RealGM

My Blazers 2013-2014 lineup will be

Damian Lillard, Beno Udrih, Nolan Smith
Wesley Matthews, Archie Goodwin Gary Neal, Elliot Willams
Nic Batum, Kyle Korver, Victor Claver, Will Barton
Lamarcus Aldridge, Joel Freeland
Nicola Pekovic, Meyers Leonards


Whats your thought on my roster predictions?

We won't have the cap space to sign Udrih, Neal, Korver, Smith, Williams and especially Pekovic on top of those players. Also factor in a lottery pick. Keep in mind we didn't pick the options on Babbit, Smith, and Williams so we could get enough cap space to sign a 10 million a year player like Pekovic, and a role player or two.

I have no idea who we'll target, but I would shoot for more depth rather than sign an expensive center.

minnie-sota wrote:My Blazers 2013-2014 lineup will be

Damian Lillard, Beno Udrih, Nolan Smith
Wesley Matthews, Archie Goodwin Gary Neal, Elliot Willams
Nic Batum, Kyle Korver, Victor Claver, Will Barton
Lamarcus Aldridge, Joel Freeland
Nicola Pekovic, Meyers Leonards


Whats your thought on my roster predictions?

Nolan Smith and Elliot Williams will not be on the Blazers next year. Williams a walking injury the likes of which the NBA hasn't seen since Greg Oden (arguably worse considering he's actually played LESS games in the same amount of time that Oden had by this time) and Smith sucks something awful. The Blazers have declined to pick up his options on both players contracts, so the chances they are back with the team are nil imo.

Pekovic won't leave Minnesota. Glen Taylor is a rich enough owner that he'll match anything the Blazers throw at Pek. The only reason for the Blazers to make a play for Pek is to make the TWolves pay more than they want to for him like the TWolves did to Portland with Batum. Outside of the revenge play, he's a waste of the Blazers time.

Also, where is all this FA money coming from for the Blazers to sign; Pek, Neal, Korver and Udrih? The simple answer is they don't have it. If by some off chance the Blazers were able to get Pek, he'll take every penny of FA cap space the Blazers could have. They won't have enough to sign Neal to a contract the Spurs wouldn't match, let alone ALSO signing Korver and Udrih. Even if Korver and Udrih signed vet min deals, the Blazers still wouldn't be able to get Neal considering he's a RFA, so there's no way for them to sign all these players.

All in all, not a very realistic or well thought out lineup if I'm being brutally honest.

Duster,Case I reccomend ignoring minnie-sota. From what I have seen of his posts he is a troll trying to get a reaction. His very first post was one I thought would get him suspended . Here is the thread
http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1216918

Every thread I've seen him in he either makes ridiculous trades involving the Blazers or ridiculous claims involving the Blazers. So please all Blazer fans ignore him and mods please keep an eye on him for trollish behaviour

Here is what I am thinking, just a WAG.

Damian Lillard, Nate Robinson, AJ Price
Wesley Matthews, Will Barton, Elliot Williams
Nic Batum, Victor Claver, Josh Childress
Lamarcus Aldridge, James McAdoo, Joel Freeland
Nene, Meyers Leonard, Jared Jefferies

Nene will be acquirered in a Salary dump lopsided salary trade, using expirings (Hickson, Smith, Babbitt, etc) + two 2nd round picks
Nate Rob, Childress, Williams, and Price sign for lower end veteran deals (Nate's being the best)
Blazers take McAdoo with 10th overall pick as BPA.

Brandon-Clyde wrote:Duster,Case I reccomend ignoring minnie-sota. From what I have seen of his posts he is a troll trying to get a reaction. His very first post was one I thought would get him suspended . Here is the thread
http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1216918

Every thread I've seen him in he either makes ridiculous trades involving the Blazers or ridiculous claims involving the Blazers. So please all Blazer fans ignore him and mods please keep an eye on him for trollish behaviour

From what I can tell, he is a Minnesota fan that only posts to get a reaction out of Blazer fans. An odd reason to have an account as far as I can tell...

I'm a Blazer fan s%*^t face.


Nobody respond to this post. It is being dealt with. If you respond to it, we will have to deal with you, as well so let's not go there.

Thanks,

DVM

BLAZERS

minnie-sota wrote:I'm a Blazer fan s%*^t face.

Oh really?

minnie-sota on Thu Dec 06, 2012 6:10 pm

I'm a timberwolves fan.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1218346

So are you Guyfawkes as well or does that troll account(as opposed to this troll account) belong to someone else?

4/10 try harder

fishnc wrote:4/10 try harder

Have to agree with the King of the Trolls, Master of the One Eyed Tar Heels, my man fishnc here.

Soulyss wrote:
Nene will be acquirered in a Salary dump lopsided salary trade, using expirings (Hickson, Smith, Babbitt, etc) + two 2nd round picks

That's an interesting idea. Depending on his health that would certainly be something to consider.

Village Idiot wrote:

Soulyss wrote:
Nene will be acquirered in a Salary dump lopsided salary trade, using expirings (Hickson, Smith, Babbitt, etc) + two 2nd round picks

That's an interesting idea. Depending on his health that would certainly be something to consider.

Yeah for this one the more I thought about it the more it made sense, Blazers take a little risk with Nene's health and contract (3 @ 13 or so left) but get the ideal pairing for LMA. Nice thing is with Meyers you can keep Nene's minutes down to 28-29 a game reducing the risk further. Plus he's only 30 which means the contract shouldn't be too bad through age 33 at which point LMA will be 30 and we'll be looking for the next Big anyhow.

