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https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/34176737/gary-payton-ii-finalizing-multi-year-deal-portland-trail-blazers-agent-says

Personally, I love this signing. We are going to have a much better defensive team next year.

He a very tough and good defender, more Chauncy guys. We do have a big logjam at guard, seems maybe a trade or two coming

Blazinaway wrote:He a very tough and good defender, more Chauncy guys. We do have a big logjam at guard, seems maybe a trade or two coming

If we see Hart as a SF - which I think we almost certainly do - then there really isnt a logjam.

BlazersBroncos wrote:

Blazinaway wrote:He a very tough and good defender, more Chauncy guys. We do have a big logjam at guard, seems maybe a trade or two coming

If we see Hart as a SF - which I think we almost certainly do - then there really isnt a logjam.

Dame/Payton
Ant/Sharpe
Hart/Little

That is a very solid bench and having a defensive Payton and offensive Sharpe coming off the bench, isn't bad at all.

Like the player and the money is decent, but we have a lot invested in the backcourt, let's try filling in the frontcourt and center position!

Yeah Hart needs to either be traded or play SF. Hart + Winslow for G Hayward and 2 future picks makes sense. GP3 is going to need minutes in the backcourt so we need to make that move soon. Maybe Oubre instead?

Maybe Hart and Winslow
4
Oubre + Mark Williams?

I seem to remember the Blazers working him out back in 2016. I'm surprised he went undrafted, especially being a 6'3" guard during the Olshey era.

Goldbum wrote:Yeah Hart needs to either be traded or play SF. Hart + Winslow for G Hayward and 2 future picks makes sense. GP3 is going to need minutes in the backcourt so we need to make that move soon. Maybe Oubre instead?

Maybe Hart and Winslow
4
Oubre + Mark Williams?

Oubre is an inch taller than Hart and nearly 15lbs smaller. And sucks.

I would love to move Bledsoe, Winslow and filler for Hayward - but think that ship sailed when Miles decided to ruin his career.

JasonStern wrote:

Read on Twitter

Cool.

elias808 wrote:

JasonStern wrote:

Read on Twitter

Cool.

Portland ought to pick up Kenyon Martin Jr from Houston...

Payton is an unorthodox player who can disrupt an opposing offense with his defense and hustle

he's also a 29 year old 6'2 guard who has no PG skills at all who has only averaged 14 minutes, 5 points, and 3 rebounds over a 6 year career; and who had never played 30 games in a season before last season. Portland is paying 9.3M/year for that

worse, in my view, is that what is extremely obvious, and that Cronin explicitly talked about, is Portland's need to get much bigger & longer at wing. So they move from 6'7 RoCo to weak rebounding 6'8 Grant, then add 6'4.25 Sharpe and 6'2 Payton. That's not getting bigger and longer

worse yet is that they hard-capped themselves by signing Payton to that deal....meaning that those two remaining TPE's of 6.6M and 3.3M were made essentially worthless because of the Payton signing. That's a lot to sacrifice for a 'limited-tool-box-29-year-old-6'2"-one-year-wonder'

possibly the only silver lining to all this is that when an opposing player is ripping Portland with his offense, the Blazers will have Payton, Hart, and Winslow as defensive stoppers. They haven't had that kind of perimeter defense in the Dame era

Wizenheimer wrote:Payton is an unorthodox player who can disrupt an opposing offense with his defense and hustle

he's also a 29 year old 6'2 guard who has no PG skills at all who has only averaged 14 minutes, 5 points, and 3 rebounds over a 6 year career; and who had never played 30 games in a season before last season. Portland is paying 9.3M/year for that

worse, in my view, is that what is extremely obvious, and that Cronin explicitly talked about, is Portland's need to get much bigger & longer at wing. So they move from 6'7 RoCo to weak rebounding 6'8 Grant, then add 6'4.25 Sharpe and 6'2 Payton. That's not getting bigger and longer

worse yet is that they hard-capped themselves by signing Payton to that deal....meaning that those two remaining TPE's of 6.6M and 3.3M were made essentially worthless because of the Payton signing. That's a lot to sacrifice for a 'limited-tool-box-29-year-old-6'2"-one-year-wonder'

possibly the only silver lining to all this is that when an opposing player is ripping Portland with his offense, the Blazers will have Payton, Hart, and Winslow as defensive stoppers. They haven't had that kind of perimeter defense in the Dame era

I wish I didn't agree but I do. Payton was a bizarre signing. The Payton /Smart/Dort archtype made a huge appearance in this year's playoffs, feels like we over reacted paying him all that money. Payton + Simons is getting paid a combined CJ sized cap hit.
.

