Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19

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lukeyrid13
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by lukeyrid13 »

The current roster is maxed out as is....but if you trade say 3 picks for another all star or get super lucky and draft a star at pick 22 you’re right there with other contenders. May as well keep plugging along with our good almost great team.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by Thurston »

That's just it -- it's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

That's an insane amount of money to put into any one player, at least one who isn't going to single handily bring you a title. It's impossible to argue that a super max deal like this won't hamstring the franchise for the duration, and that's even under the best case scenario of Lillard retaining all his abilities till the contract is up. You have to strike gold on almost every draft pick/free agency bargain/trade deal.

But not offering the extension is giving the middle finger to a true superstar who wants to remain loyal to a franchise who can't lure players and hasn't been able to retain their own guys who wish to move on to chase a title. It'd be a huge black eye for a franchise who struggles to remain relevant. The organization would then lock up CJ (most likely) and spread that $45 million not going to Lillard into a pair of way overpriced vets a la the summer of 2016, and a CJ/Nurk/whoever core would be too good to fail but not good enough to succeed. We'd be in that super awkward late lottery territory where the picks suck and we're not good enough to make the playoffs.

So, yeah. Not an enviable situation. Cap hell or irrelevant purgatory, pick your poison. I really don't see any other option? Not re-signing Lillard is not a path to a future Zion. We'd still be too good. Signing him will make us dependent on Olshey scouring the waiver wire and hoping we get lucky with Enes Kanter's and Rodney Hood's every year. One key injury DESTROYS us, most likely.

This is all academic, obviously. Portland will extend the offer and he'll sign it. And push come to shove I prefer that over not offering.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by greenyellow »

Stotts has agreed to a contract extension:
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by Merganzer »

Thurston wrote:That's just it -- it's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

That's an insane amount of money to put into any one player, at least one who isn't going to single handily bring you a title. It's impossible to argue that a super max deal like this won't hamstring the franchise for the duration, and that's even under the best case scenario of Lillard retaining all his abilities till the contract is up. You have to strike gold on almost every draft pick/free agency bargain/trade deal.

But not offering the extension is giving the middle finger to a true superstar who wants to remain loyal to a franchise who can't lure players and hasn't been able to retain their own guys who wish to move on to chase a title. It'd be a huge black eye for a franchise who struggles to remain relevant. The organization would then lock up CJ (most likely) and spread that $45 million not going to Lillard into a pair of way overpriced vets a la the summer of 2016, and a CJ/Nurk/whoever core would be too good to fail but not good enough to succeed. We'd be in that super awkward late lottery territory where the picks suck and we're not good enough to make the playoffs.

So, yeah. Not an enviable situation. Cap hell or irrelevant purgatory, pick your poison. I really don't see any other option? Not re-signing Lillard is not a path to a future Zion. We'd still be too good. Signing him will make us dependent on Olshey scouring the waiver wire and hoping we get lucky with Enes Kanter's and Rodney Hood's every year. One key injury DESTROYS us, most likely.

This is all academic, obviously. Portland will extend the offer and he'll sign it. And push come to shove I prefer that over not offering.
That is the case. Before the Golden State dynasty, the Warriors were awful. But they turned it around through the draft, and these players weren't Anthony Davis, or Zion. Curry was a March Madness sensation from Davidson, #7 in 2009, Thompson from WSU, #11 in 2011, in 2012, their first pick was #7, Harrison Barnes, #35 was Draymond Green. The next year, 2013-14 they lost in the first round to the Clippers. Following that, Mark Jackson was fired as head Coach, Steve Kerr was brought in, and everybody knows what has happened since. Unfortunately, the Blazers are in a worse situation now than the laughing stock Warriors were. The Bucks also have built themselves up without going the Super Team route, and are in the Eastern Conference Finals.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by Phalanx »

"According to ESPN’s Bobby Marks, the new deal would kick in by 2021, giving Lillard $42.6 million in 2021-22, $46 million in 2022-23, $49.4 million in 2023-24, and $52.8 million in 2024-25; by that point, Lillard will be 34 years old."

