Portland - 2016 Offseason

[red_power]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/749677062344978432[/tweet]

WTF? LOL

What's wrong here? Decent deal for team's best bigman

[wjun15]

Turner is a decent idea considering shooting tends to be easier to learn than playmaking and ball handling.

not speaking on how decent an idea he is, but...

Turner will be 28 when next season starts. He'll be in his 7th seasonin the NBA after playing 3 years in the NCAA. He's probably been playing basketball since junior high. If he hasn't leaned to shoot by now it's probably unrealistic to expect him to get significantly better. Yeah, it's possible, but pretty unlikely

whats interesting to me is that he shot like 36-37% one year when he shot the most threes in his career. Maybe he just needs more attempts?

[jhern87]

Aldrich signs a very reasonable deal with Minny. Sad to see a division rival become the young roster stacked with talent and making wise FA acquisitions that we used to be.

[DusterBuster]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/749677062344978432[/tweet]

WTF? LOL

What's wrong here? Decent deal for team's best bigman

I don't see what's funny or weird about that offer. Pau Gasol is still putting up stellar numbers and like red said, he'll be FAR and away the teams best bigman. If he can keep up his level of play from last year for 2 more seasons, and there's nothing to suggest he can't, 20mil is pretty reasonable under the new salary cap.

Plus, let's face it, Portland's only competition for Pau right now is San Antonio. There's only one way to get him to seriously look at picking Portland over SA, and that's gobs and gobs of money.

EDIT: Apparently the Wolves are still in it. But yeah, he's gonna get 18-20mil from someone, so not an outrageous offer by Portland at all.

[Jsun947]

Wtf do the Wolves need Pau for? They have Towns, Dieng, Aldrich, and Garnett already. Granted Garnett is practically a player coach but whatever.

[DusterBuster]

Toronto is apparently also linked to Gasol, not much rumored about them being a serious suitor though. Something to keep an eye on, the Spurs will need to lose at least 2 players to make room for the kind of offers Pau is getting. Raptors would need to make trades as well fwiw.

Wtf do the Wolves need Pau for? They have Towns, Dieng, Aldrich, and Garnett already. Granted Garnett is practically a player coach but whatever.

It's Thibs. He's been trying to get former Bulls players all summer. They probably would have landed Noah had the Bulls not sent Rose to NYC and they were close to trading for Butler during the draft.

I don't really see much of a fit myself, but I suppose Towns and Gasol is better than Towns and Dieng.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

ok then, basically, it's arguable that Portland's situation will be worse next season then it was this season. They'll have their 1st round draft pick but they won't have any cap-space

This seems pretty much given unless the Blazers let everyone walk, trade a couple guys at the peak of their value, and go into next season looking for a lottery pick. I am pretty sure this would royally piss Lillard off however... Otherwise, at best we could cut corners, dump minor assets and end up with some paltry sum of capspace but probably not enough for a max contract and just maybe enough for another Turner-type player.

so, as you keep pointing out, they need to start hitting the trade market and hit it hard

I'll say one thing, if the Blazers were willing to make an "aggressive" offer to 36 year old Pau Gasol, maybe they should be willing to make a bargain offer to Zaza Pachulia. He isn't the kind of player Gasol is, but he's a physical, hustle player that doesn't get re-directed by opposing size like Plumlee and Davis do

I'm fine going after a temporary fix, just not at the cost of our other players like a big aggressive offer to Gasol would suggest. I would prefer finding a guy on the other end of his career to take a bet on - such as Dedmon or whoever was suggested earlier.

I actually think, given what this off-season is beginning to look like, that Portland should add another C because one thing this off-season has shown is that C's tend to get paid big-time. And Plumlee will be RFA when there's a 110 million salary cap. I can't see how Portland will be able to afford him. Blazers may be well served by trading him when there's still a full season and change between the trade and his rookie extension

I would say we should trade Plumlee earlier rather than later. After getting Turner, we have our defacto 3rd playmaker which allows us to get a more traditional defense-oriented center rather than plugging Plumlee into the role. A team getting a full season versus half a season with Plumlee could be a huge difference in value. I posted a thread on the T&T board for Plumlee (and/or Davis) and the results were a little uninspiring. To be fair, I was targeting Tyreke Evans and now we have Turner to fill that role (at a much higher cost and 2 years older though) so maybe we get more with a different target in mind.

[DusterBuster]

If Portland does get Pau and resigns their RFA's, I think they will be a better team than they were last year....

Lillard/
CJ/Crabbe/Connaughton
Turner/Harkless/Layman
Aminu/Davis/Vonleh
Gasol/Plumlee/Meyers

Come obvious holes at backup PG, but Portland brings back the same team from last year, adds in one of the best 6th men in the league from last season (Turner) and an All Star big (Gasol - yes, even shocking to me, he was an all star just this past Feb).

We can bitch and moan about the price tags of these guys, but when you actually look at it, if Portland doesn't lose anything and just adds two high quality players, that's not the disaster of an off-season everyone is making it out to be.

