Post#322 » by Walton1one » Mon Oct 20, 2025 6:33 pm
While a lot of people are handing out kudos to Cronin, they conveniently ignore the disaster that is the bench/2-way contracts he has put together. A complete collection of non NBA talent players. I see they just resigned Javonte Cooke to a 2-way at age 26, wow, I mean after that preseason who wouldn't want that guy?
Love\Cissoko\Cooke these are not NBA level players, and they are older players, and then you have a bunch of marginal (which is being generous) guys clogging up the end of their big league roster: Rupert, Wesley, Reath, Murray
and I can hear people say, who cares they are 2-ways and deep bench players? Except they are important when you have guys like Lillard (out for the year), Williams\Thybulle (Destined to miss a fair amount of games) & Scoot out until December most likely. There are 4 guys on your 15-man out, now you are sitting 1-2 injuries away from having to RELY on those subpar players, and you have a roster with Holiday\Grant on it? Hoping that DC avoids injury & stays out of foul trouble b\c then you have to rely on Yang\Reath? Seriously?
and heaven forbid if Avdija/Camara or Sharpe go down for any extended period of time.
It is called roster building and Joe Cronin sucks at it.
Reath\Wesley\Murray...Rupert\Love\Cissoko\Cooke none of these guys are helping you win meaningful games, that is SEVEN players, 40% of POR 18-man roster that are literally just wasting a roster spot. If the goal is to lose games then by all means keep them, but don't try and sell people on "winning" and then treat 40% of your roster as if it doesn't matter if those players are competent NBA players.
There are some vets that are clear upgrades that are out there: Achiuwa, Matthews, K Edwards. Each one of them would be an upgrade
There are younger\better gambles that are out there: Baldwin Jr, T.Newton, C.Livingston, Bufkin, D.Jones, T.Smith (likely)
This team is never going to be a serious team filling 40% of their roster with retreads\never will be type players