This is insanity. If the Blazers do this deal, they will struggle to make the playoffs every year. Lillard is at his peak right now, and his peak is not near enough to carry a team. The dude made one nice shot. It was a really great shot, but then in game two vs. the Warriors in almost the same situation, Iguodala stripped him of the ball like he was taking candy from a baby. So can we please not mortgage the team's future over one shot, and instead pay attention to the fact that Lillard's shooting in the playoffs has been sub-par throughout his career?

Olshey should know that when you overpay players, they become untradeable. Lillard is not going to get better from here. He will be fortunate to remain at the same level for more than a couple of years.

Ugh, I can't believe this is about to happen AGAIN. I blame Clyde, Terry, Jerome and Buck for making me like this team. My family is from the Bay Area, and I am a huge Giants fan and a 49er fan. I should have been a Warriors fan too, and look, there is Jordan Bell on that team beckoning me to make the switch. :lol:
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by Oregon Ownage »

Phalanx wrote:"According to ESPN’s Bobby Marks, the new deal would kick in by 2021, giving Lillard $42.6 million in 2021-22, $46 million in 2022-23, $49.4 million in 2023-24, and $52.8 million in 2024-25; by that point, Lillard will be 34 years old."

This is insanity. If the Blazers do this deal, they will struggle to make the playoffs every year. Lillard is at his peak right now, and his peak is not near enough to carry a team. The dude made one nice shot. It was a really great shot, but then in game two vs. the Warriors in almost the same situation, Iguodala stripped him of the ball like he was taking candy from a baby. So can we please not mortgage the team's future over one shot, and instead pay attention to the fact that Lillard's shooting in the playoffs has been sub-par throughout his career?

Olshey should know that when you overpay players, they become untradeable. Lillard is not going to get better from here. He will be fortunate to remain at the same level for more than a couple of years.

Ugh, I can't believe this is about to happen AGAIN. I blame Clyde, Terry, Jerome and Buck for making me like this team. My family is from the Bay Area, and I am a huge Giants fan and a 49er fan. I should have been a Warriors fan too, and look, there is Jordan Bell on that team beckoning me to make the switch. :lol:
So you let your best player walk when his contract is up? Or are you suggesting they give him a low ball offer and piss him off? If you go with option two, why would any player want to come to Portland if they wont give out contracts when you perform?

Lillard is a top 5 PG and should be treated as such. By not paying him, you are ultimately setting your team back further
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by Thurston »

I'm really interested in seeing what they do with CJ as a result of the Lillard extension. If my timeline is correct (no sure thing!), CJ's last year under contract is 2020-21, and Lillard's extension would begin in 2021-22, meaning any extension for CJ and we'd be in the ballpark of $75 million to our backcourt ($46 for Lillard, roughly $30 for CJ) for 2021-22 and it would only go up from there.

CJ will be 30 when his current deal expires. I actually think his game will age better than Lillard's as he's more crafty than he is super athletic, but the organization is going to have a very difficult decision to make with him. My hunch is if Collins develops as they're hoping and develops a true Twin Tower combo with Nurkic, they ride with Lillard and the younger frontcourt (Nurkic will only be 28 when his current deal expires) and try to get younger/cheaper/hopefully taller/defensive on the wing.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by UOducksTK1 »

Sign and trade, I know some teams would be down to take on Lillard with an extension!

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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by Phalanx »

Oregon Ownage wrote:
So you let your best player walk when his contract is up? Or are you suggesting they give him a low ball offer and piss him off? If you go with option two, why would any player want to come to Portland if they wont give out contracts when you perform?

Lillard is a top 5 PG and should be treated as such. By not paying him, you are ultimately setting your team back further
Is anyone here aware of other options besides:

A. Pay a guy $191 million for 4 years

Or

B. Let him walk?

I mean, what does the team need a bloody GM for if all the idiot is going to do is max contract everyone at the earliest opportunity? Any five-year old can throw money at a player. Lillard is not worth anything close to that contract. So basically, this is being done out of fear. Fear that he will leave in two years, fear that they won't be able to find another point guard who can shoot 40% in the playoffs. Fear is no way to run a winning franchise. Fear leads to mediocrity. Winning teams are not afraid to make one player mad. Look at the Patriots. How many star players have they cut during their years of domination? As soon as you start caving to every player demand out of fear, you have rendered your team ineffective.

