Millsap and What Comes Next

In essence KP has fired his weapon and hit Utah (maybe causing them to lose Boozer for a lesser player) and then have that weapon return home as a reload. No cost to Portland. Cost to a division rival.

It also may use up some remaining cap space of another NBA team while Portland stands pat.

I would like to have gotten Millsap. But this makes it more fun to watch the next three stages and if none of them come to pass I still like the Blazers to be contenders within the next two years.

Made me cringe every time I read & re-read it….a nice, descriptive soundbite that is easy to feast on. At this point, if I was Utah, why would I include Portland in an upcoming deal considering their “toxic” approach?

Whoever leaked that to Quick should be fired. I am overly harsh, I know.

I know this phrase has been used in the NFL. The Seahawks – owned by one Paul Allen – made an offer to Nate Burleson that included one of these so that the Vikings could not match. I think the phrase has been used in basketball, too. So while we may not like “toxic” being out there, it’s not new or confined to use by our management.

so you’ll know better who started the rumor that we had made a “toxic offer.” But even if Jason Quick did start it, it doesn’t mean that he didn’t have the right to. You seem to imply that he may have made the word up, planting it there for sensationalist journalism. However, KP could’ve planted it on Quick on purpose. We don’t know either way. But then again, like I said above, maybe you do, and maybe you know that Quick has a tendency to make stuff up — I don’t know. In my opinion, there was nothing bad that came out of this whole ordeal. It’s fine that the NBA thought that we thought that our deal was “toxic.” At the very least, it sends a message to our players that we are serious about getting better, and they should not settle for the same accomplishments as last season.

David Lee? I’d bet that Walsh matches an ~$8 million offer and steps up his effort to move Jeffries. Sessions can be had for an offer slightly over the midlevel but I’m not sure that he’s that dramatic of an upgrade. Only other person that comes to mind is Marvin Williams, and I can’t see Atlanta not matching any offer sheet that Portland can offer.

we should use the cap money to turn John Stockton into a robot…with super robotic fingers that robotically jab at his opponents in super robot time.

robot

is what would Bob Whitsitt do?

He can play about 12 minutes a game at PF while LMA is on the bench resting, and in most games another 6 minutes at PF when Nate goes to a small-ball team with LMA at Center (which he did often last year). He can then play 10-12 minutes at SF, which I believe he is quite capable of doing. That’s 28-30 minutes a game with only 10-12 at SF where he would be a better passer and rebounder at that position than Batum, Outlaw, or Webster. He is a good defender (better than Outlaw and Webster for sure) and a good ball hander that can also create his own points. With Odom playing only 10-12 minutes at small forward there are still enough minutes at SF to increase Batum’s minutes over last year and get Roy about the same minutes as last year at SF (to make room for Rudy’s minutes at SG). And very importantly, Odom provides just the kind of missing toughness and playoff experience that we badly needed last year.

He would also ensure that we get rid of Outlaw since there will no minutes for Outlaw at the 4, which will improve the movement and flow of our offense creating more open 3-pt shots for Rudy, and probably prolonging Roy’s career because he won’t have to get beat up as much taking the ball to the hoop so often.

The Blazers had the right instincts to go after a 3-4 (Turk) because it was a good fit for what we need. But Odom is a better fit than Turk because he is more of a 4 (which there are more minutes available) and he provides toughness that Turk didn’t. Odom was an extremely important piece of the team that won the championship last year. I strongly feel that if Greg Oden progresses reasonably (and if he doesn’t we aren’t winning a championship anyway) that Odom could very well be the last major piece that we need to contend in his 2nd and 3rd year here. After that if his playing time needs to drop and he plays mostly only PF for about 18 minutes a game (which he should have no trouble doing at the age of 33 and 34 (he will be 30 during his 1st season here) that is just fine because Batum should be playing 30+ minutes a game at SF by then.

I do believe it is possible to construct an offer that just might get him here since I believe Miami can only offer him the mid-level exception. We might have to over pay to scare LA away, but if he is the last major piece we need then who cares except for Paul Allen that we over pay. With him or without him we aren’t going to be under the cap again until pigs fly. I wouldn’t hesitate to offer him $50/5 which was basically the deal for Turk, and if we got creative with Outlaw we could go even higher. While he might take that offer back to LA and get more money, why do we care? We don’t need to wait a week for LA’s answer if we make him an offer he can’t refuse. Or we can sit around until Feb and just dream that some great deal is going to fall into our lap, but more likely miss the last chance we will have for a decade to add a significant player without giving back significant players. It’s a fantasy to think that some super star is going to be moved in Feb because a team wants to cut salary.

