FanPost

Olshey's Target: Eric Bledsoe

So, I've been eyeballing Eric Bledsoe for a month or two as potentially our best target to round out the "Big 3" for our title run. For many reasons, most of them obvious (see list below). In recent days, I've become convinced that the Blazers may also be pursuing Bledsoe... this is based on a couple pieces of (admittedly pretty flimsy) evidence, and probably heavily influenced by good old fashioned wishful thinking.

I've been emailing a buddy or two about this, so most of this is just pulled from those emails. Please excuse any typos, and if the info doesn't all flow together that well... but I do think you'll be intrigued.

For one thing, I know that Neil is talked about as a guy who has great relationships with the players from his Los Angeles days. And in his outgoing press conference in LA, he did mention that the Bledsoe draft-day deal was his "proudest draft accomplishment as a GM". Yes, I'm sure that's been eclipsed by Damian now, but anyways... I wouldn't be surprised if Neil is watching Bledsoe's career more closely than others, based on his personal attachment to Bledsoe's success. So I think that would establish at least some plausibility to the idea that Neil has interest in Bledsoe.

Now to the one piece of "evidence" that carries the most weight: this update to Bledsoe's situation that Chris Haynes released the other day. What's the big deal, you ask? Doesn't Haynes forward league-wide rumors on to the public just about every day? Yes he does. But this one is different. This time, Haynes was the one actually breaking the story, based on his "sources". Now how, exactly, would Haynes have unique sources in either the Phoenix front office, or access to Bledsoe's agency contacts led by Rich Paul (otherwise known as Lebron's agent)?

I believe that Chris Haynes did not have access to any special or reliable info on Bledsoe, but rather he was either used by or complicit in a false leak, spearheaded by Neil Olshey or somebody else in the Blazers front office. That's the only way that I can explain this inside dope ended up in Haynes' lap. Again, this is flimsy, but it makes you wonder.

So, here's what I think about Bledsoe and how things could fit with the rest of our starters- again, just pulled from an email I wrote the other day, so the tone is a little different but whatever:

I'm very excited that the Blazers will be the big-time "buyers" this season. I can't wait to see which teams decide to reboot and offload their star, or situations where a team's relationship with their star could fall apart. Just have to sit and wait for opportunities to present themselves... No idea what they will be.

One thing I assume you both know, but just in case: the Blazers only have Nic and Crabbe on contract for 2015-16. Everybody else is expiring. Yes, there's a player option for Blake and maybe one other small thing like that, but in general, Neil has set things up to be big-time movers. I believe our best bet is to do a huge deal at the trade deadline, rather than going into next summer assuming we'll land a Big Fish here. Yes, having 2 All-Stars here is probably enough to draw a guy here, but history shows that free agents simply don't choose Portland. Too far removed from the rest of the country, too white, too small, etc.

But back to the topic at hand. Yes, technically the decks are cleared after this year but we can logically see a few things that will happen: First of all, we know that Lillard and Aldridge are firmly in place. Aldridge slightly less firm, given that he might reconsider leaving if things get off the rails this year somehow. But anyways, assume they are in place. Then you look at Nic, who is also pretty much here for the long term. His deal is neither a good or a bad one- he's probably being paid about right. If the player we target is a Small Forward, I think that Nic easily slides over to the 2 spot. He has the shooting and facilitating to make that work, no problem. If we have to move him in a big deal, that's fine. But assume he is also here.

So then you look at Wes and Robin. If either/both of them is mandatory to move the right trade happen, then fine. But I don't know if that will happen, since they are both expiring. Ideally, our eventual trade partners will just take back whatever package makes the numbers add up, so if we have to trade Kaman+Claver+Freeland+Barton in order to get back our star of choice, then great. But given that the star will take up one of the two remaining positions in our starting 5 (Shooting Guard and Center), we shouldn't have a problem choosing to move either of them in said deal, for whoever is coming here and taking their spot.

For me, I think that Robin is the one I would choose to keep. For a couple reasons, but mostly because I think that he's actually an extremely productive Center, which is hard to find. I also think he's a lopsided part of our defensive game, and probably more responsible for our success moving forward than a guy like Wes who is mostly a shooter, and little else. While he CAN turn on the defense when needed (which is great), Robin is sort of just a good defender as part of his every day value. That's what he brings to us, and I think he compliments a group of Stars better than Wes... since Wes doesn't bring any rebounding or assists, really.

So... assuming that Robin would love to stay here and take a fair deal, we are looking at adding a guard as our 3rd Star. And while we don't know what all will happen during the year, and who will suddenly become available, I already have one I like: Eric Bledsoe. You guys know about his issues with Phoenix, which are supposedly already going from bad to worse.

So let's just look at what he does on the court, and consider how it compliments our team. Now ok, I know that he's only 6'1" tall. But by all accounts, he plays much bigger than that. He's insanely strong (nickname is Little Lebron, because of his build) and he also plays above the rim. His rebounding numbers bear out that reputation, so I have no problem with him playing beside another PG. He did so last year in Phoenix (Dragic), to great success.

Also, Bledsoe is known as a very talented defender, in a league FULL of star PGs. So whoever we are playing, he will shut down that teams best guard. Whether it's a PG like Curry or Parker, or even a Harden- Bled can guard them well. He's quite good.

The Numbers (yes, I know that numbers can reflect an overall team situation as much as a player's talents, but they are also useful)

32 minutes per game - (a couple mins less than Wesley had per night last year)

17.7 points - (speaks for itself. a very nice total for the amount of minutes, especially when you look at how nice of a scoring year it was for Wes and his total was 16.4 per game.)

5.5 assists - (fantastic for an off-guard. maybe not quite fair to look at him as just an off-guard, since he and Dragic both did some play-making, but Dragic had higher assist numbers and was more their PG than Bledsoe. Also for reference, this is better than Nic gave us last year, which was 5.1).

4.7 rebounds - (this was 6th in the league for guards, PG or SG. Wesley only gives us 3.5, even with a couple more minutes per game)


1.6 steals - (almost top 10 in the league. Wesley led the Blazers with .93 steals per game- 83rd in the league)

47% shooting overall - (this is good for a guy shooting 3.5 threes per game- when he isn't shooting 3s, he's basically right at the rim)

36% from 3 - (this is arguably about the lowest you want from a starting guard on a playoff team, but it's definitely not "liability" territory. As a comparison, this is the same % that Batum gave us last year- though Nic did shoot 2 more of them per game. Also I think it's within reason to expect him to see this % go up, not only as he gets better but also as he plays next to a couple of All-Stars.)

So if we do consider him a lockdown defender in a PG-driven league...and we are sold that his health will hold up (he played really well after returning from his knee injury last year) and that his shooting is at least good enough and possibly still improving... is there any way to look at this guy and NOT love the potential fit here??