Wizenheimer wrote:Payton is an unorthodox player who can disrupt an opposing offense with his defense and hustle

he's also a 29 year old 6'2 guard who has no PG skills at all who has only averaged 14 minutes, 5 points, and 3 rebounds over a 6 year career; and who had never played 30 games in a season before last season. Portland is paying 9.3M/year for that

worse, in my view, is that what is extremely obvious, and that Cronin explicitly talked about, is Portland's need to get much bigger & longer at wing. So they move from 6'7 RoCo to weak rebounding 6'8 Grant, then add 6'4.25 Sharpe and 6'2 Payton. That's not getting bigger and longer

worse yet is that they hard-capped themselves by signing Payton to that deal....meaning that those two remaining TPE's of 6.6M and 3.3M were made essentially worthless because of the Payton signing. That's a lot to sacrifice for a 'limited-tool-box-29-year-old-6'2"-one-year-wonder'

possibly the only silver lining to all this is that when an opposing player is ripping Portland with his offense, the Blazers will have Payton, Hart, and Winslow as defensive stoppers. They haven't had that kind of perimeter defense in the Dame era

Payton, Hart, Nas, Winslow, Grant are all above average to good defenders. I wouldn’t be stunned to see them on the floor at the same time when we purely need a defensive stop to close out a game.

I thought they’d be planning on using GP2 for the majority of the minutes when one of Dame & Simons aren’t on the floor with Hart covering whatever is left. That’s probably around 20-24 minutes per game for GP. He’s been shooting a lot better recently as well. We’ll need that to continue if he’s going to be a meaningful rotation player.

There’s no denying he was important to the warriors playoff run but even then he averaged 17 mpg. I don’t like the price we paid from both a cost or flexibility stand point. Seems like those resources were much needed elsewhere.

I had Hart playing 30 minutes a game at SG with Ant playing 18 and 12 backing up Dame.
Maybe we push 15 minutes a game out of Josh at the 3 making more time for GP2 at SG. Then it's Nas playing 22 at SF and 8 left over for Sharpe...IDK

Goldbum wrote:

Wizenheimer wrote:Payton is an unorthodox player who can disrupt an opposing offense with his defense and hustle

he's also a 29 year old 6'2 guard who has no PG skills at all who has only averaged 14 minutes, 5 points, and 3 rebounds over a 6 year career; and who had never played 30 games in a season before last season. Portland is paying 9.3M/year for that

worse, in my view, is that what is extremely obvious, and that Cronin explicitly talked about, is Portland's need to get much bigger & longer at wing. So they move from 6'7 RoCo to weak rebounding 6'8 Grant, then add 6'4.25 Sharpe and 6'2 Payton. That's not getting bigger and longer

worse yet is that they hard-capped themselves by signing Payton to that deal....meaning that those two remaining TPE's of 6.6M and 3.3M were made essentially worthless because of the Payton signing. That's a lot to sacrifice for a 'limited-tool-box-29-year-old-6'2"-one-year-wonder'

possibly the only silver lining to all this is that when an opposing player is ripping Portland with his offense, the Blazers will have Payton, Hart, and Winslow as defensive stoppers. They haven't had that kind of perimeter defense in the Dame era

I wish I didn't agree but I do. Payton was a bizarre signing. The Payton /Smart/Dort archtype made a huge appearance in this year's playoffs, feels like we over reacted paying him all that money. Payton + Simons is getting paid a combined CJ sized cap hit.
.

Warriors fans wanted him back, hoped he'd get a good payday at least.

Yeah first half of last season he was amazing, could guard good SFs for stretches. He was very effective against Demar when the Bulls played at Chase Center.

But he got injured and he wasn't finishing like he was in the first half when they were throwing him lobs in traffic and he'd dunk over people.

