Wizenheimer wrote:JasonStern wrote:And there might be some truth to Paul Allen pushing Olshey into making certain moves or drafting certain players, making him seem worse than he actually is.
Paul Allen wasn't pushing Olshey when Olshey traded for Bazemore; or when Tolliver was signed; or when Hezonja was signed. Those deals look a lot like most of the dumbass moves Portland has made in Olshey's tenure
PA didn't make Olshey say Meyers Leonard could be an all-star; or say that Simons was the most gifted player he'd ever drafted.
it was always funny how Olshey apologists wanted to blame PA for the bad moves Portland made with Olshey in charge....how PA was '
micro-managing' the Blazers. The irony is if PA was responsible for the bad moves, he was also responsible for the good moves.
You know I'm not an Olshey apologist. But it's not unreasonable to believe that Paul Allen was pretty hands-on as an owner, and that might have affected some of the moves made. Be it not trading young talent for fear of another Jermaine O'Neal situation, or going "all-in" a bit early in 2016. And given his love of the game and health issues, I don't blame him there. And I have no problem giving ownership credit for the good moves.
But at the same point, you make it seem like Olshey has made no good moves during his tenure. That narrative is inherently inaccurate. Throw enough darts at the board, something is bound to stick.
So the three crippling moves in 2016 were Crabbe, Ezili, and Turner. Crabbe was young and coming off a good season. The Nets had no picks, no talent, but plenty of cap space. I see why they made that offer. And I understand why Portland, that had given up assets to get the pick used to draft Crabbe and then spent years developing him, didn't want to let him walk for nothing.
But that's where the Ezili and Turner moves get rather questionable. We're pre-Nurkić, so I see why going after a "center of the future" seemed like a good idea. But Ezili was given nearly $10M a season despite being a 7ppg/5rpg big that was already injured coming into a franchise that has had zero success with injury prone bigs. The move was incredibly high risk at the time and it clearly didn't pan out.
And then there's Turner. We all know the story about how Portland overpaid so high that Turner thought he was getting pranked. Seriously think about that. Now look at the offense Stotts wants to run and look at the Blazers' roster at the time. Those rookie scale contracts would, over the course of those contracts, start coming off of the books. And the declining payment contracts of Davis and Aminu, as well played as they were, were role player level contracts.
And then you had Batum. I get why Batum was traded. It was the end of the Aldridge era. Batum was about to get paid. He's been one of the worst contracts for a while now. But he was still young enough to be a part of this Lillard core. While his individual contract could be argued as the second worst behind Ezili, is overpaying Batum really worse than Crabbe, Ezili, and Turner? Overpays are only bad if you do something better with the cap space. And I'm not sure Portland did anything better than a 15ppg/5rpg/5apg defensive wing.
So this is where I put the blame entirely on Olshey. If you did one of the three Crabbe/Ezili/Turner moves, then worst case you have a bad contract that you can maneuver around. You aren't stretching players. You aren't using second round picks to get rid of players. Your core at the time was young enough that you had time before truly contending, and you could be patient before making a big-splash move. Going all-in bringing in a Blake Griffin/Kevin Love or simply eating an Andre Drummond contract is a bad idea. And yet the ceiling for such a move would have still been so much higher than Crabbe/Ezili/Turner.
So even if Paul was pushing for making a move and doing something, the GM still is responsible for providing ownership with "here's what's available", and if what's available is Crabbe/Ezili/Turner, then as a GM, you need to be able to convince ownership why doing nothing is probably better than doing something.
But I don't think Olshey had a bad 2019 off-season. Did as good of a job as one could expect given the situation he was in and the assets he had available. But that doesn't exempt him from the fact that he got himself into that situation in the first place.
---
I liked the Bazermore trade. We had three years of seeing that Evan Turner did not fit in Stotts' offense. Instead, he traded a player that needed the ball in his hands to be effective for a lower usage shooter. And when that didn't pan out, Bazemore became the salary filler in an Ariza+Gabriel+Swanigan trade. If Gabriel pans out long-term, even in a limited backup role, the Blazers won that trade. And his bubble performance showed that's not unrealistic.
If the roster had remained healthy, Tolliver and Hezonja wouldn't, or at least shouldn't, be getting minutes. They were also minimum contracts, and it's not like there are a lot of great players for the minimum that were lining up to sign with Portland had they not signed Tolliver and Hezonja.
We've seen enough Olshey reclamation projects to understand why he took a flyer on Hezonja. But the second year player option is looking like it's going to haunt me for another year. Not understanding the point of that. I guess for Early Bird rights, but then why not make it a team option? If he was worth retaining, then he wouldn't pick up the option, so the Early Bird rights would be useless. I can't imagine there being a number of teams that Portland was competing with to sign him. Just seems like the Blazers got played by his agent there...
Meyers Leonard is the first Blazers era Olshey pick to make the Finals. So there's that.