Totally agree. But also all this Odom crap makes me furious. I hope KP is on our side of this topic. No Lamar Odom in Blazerland!!!

The big plan all along was supposed to be creating cap space and assets for 2009. The Raef LaFrentz Expiring Contract, which even became a “Super Expiring Contract” in team parlance after insurance had to pay part of his salary. Fiercely trying to get Darius Miles off the books (instead of keeping him around as an expiring contract for the 2010 deadline). And so on. After nothing happened at the 2009 deadline and they decided to just let RLEC come off the books instead of doing a deal that would have cost a young player or brought in a veteran of unsure fit, Kevin Pritchard himself gave out the summer as the time period, also stating (and proving, once again) that he is no big friend of major mid-season trades. Fans waited. Then he gave out the hint that “just because you are not at the lottery doesn’t mean you won’t be in the lottery”. Draft night came, and the Blazers were not in the lottery, but remained around where they were. Free agency period began, the Blazers tried to make a big cannonball splash and rather fell flat in the water face-first with Hedo. Then were more cautious the second time with Millsap, but also didn’t really get high marks for that one.

So far, one can argue nothing has gone wrong. We still have the cap space and don’t have to make it much smaller going into next season if the roster gets filled up with second round picks and minimum salary veterans or even undrafted players. We still have a young exciting team that by all accounts will grow and improve on its own. It has to. Yet little has gone right either. Opposing teams in win-now mode are make aggressive changes to remain at the top and build round their star. Opposing teams who will rather populate the nether regions of the standings are improving at least a little bit by acquiring more young talent in the draft and existing young talent also growing. Not good enough to make a run in the playoffs, but good enough to make life for everyone else tougher.

Now we are back to hoping for a hypothetical team collapsing and giving up resistance by putting the hypothetical star one the market who the Blazers can snatch without giving up major pieces, or at least not more than one. True, that is still possible, and our time might well come. The “get one major player free” cap space coupon hasn’t expired yet, and KP could look like a genius again for clinging onto it even though that apparently wasn’t his original plan. But just like we will have to hope those teams (Detroit, Charlotte, New Jersey, Milwaukee, etc.) get more desperate as the year progresses, every GM and his owner also knows the Blazers will get increasingly desperate to get something done or stand there with a team that is attractively cheap yet might be not good enough. It’s not an ideal situation either way.

To make the summer a success, now the Blazers at least have to re-sign Brandon and LaMarcus – to whatever deals. I doubt in early May a lot of fans would have thought about that as a success. In fact, if at that time Dave or another poster would have exactly predicted what happened so far, many people would have ridiculed him:

“You know, here is what will happen:
On draft night, we won’t be able to trade up to get one of the much-discussed point guards or other major guys and will draft a promising international forward in the first round who won’t come over for two or three years at least while he is under contract. To do so we will give up second round picks to leapfrog over a team that will take another international forward who will be drafted just behind him and would like to play in the NBA immediately. We will also pass over another hot young player everyone is clamoring for now. Three times. We will trade Sergio and cash to move up five spots – in the second round. We will still make some decent acquisitions in the second round, but one of those will immediately break his foot. In free agency, we will make a $50 million offer to Hedo Turkoglu causing a flurry of speculation about his role and the role of other players on the team, but he will decide to not come here, allegedly because his wife doesn’t like the city and also because someone else will pay him more. Weird, huh? Then we will make another big offer to Paul Millsap causing speculation about the future of LaMarcus and Joel, but as expected Utah will match. At least our other picks will look decent in summer league. At this time in mid-July, critique on Kevin Pritchard will mount due to not being able to execute a major move yet and most of all because Brandon Roy won’t have re-signed yet and will start to publicly discuss his contract extension. The biggest successes at this point so far will be ‘non-changes’, not losing assistant GM Tom Penn and extending Nate by a year.”

HA HA, YOU HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT BASKETBALL AND THE BLAZERS, DO YA?!

I’m just curious, what would happen if for whatever reason they didn’t get Millsap the $10M by next weekend? If the check bounced or got lost in the mail (hey, it could happen) then, by the rules, what happens to Millsap?

