when he was up for his extension they were worried about his ankles being made of glass. his market was limited and nobody was going to offer him a max deal. his injury concerns turned out to be nothing, and he's won two MVPs while being the 5th/6th highest paid player on his team. draymond green believed in what they were doing in GSW and i believe he took less money to stay put -- unless the 5th year gsw was able to offer made it a wash. not sure. klay thompson signed his max extension in, like, 2014, prior to the new cba. it's the same basic structure as 3J's, but because klay was eligible for his extension by way of coming into the league several years prior to 3J, it looks pretty nice compared to the new, bloated salary cap teams have to work with. in summary: golden state would not be able to re-sign all these guys again unless they all agreed to take drastic pay cuts. it's a new cba world, and you're comparing apples to oranges.
I read this post and I feel like we are making progress. Last November, you were sure that every signing was on the money except possibly Evan Turner. Now, at least you are admitting that there are 'unfriendly, bloated contracts.' I'm not sure how many seasons of mediocre basketball it will take to get you the rest of the way. Possibly you will never admit that neither Lillard or especially McCollum fail to play up to their contracts or that their max deals are an anchor around the Blazers' collective necks. You won't look at the 50% of the cap those two contracts eat up, instead you will blame the other 50% for not being able to pay three starters and an entire bench. You will blame smaller contracts like Leonard's or Aminu's for not providing the defense that Lillard and McCollum lack. When Nurkic's contract comes up and they can't re-sign him, leaving a gaping hole in the post like the one we see now, you will continue to assume that it's because 'no free agent ever comes to Portland' and miss that we had the guy here, but had no money to pay him, even though he loves it here. Maybe you will still think the highest payroll in the league is somehow a function of timing and completely miss that every team is subject to the same cap rules and salary restrictions. Who knows. In any case, I don't have time to keep explaining it to you. We can agree to disagree, and maybe we can both hope for the same magical trade that alleviates all of these problems and brings in an amazing power forward who can score and make up for Lillard's terrible defense, all on a tiny contract. I guess with three draft picks, there is always a chance.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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a lot of made-up narrative there amidst the dodging and weaving. i accept your apology, though i award you no points.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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Oct 31:
oregontrack wrote:
i have reservations about the evan turner signing, as he can't space the floor and demands the ball to be effective, and we've already got ball handlers like lillard and mccollum. the plus side is that stotts can really experiment with turner in a point-forward role, and if there's anyone who can get that to work, it's stotts. i don't really even mind the crabbe signing anymore. he's good, he's effective, he plays well in this system. we'll never sign a big outside FA, might as well spend the money on our own.

i don't think we overpaid for anyone else.
Today:
oregontrack wrote: my position is not that the blazers have managed the cap well. once again, we agree on that. this team is loaded with unfriendly, bloated contracts.
Me on Nov 3:
Phalanx wrote: When they were hungry, it was easier to overachieve. Now that they have their contracts, I think it very likely we will see them settling into that 8th seed sweet spot where teams go to die. With the 19th pick every year and a limited ability to trade thanks to their new luxury tax status, the Blazers are pretty much stuck in mediocrity and far less interesting than they were last year.
I do apologize for saying 19th pick. If we hadn't thrown that last game, it would have been 18th, but instead we got 15th. I was way off; sorry about that.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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i conceded that the moment i went back and read our exchange from last year, which is why i've been agreeing with you on the larger issue of bloated contracts this whole time (over the past week). i hate meyers leonard; i've hated him from the moment we drafted him. everything about him bugs me. if i didn't take the time to gleefully slam him, and bash olshey for not kicking his ass to the curb, i was not communicating clearly or thoroughly and since that's not your fault, i dropped that entire part of the argument when this started back up. i still don't MIND crabbe and harkless' deals as much as you do, but i can live with simple disagreement. honestly, i consider whiffing on the opportunity to slam leonard's contract unforgivable. i award myself no points.

basically, at this point, i'm merely taken aback at the finer points of your thoughts on lillard and mccollum. i can think of no GM who wouldn't have re-signed them for the deals that they got; no franchise that would let them walk; no precedent or comparable players or scenarios in which i can take your argument and go, "ok, okay."
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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oregontrack wrote:i conceded that the moment i went back and read our exchange from last year, which is why i've been agreeing with you on the larger issue of bloated contracts this whole time (over the past week). i hate meyers leonard; i've hated him from the moment we drafted him. everything about him bugs me. if i didn't take the time to gleefully slam him, and bash olshey for not kicking his ass to the curb, i was not communicating clearly or thoroughly and since that's not your fault, i dropped that entire part of the argument when this started back up. i still don't MIND crabbe and harkless' deals as much as you do, but i can live with simple disagreement. honestly, i consider whiffing on the opportunity to slam leonard's contract unforgivable. i award myself no points.

basically, at this point, i'm merely taken aback at the finer points of your thoughts on lillard and mccollum. i can think of no GM who wouldn't have re-signed them for the deals that they got; no franchise that would let them walk; no precedent or comparable players or scenarios in which i can take your argument and go, "ok, okay."
You were saying something a bit ago about 'dodging and weaving'. I didn't understand what you meant, but I think I have a better idea now. Thanks for the examples. :lol:

It seems like you think the 'I can think of no GM who wouldn't have signed Lillard and McCollum for the exact amounts that Olshey did' argument is really good - you keep repeating it. It really isn't an argument at all though, unless you have quotes from all of the GMs...or any of them. Actually, it's a pretty worthless argument - there is no evidence for it at all. Have you ever spoken to even one GM? So how do you know what they would do?