Granted.... it does however hinge on Portland getting Gasol. :/

[DeBlazerRiddem]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/749677062344978432[/tweet]

Disgusting. Pau is a very good player still but this is a band-aid solution that will come off in 2 years and leave us $20 million behind what we otherwise could have built.

[DusterBuster]

Yeah, going after all star players is disgusting. We should fire Olshey, hire Hinkie, trade the whole team and be in the lottery for the next decade and a half.

[Andre 2999]

Pau has been legit the past two seasons. If he puts up similar numbers here, I think it could be worth it. People are just bummed because he's 36, but if he's still producing a solid statline, then who cares? He'll expire season after next, and it'll be a big trading chip at the deadline in '17-'18 should we choose to use it. Plus, those two years will give Neil time to search for Gasol's replacement.

[Run PDX]

Allen might be willing to go back into the luxury tax, especially with this new television deal (for the league) and a new television deal (locally). And, if he does somehow get Gasol, and approve keeping Crabbe and Harkless, then the team will be VERY prepared for the coming season.

[DusterBuster]

Pau has been legit the past two seasons. If he puts up similar numbers here, I think it could be worth it. People are just bummed because he's 36, but if he's still putting up numbers, then who cares? He'll expire season after next, and it'll be a big trading chip at the deadline in '17-'18 should we choose to use it. Plus, those two years will give Neil time to search for Gasol's replacement.

That's my thinking. I don't really care about his age as long as he's still producing. Considering he's still an All Star caliber player, one could argue that getting Gasol would be the biggest FA signing by Portland ever (sad, but probably true).

Like you said, it's only a two year patchwork deal, but he'll be a trade-able asset the next two seasons and assuming he keeps up his level of play, you may see some contenders willing to deal for him as a final piece and giving Portland more long-term options. In the meantime, Gasol and Turner with the rest of the team returning would give Portland a better roster than they had last season.

I like the move if they can pull it off. That I'm still skeptical of. At this point, I'd probably be more surprised by Gasol taking Portland's offer than I would be to see him goto SA on a vet min deal.

[Dame Lizard]

This has been a shocker of an off-season for Olshey and the Blazers. We gifted Turner a big overpay when surely no other team was going to offer that much.

Missing out on Aldrich sign that great deal hurts. If Harkless leaves and he resigns Leonard, just about the worst possible off-season will have played out.....

[JasonStern]

Yeah, going after all star players is disgusting. We should fire Olshey, hire Hinkie, trade the whole team and be in the lottery for the next decade and a half.

in Pritchard many trust.

Allen might be willing to go back into the luxury tax, especially with this new television deal (for the league) and a new television deal (locally). And, if he does somehow get Gasol, and approve keeping Crabbe and Harkless, then the team will be VERY prepared for the coming season.

how does that work cap space wise after blowing all that money on Turner?

[DeBlazerRiddem]

Yeah, going after all star players is disgusting. We should fire Olshey, hire Hinkie, trade the whole team and be in the lottery for the next decade and a half.

Gee, no middle ground?

Haha, disgusting was a strong word but I do think its a win-now solution when the Blazers are not quite there yet. We overachieved, but that doesn't mean we've arrived. It's going to cost - in terms of renouncing players and other missed opportunities - to open up $20 million.

[DusterBuster]

Yeah, going after all star players is disgusting. We should fire Olshey, hire Hinkie, trade the whole team and be in the lottery for the next decade and a half.

in Pritchard many trust.

And Pritchard ran into the same damn problems Olshey did when he dipped his feet into trying to get FA's to Portland. He couldn't get **** Turkoglu to come to Portland for gods sake. The only reason he got Andre Miller was because no one else was going for him and like Olshey this summer, he HAD to use the money up or it was going to be gone.

I think people just get pissed because what they want doesn't happen and they want/need someone to be angry at, so the easiest answer is to just blame the GM, but that completely ignores any context whatsoever. The GM isn't some all powerful wizard who can control everything. FA's have their own free will to do what they want, and many of them don't want to play in a cold-weather city with high income tax when there are other options available to them.

I'm pissed off how a lot of this FA summer has gone as well, it's far from ideal, but I also recognize that there's only so much Olshey can control.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

Don't we need to renounce Leonard and Harkless to offer Gasol $20 million?

[DusterBuster]

Kevin Durant update for those who care:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/stevekylerNBA/status/749698003448061953[/tweet]

Seems Spurs are fairly well out of consideration, which makes me wonder where the delay is on Gasol's part.

[DusterBuster]

Yeah, going after all star players is disgusting. We should fire Olshey, hire Hinkie, trade the whole team and be in the lottery for the next decade and a half.

Gee, no middle ground?

Just a lot of hyperbole being spilled around on RealGM right now, so I figured I may as well get in on the fun.

As for what Portland has to do to offer Gasol 20mil, I'm gonna leave that to Wiz. I'm not nearly up to date enough on the books to know that for sure.