The sad part is that there are players like Kanter, Curry, and Hood who would probably stay if there was any money left for them. But it's all being shoveled out to Lillard and McCollum. Hopefully everyone enjoyed this year, because i would bet money they will never make it to the conference finals again as long is Lillard is on this deal. And if you think anyone would take that deal in trade for anything other than an assortment of other crappy contracts, you are crazy. Lillard and the Blazers are stuck with each other without any hope of making a championship run for the next six years. Oh well, at least he can rap and stuff.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by StevensTechU »

Phalanx wrote:Hopefully everyone enjoyed this year, because i would bet money they will never make it to the conference finals again as long is Lillard is on this deal.
For perspective, based on your many, many pessimist takes on Lillard, you would have said the exact same thing at the start of 18-19.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by Phalanx »

StevensTechU wrote:
Phalanx wrote:Hopefully everyone enjoyed this year, because i would bet money they will never make it to the conference finals again as long is Lillard is on this deal.
For perspective, based on your many, many pessimist takes on Lillard, you would have said the exact same thing at the start of 18-19.
So does this mean you are ready to bet?

My expectations for 18-19 were a first-round exit until Olshey traded for Hood and signed Kanter. The day Kanter signed, I said in this thread that I felt more optimistic about the playoffs than I had in years. I love being optimistic about the Blazers, when the situation warrants it. There probably isn't a more fun thing in sports than when your NBA team is good enough to contend. The playoffs are long and you get to watch series after series. Especially in Portland, because we don't have another pro team. By the same token, when your NBA team is mired in mediocrity, it's hard to bear year after year, especially when long years of fandom have enable one to understand and project at least to some degree what will happen.

As for Lillard, I would like him a lot better if he wasn't eating everyone's lunch. He is a good player, and he has produced some great moments over the years. He is overrated by many fans, and definitely by Olshey. I wouldn't care if there was no salary cap, but there is, which means that the more Lillard gets paid, the less there is to fill out the team and make a contender.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by Thurston »

I have no idea if this is true, mind you, because the cap has not jumped as expected at certain times in the past. But RealGM is having an interesting discussion regarding the extension, and one poster ran some rough numbers on the cap and what his hit is now versus what it'll be in the future. Bold emphasis mine:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewto ... &start=360
the next big news that will likely get plenty of people in a twist is Dame's super-max. It's going be some mind-boggling numbers...4-years/191M. That's a shade under 48M/year

here is some perspective: Dame's salary this season and next will be around 28% of the cap. From this year thru the 2020-21 season the cap is going to jump about 15% which is about the historical average for a 2 year period. If you project that over the following 4 seasons, the life of Dame's super-max, the cap would be 153 million in the final year of the contract. Dame's salary would be around 51M. That would be somewhere between 33-34% of the cap. That's not some huge dangerous jump over 28%. That suggests it will be a fairly manageable number within the framework of the cap/tax limits going forward. Just can't have any more dumbass moves like the Turner and Crabbe contracts

in other words, don't freak out about the raw numbers of Dame's super-max because relevant context mitigates the shock value

just one added bit of trivia: Andrew Nicholson's stretched charge against the cap will still be there for 3 years of Dame's 'new' contract; It doesn't expire till July 2024.....yeeeeeesh.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by lukeyrid13 »

^ Are you Wizenheimer?
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by thomas time »

The guy made FIRST TEAM ALL NBA last year, most likely second team this year AND you want him gone? For a city who can't get free agents to sign, you can have all the money but who will you get. Nobody makes the big shot every time and he made the big shot vs Houston to win the series. Yes it's a lot of money, but I don't see how somebody wouldn't want a top ten player in the nba.
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Re: Portland Trail Blazers 2018/19 Thread.

Post by Boom »

thomas time wrote:The guy made FIRST TEAM ALL NBA last year, most likely second team this year AND you want him gone? For a city who can't get free agents to sign, you can have all the money but who will you get. Nobody makes the big shot every time and he made the big shot vs Houston to win the series. Yes it's a lot of money, but I don't see how somebody wouldn't want a top ten player in the nba.
^This

Lock up Lillard.

NBA is a star driven league. You don't trade them away.
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