Sure it would have been nice to find “the final piece” that speeds up the run for a trophy, but I don’t think that the sky is falling because the Blazers didn’t. This team will vie for a spot in the Western Conference finals next year as it is put together. The Blazers IMO still hold a lot of chips to play with, they just need to be patient.
The only way I see this off-season as a miserable failure is if they don’t get BRoy and LMA locked up. I don’t see this scenario unfolding, but if it does, then I will be the first to jump out of the fifth story window.
I honestly think that NOT landing Turkeyglue will end up being a good thing in the long run. I think that his age is beginning to impact his game, and he would have ended up being a very expensive part time player withing the next couple of seasons. I also thnk that not landing Milsap is disappointing but not devastating. Milsap has a great engine, but I’m not sure that there would be enough minutes for everyone without unloading Pryz.
I DO think that making a run at Odom is a baaad idea. He can’t guard 3s, is a weak 3pt shooter, and won’t sign anyway since Portland isn’t located on a sunny coastline. The Blazers can do better. The pr hit alone on having another f/a “dump” the Blazers would be unwise.
The Blazers are in a much better position than nearly every other team in the league. We have young talent at multiple positions, an owner not afraid to spend money, and a large window. We as fans have a hard time waiting for a ring, but we need to give the front office some cred, and just let things play out.

I agree with your perspective – however, I don’t think we should over-read the “toxic” comment -

If time wasn’t of the essence, why was the Blazer front office banging on Hedo’s door at midnight? Frankly, I’m glad the Hedo thing feel through, but the “PDX Stand Pat Local 242” contingent seems a bit off message.

The Millsaps offer was “toxic.” Lets call a spade a spade. The only problem with the offer was that it was half-hearted/safe. Again, not sure if Millsaps was a “best” fit so I’m not unhappy that they didn’t over-do-it, but is being a half-jerk a great consolation to being a complete jerk (as the “toxic” would suggest)?

Finally, Dave does a good job highlighting the 6 flash points. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a slight concern that it might be the Blazers looking (in desperation?) to pick up talent at points 5-6 (and in less “value” oriented scenarios). I hope I’m wrong and Pritchard is, in fact, the Borg (only warm and fuzzy).

Please let’s lose this small-town mentality. Please. a.) nobody hates the Blazers, just like the Lakers don’t really consider the Lakers/Blazers a rivalry, but you do and b.) even if they do WHO CARES.

Now that we’re past that nonsense – even though I hate agreeing with Canzano and the ’it’s not show friends its show business’ phrase I’ve heard him use fifty times now even though I’ve listened to a grand total of fifteen minutes of his show – it’s time to make an offer to Odom, messed-up head and all.

KP gives a RFA an offer sheet that is front-loaded and has a signing bonus. The offer is reported to be ‘toxic’, a word repeated by national media. Whispers abound about how he is trying to ‘bully’ the Jazz.

Brian Colangelo gives a RFA an offer sheet that is front-loaded and has a signing bonus. No negative connotations in the national media.

Huh?

You’re asking the impossible here, Dave

First, the Blazer want a veteran with playoff experience. There aren’t a lot of forwards in their 20s that meet this criterion

And of those 20-year-old forwards who do have playoff experience, how many would be willing to play 10-12 minutes per game behind LMA?

So, as much as “Odom for 5 years” isn’t the perfect fit, the fact that he “could” play minutes at SF, and that he has playmaking skills, and that he has playoff experience out the wazoo, and that he would defer to Roy and be content being a complimentary player, and that Bayno and Nate will vouch for his character to team management…all of this makes Lamar a fit. Maybe not a “special” fit, but a fit nonetheless

Will “money talk” to LO and lure him away from SoCal’s sandy beaches teaming with 6’ tall blonde nymphomaniacs? It would be worth a shot to find out

If Odom wasn’t on their team.

Blazers just missed a great talent and depth pick-up because of …?

Cash.

Now they are just left waiting for a talent dump trade, maybe.

Could have come away with a great piece and locked up their 4 spot with no loss from current roster. I like two deep at 5 and 4.

I submit that it was a “toxic mistake” that KP did not offer an amount the the jixx would NOT match – like an “unreasonably high” amount, because, by definition, the jixx would match any “reasonable” offer. And, by definition, the Blazers did not offer enough to get the job done.