Soulyss wrote:

Village Idiot wrote:

Soulyss wrote:
Nene will be acquirered in a Salary dump lopsided salary trade, using expirings (Hickson, Smith, Babbitt, etc) + two 2nd round picks

That's an interesting idea. Depending on his health that would certainly be something to consider.

Yeah for this one the more I thought about it the more it made sense, Blazers take a little risk with Nene's health and contract (3 @ 13 or so left) but get the ideal pairing for LMA. Nice thing is with Meyers you can keep Nene's minutes down to 28-29 a game reducing the risk further. Plus he's only 30 which means the contract shouldn't be too bad through age 33 at which point LMA will be 30 and we'll be looking for the next Big anyhow.

if you count this season, Nene actually has a 4-year/52-million deal.

That's a pretty large contract to commit too, and I really question whether the Blazers would do that considering Nene's health issues. My guess is that Nene may even have an un-insured contract.

it would also really lock Portland into a pretty inflexible siuation. Next season, the Blazers would have about 46 million in guaranteed salary to just 4 players, Aldridge-Nene-Batum-Matthews. The year after it would be 49 million. Add in the guaranteed deals of Lillard-Leonard-Freland-Claver-Barton & the Blazers would have little room to operate under the luxury tax threshold.

I also have to wonder what kind of production Portland would 'buy' with that expensive roster...

essentially, they'd be exchanging Hickson at 4 million for Nene at 13 million. But, would Nene actually make the Blazers a lot better if that was the case right now?

here's a comparison of Hickson this season to Nene last season (since nene has only played 5 games this year):

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=hilarne01&y1=2012&p2=hicksjj01&y2=2013

I had some preconceived ideas of what I'd find before I made the comparison. That being that Nene would be better on offense, but a worse rebounder. It seems that's pretty close to the reality

Nene is probably about an average post defender. Certainly, he's better then Hickson, so that's a mark in his favor. But he's not anything close to a lock-down defender, nor is he a shot-blocker.

on the other hand, Nene is not a good rebounder and my thinking is that rebounding would be a weakness with an Aldridge/Nene pairing. After all, Nene's career TRB% is 13.5% compared to Aldridge at 13.1%. So, while the Blazers would be buying marginally better defense and some better offense, they'd be weakening their rebounding profile. And we know that rebounding is an achilles heel for the Blazers

Last season, Nene had an on-court/off-court differential of a -0.8. In other words, Denver was slightly better with him on the bench then on the floor. This season, Hickson has a differential of +2.5. Portland is better with Hickson on the floor then not. Obviously, last year's Nuggets and this year's Blazers are two different teams, but the apparent fact that Nene didn't make the Nuggets better has to make you wonder about what he brings to a team. It could be an outlier though because the previous two seasons, Nene was +4.7 & +5.1. Or, it could also be that the injuries are catching up to Nene

In any event, my take is that Nene would not make Portland much better this season. They'd still be likely headed to the lottery. It's really hard for me to see a positive in a lottery team having a payroll for the next 3 years to be locked in OVER the salary cap and just under the tax threshold

I think adding Nene would be folly. A bad move. But who knows, the Blazers seemed eager to add Hibbert and I think that would have been a major, long-term mistake. So, my thinking probably does not match that of Blazer management.

Interesting comparison Wiz. I would have thought Nene's numbers were a lot higher than that. Nene is a bit bigger, but JJ's numbers are nearly as good. I'll take JJ at $4 million before I consider Nene at $13 for another 3 years (after this season).

What's funny is the Wizard fans would probably curse us with profanities if we offered that deal on the T&T board.


Nene's, at best, average defense and weak rebounding would be a bad fit with Aldridge. Cant even spread the floor that well. No interest in spending big money on him, even if the trade proposed is pretty cheap.

What do you guys think about Pachulia? I've always kinda overlooked him, but he can rebound and probably won't cost us an arm and a leg.

kdawg32086 wrote:What do you guys think about Pachulia? I've always kinda overlooked him, but he can rebound and probably won't cost us an arm and a leg.

I think he's worth considering, assuming he could be had for less then an MLE

I also think that unless/until the Blazers have somehow landed at least one more talented player, that the addition of somebody like Zaza would only serve to make Portland's draft pick worse. Zaza seems like the type of player you use an exception on rather then cap-space

by that I mean, what's better...Pachulia locked in at 4-5 million a year for 4 years?...or players like Jason Collins, Ryan Hollins, or Earl Barron signed for a 1 year vet's minimum deal?
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by the way, I really think Pekovic is getting seriously overrated. I'd hate to see the Blazers make a big run at him, for several reasons

I like Pekovic, but I wouldn't throw the bank at him. Can Minnesota afford to throw the bank at him? I wonder what he could realistically be had for (IF he were to leave Minny-land)?

Wizenheimer wrote:by the way, I really think Pekovic is getting seriously overrated. I'd hate to see the Blazers make a big run at him, for several reasons

Defense namely?

Rubio is the only reason he had a break out season IMO. Granted, I've liked the guy as a cheap bench player from a while back when his value was pretty low, but I'm pretty sure I've also said I don't think he is a starter on a highly competitive team.

A great player to have as a back up though, he can change the pace of the game with his offensive rebounding.