In the playoffs he had very good games in the Finals. However, Jalen Brown just shot over him or bulled through him for layups.

So maybe the league has scouted him better.

He's a good story though, was about to give up on basketball, applied with the Warriors to be their video coordinator before he won a roster spot over Avery Bradley just before the start of the season.

Obviously never made serious money but now he should be secure.

I'll root for him except of course when playing against the Warriors.

Wizenheimer wrote:Payton is an unorthodox player who can disrupt an opposing offense with his defense and hustle

he's also a 29 year old 6'2 guard who has no PG skills at all who has only averaged 14 minutes, 5 points, and 3 rebounds over a 6 year career; and who had never played 30 games in a season before last season. Portland is paying 9.3M/year for that

worse, in my view, is that what is extremely obvious, and that Cronin explicitly talked about, is Portland's need to get much bigger & longer at wing. So they move from 6'7 RoCo to weak rebounding 6'8 Grant, then add 6'4.25 Sharpe and 6'2 Payton. That's not getting bigger and longer

worse yet is that they hard-capped themselves by signing Payton to that deal....meaning that those two remaining TPE's of 6.6M and 3.3M were made essentially worthless because of the Payton signing. That's a lot to sacrifice for a 'limited-tool-box-29-year-old-6'2"-one-year-wonder'

possibly the only silver lining to all this is that when an opposing player is ripping Portland with his offense, the Blazers will have Payton, Hart, and Winslow as defensive stoppers. They haven't had that kind of perimeter defense in the Dame era

If your going with height w/o shoes for Sharpe and Payton, Jerami Grant is actually 6"6.5 not 6"8. and Covington also 6"6.25

But in the NBA they dont really go by w/o height so Sharpe is about 6"5 to 6"6 (some players add just an inch with their shoes, some 1.5 inch, sharpe added only an inch during combine, hence 6"5 1/4 with shoes. Payton 6"3 to 6"4

but yes i agree with you that we prolly shouldve went with bigger guys in FA than payton

We are definitely paying a healthy price for GP2's services, as our 3rd PG. I really like him as a player, and can obviously see why Chauncey would want him.

My feeling is that this signing, and use of valuable F/A money on a guard versus a PF, doesn't make much sense to me at all... unless Dame were to be on the move. Then, the signing of GP2 makes a ton of sense.

I think you will come around on this signing as the season progresses.

GEE wrote:We are definitely paying a healthy price for GP2's services, as our 3rd PG. I really like him as a player, and can obviously see why Chauncey would want him.

My feeling is that this signing, and use of valuable F/A money on a guard versus a PF, doesn't make much sense to me at all... unless Dame were to be on the move. Then, the signing of GP2 makes a ton of sense.

Hart is going to start at SF and GP2 isnt a PG so we will be fine.

G - Damian Lillard (34) / Anfernee Simons (14)
G - Anfernee Simons (18) / Gary Payton II (20) / Shadeon Sharpe (10)
F - Josh Hart (28) / Nas Little (20)

BlazersBroncos wrote:

GEE wrote:We are definitely paying a healthy price for GP2's services, as our 3rd PG. I really like him as a player, and can obviously see why Chauncey would want him.

My feeling is that this signing, and use of valuable F/A money on a guard versus a PF, doesn't make much sense to me at all... unless Dame were to be on the move. Then, the signing of GP2 makes a ton of sense.

Hart is going to start at SF and GP2 isnt a PG so we will be fine.

G - Damian Lillard (34) / Anfernee Simons (14)
G - Anfernee Simons (18) / Gary Payton II (20) / Shadeon Sharpe (10)
F - Josh Hart (28) / Nas Little (20)

IMHO, you’re spot on with every point. Josh Hart should be sharing the guard minutes with Simons at SG … Simons at PG as well. With no deal completed for a starter at SF and no ready-made draftee and Little off of injury and needing to prove that he’s a starter … Hart has to play SF. He can. He has. And probably a better fit than Norman Powell. It’s not disastrous or even BAD as Hart plays a needed role.

That’s no ringing endorsement, but Hart will step up. Payton will step up. Grant gets a big role on a better team (at least better than Detroit) with Dame. There’s some legit reasons for hope this year … but it will take another year to be in the mix.