Like Grandma always said: “Use all your cap space if necessary to can get good young Talent and break the piggy bank if you have to too. And, wear a tutu if you have to too”

is that the blazers really didn’t make a toxic offer. Yeah, they made it difficult. They made the Jazz gut check to make sure Paul is what they wanted, but ultimately it was reasonable.

A toxic offer would have been to max everything out. The blazers never did that.

as for the term toxic… it wasn’t a pc term, that’s true enough.

It seems that prying players away from championship and runner-up teams is rarely successful. When was the last time a player went from a Finals team to a new team that became instantly successful? The price, hype and expectations are too high and risky.

I can’t believe how much spin and debate has been born out of the comment “toxic” in relationship to our contract offer.

What a total Non-Issue, non-story, non-problem.

Portland knew what they were doing in making the offer. Utah knew what they were doing in response, and Millsap and his agent knew what was happening.

People are that hung up on using the term toxic? Yes, call it front-loaded, hard to swallow, designed to not be matched…Who cares? You sign a restricted free agent from another team to an offer sheet and the truth is, Yes at some level you are trying to steal the player away from the opposing team.

It’s like people can’t get over the semantics. Toxic=Poison…we were trying to poison Utah! ….come on…everyone knew what we were doing, why we were doing it. Behind the scenes, who knows how upset or not upset Utah may be, but they certainly were not blind sided by this move. Millsap signed our offer sheet, so how upset are they at Millsap? It’s business….this whole Toxic arguement is the biggest waste of emotion and time. Please, we signed an opposing restricted agent to an offer sheet, nothing more, nothing less. I’d think and hope we designed the offer with at least a glimmer of sincere hope that it might become real. Call it toxic, or a “Happy Fun Ball” who cares? Who should care?

Also: agreed also about that “toxic” quote. I’ve been writing for months that, for all Jason Quick’s virtues, his lack of a filter is potentially very damaging to the Blazers’ aspirations. The “back stage access” he gives us is very entertaining. Only problem: it isn’t just us fans reading this stuff. Blazer players, opposing GM’s, national media: they can all read too.

Most beat writers use a little discretion. Not JQ. Maybe he fancies himself an investigative reporter?

In one Fanpost from early last season, I half-jokingly dubbed Quick a covert Lakers’ agent. Virtually no one around here agreed that the criticism was warranted. Any second thoughts now?

After that, I think his drive and enthusiasm would start to wane in subsequent years. Definitely not worth signing him for any contract that goes beyond 3 years.

If Cunningham and Pendergraph make this season’s roster, that’ll be 6 forwards. This is not counting Claver who I have a hunch we’ll be seeing in a Blazer uniform next year.

The more pressing issue is at PG. Thoughts?

1.) If Portland successfully targets another player and uses up their capspace, then Odom’s leverage pretty much disappears and he may be forced to take whatever the Lakers give him.
2.) If Portland targets Odom, then his leverage increases.

To me, the course of action Odom/agent Jeff Schwartz have taken rests on their perception of the free agent strategies of both Portland and New York.

Remember: Having not taken LAL’s offer, Odom/Schwartz really believe there is a better offer out there. To secure the best deal possible, they assume the Blazers are going to make Odom an offer; and they assume that eventually they can pry their ideal contract from either LAL or Portland. So:

1.) Odom/Schwartz assume Portland targets Odom after Millsap.
Or:
2.) Odom/Schwartz assume Portland targets David Lee after Millsap. And they assume the Knicks are going match an offer sheet for David Lee or sign-and-trade him for expiring contracts/picks.
And:
3.) Odom/Schwartz assume Portland will eventually make them an offer.

If Schwartz is worth his salt as an agent, he’ll have foreseen this scenario. If he fails, he will have cost his client a lot of money.

but I whole heartedly disagree with much of your analysis on this. I think Lamar would be a very nice fit for this team, like you said for 2-3 years. I don’t see this as a bad thing though, we can be grooming one of our sf(webster or batum). If we give him five years he will just be the LOEC and a valuable trading chip. We aren’t going to have cap space 3 years from now and we won’t likely want to give up any of our young core with large contracts, Oden, Roy, Aldridge, this would give us another option. His experience, rebounding and especially his ability to handle the ball would greatly increase the immediate success of this team. We can’t forget that Brandon is 25 and has a body that seems more fragile than most, he could be passing his prime in 5 years just as Lamuarcus, Oden and Batum enter their prime. Having Odom might push us over the top and certainly would hurt LA.