I have never advocated for 'letting them walk' in any case. My argument was to pay them less, and my evidence is that there are already better players on other teams making less. SI has Lillard ranked #20 and McCollum ranked #50 in the league. That means there are quite a few better players making less...a LOT of them in McCollum's case, although possibly his ranking will change next year, since we are talking about his salary next year. I somehow doubt he will be significantly higher. Hollinger's PER rating has Lillard at 16 and McCollum at 46.

I'll tell you what: if you can provide some links to quotes from GM's stating that they were ready to pay Lillard and McCollum what they are making with the Blazers, I will consider it. In Lillard's case, I'm not even sure it's possible for another team to pay him that much, but I will wait for your links.

A max contract is a phenomenon that inherently puts a team behind the 8-ball because 25% of the cap is paid to one player on a team with 12-15 players. It can work if that one player is a superstar who brings it every night. The problem with Lillard and McCollum is that they aren't superstars, and they don't play well every night. In fact, they have quite a few nights where they put up stinkers, and pretty much EVERY night they play poor defensively. So picking those two guys to pay half the cap to makes a deficit for the rest of the team and gives every other team in the league an advantage. I feel pretty safe in saying the Blazers will never win a championship, or even be considered a contender, while Lillard, McCollum, Crabbe, and Evans are here and making that much. That fact is a bummer for any Blazer fan. Getting rocked in the first round of the playoffs every year is not exactly an exciting outcome for most fans.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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Phalanx wrote:It seems like you think the 'I can think of no GM who wouldn't have signed Lillard and McCollum for the exact amounts that Olshey did' argument is really good - you keep repeating it. It really isn't an argument at all though, unless you have quotes from all of the GMs...or any of them. Actually, it's a pretty worthless argument - there is no evidence for it at all. Have you ever spoken to even one GM? So how do you know what they would do?
do you disagree that the wolves will extend karl anthony towns to a max deal prior to his rookie contract expiring? not to speak for you, but probably not. because you're a functioning adult with eyes, you're able to come to this conclusion without exchanging text messages with the minnesota GM. as i asked previously, show me where a team has not offered a max contract to a young franchise point guard who made two AS teams and two All NBA teams on his rookie deal.
I have never advocated for 'letting them walk' in any case. My argument was to pay them less,
ah, and alienate your best players and make portland a TRUE pariah for future free agents. i see. so just to throw some round money figures out there, let's say that *just* about any team with cap space would be willing to sign lillard for the same 4/80 that we lost aldridge for when he took the spurs deal. this year, lillard made $24 (it rises annually, yes). your argument is to go to your best player and say "we don't feel you're worth that extra money you'd be owed via retaining rights and the rose rule, so we're going to sign you for the same 4/80 you can get anywhere. but please, don't consider this a slap in the face and think of us for your continued playing needs." you think short changing a young star is going to get him to re-sign?
and my evidence is that there are already better players on other teams making less. SI has Lillard ranked #20 and McCollum ranked #50 in the league. That means there are quite a few better players making less...a LOT of them in McCollum's case, although possibly his ranking will change next year, since we are talking about his salary next year. I somehow doubt he will be significantly higher. Hollinger's PER rating has Lillard at 16 and McCollum at 46.
this is an odd statement, especially considering you follow it with this:
A max contract is a phenomenon that inherently puts a team behind the 8-ball because 25% of the cap is paid to one player on a team with 12-15 players. It can work if that one player is a superstar who brings it every night. The problem with Lillard and McCollum is that they aren't superstars, and they don't play well every night. In fact, they have quite a few nights where they put up stinkers, and pretty much EVERY night they play poor defensively. So picking those two guys to pay half the cap to makes a deficit for the rest of the team and gives every other team in the league an advantage. I feel pretty safe in saying the Blazers will never win a championship, or even be considered a contender, while Lillard, McCollum, Crabbe, and Evans are here and making that much. That fact is a bummer for any Blazer fan. Getting rocked in the first round of the playoffs every year is not exactly an exciting outcome for most fans.
http://www.espn.com/blog/statsinfo/post ... -rose-rule

that's *part* of the reason why lillard makes so much money. he's good. he's acquired accolades. teams looking to sign him have to pay for that.

another reason is, of course, the very reason you touch on in your last paragraph -- which you, for some reason, ignore in the paragraph above. you seem to understand how the max works (a % of a team's cap) but then you question why lillard makes more than some better players despite knowing full well that those better players signed max deals under a SIGNIFICANTLY smaller cap. 25-30% (depending on incentives like the rose rule) of $92 mil is greater than 25-30% of $72 mil -- we agree on that? so, yes. lillard makes more than some players who are better than him. so does al horford, who signed a mega extension this past summer. the common denominator is that both lillard and horford signed max deals under a larger cap. isn't the cap projected to be above $100 this next offseason? don't look now, some budding young star is about to make more than james harden.

i'm having fun but if you're bored we can always agree to disagree and complain about meyers leonard together.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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Is this thread about the blazers or a 2 person bitchfest? Geez us. I think some people argue just to argue.

On a side note ...what is Jim paxson doing nowadays?
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers Thread

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for the record if this thread (and The Other Guys forum) wasn't mostly a graveyard i wouldn't have taken the time. i get bored at work, but i don't mean to distract others if anything was actually going on here.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION YOUNG MAN. pick a side and pick up a sword.
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