Bill Simmons, Chad Ford Praise Blazers' 2013 Offseason, Thomas Robinson Acquisition

Earlier this week, Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com posted a transcript of a recent BS Report podcast between Bill Simmons of Grantland.com and Chad Ford of ESPN.com.

Simmons and Ford discussed the Blazers' 2013 offseason, including the acquisition of Thomas Robinson.

Here's a snippet of the transcript. Audio of the podcast is here.

Bill Simmons: "Can you believe [Thomas Robinson] guy was the fifth pick in the draft? Everybody was comparing him to David West a year ago, everybody liked him, everybody thought he was a reliable prospect. And Houston, because of the Dwight Howard thing, they have to have a fire sale for him basically. Portland got him for nothing! They gave up nothing."
...

Ford: "I still think he can play. The talk around the league is, well Thomas Robinson, what they found about about Thomas Robinson, was that he couldn't remember a play. And number two, that he wanted to do more on the offensive end than he's really capable of doing. We saw a little bit of this at Kansas and Bill Self did a really nice job of reigning him in, where he wants to handle the ball and shoot it a little bit, thought he had more abilities than perhaps maybe that he really had.

...

Ford: "I think, again, there's a herd mentality in the league. They love you one minute then they're off you the next and the same scouts that loved Thomas Robinson a year ago are now rolling their eyes like he can't play. I think this goes again, we try to understand the draft and and which players are a great fit. And I agree with you, I loved Portland's draft, by the way. I loved McCollum at ten. Actually, you didn't mention Allen Crabbe."

Here's the full transcript.

Simmons previously tweeted that he "loved" Portland's summer.

The Blazers sent the rights to Kostas Papanikolaou, the rights to Marko Todorovic, a 2017 second-round pick, and Minnesota's 2015 second-round pick to the Houston Rockets for Robinson.

Thanks to Roy Wonder in the FanShots.

Apologies on the delay on Saturday's posts. I'm playing a little bit of catch-up down here in Las Vegas.

-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter