APBRmetrics

My quick take is trade as many folks as possible outside Lillard-McCollum-Plumlee and listen for really good offers on McCollum or Plumlee. Push Neil for change, big change.

Who do you even trade? The contracts that are hurting them the most are basically unmovable.

Also I don't see how you could build a contender around Lillard-McCollum-Plumlee before they pass out of their prime. Those two account for the worst defensive backcourt in the NBA by far.

Either you move some of those deals or fire the GM that signed them. Crabbe is probably the most likely to trade. 1 for 1 probably isn't going to work well but multi-player might open better possibilities. Not easy though, try dat.

I agree you have to try, I just don't see a GM worth a damn who would actually take on one of those contracts. The only way I could see them being moved involves the blazers giving up future picks to go with the salary or if they were thrown in as part of a trade for one of their core players.

Rd11490 wrote: Lillard-McCollum-... ... account for the worst defensive backcourt in the NBA by far.

How do we know this?
So far this year, more guards have put up more big games vs Den and LAL, arguably also vs NOP and NYK
http://bkref.com/tiny/50tmQ
And 12 teams give up more 3FG/100 poss. Maybe because the Por interior defense also sucks; but the Mavs give up more threes and at a higher 3fg%

McCollum's DRPM is -2.2, worst among all SG who go >30 mpg
Lillard at -2.6 is better than Isaiah Thomas and Zach LaVine (?) among PG
Together they play all but 26 mpg at guard for Por. Evan Turner seems to get most of those minutes, at -1.4 on DRPM

Real GM is doing a series on teams in "No Man's Land". Yesterday: Blazers

http://basketball.realgm.com/article/24 ... il-Blazers

Provides a lot of analysis.

One thing they can do but wasn't mentioned is waive guys to try other guys. Plenty of room to do that.

Mike G wrote:

Rd11490 wrote: Lillard-McCollum-... ... account for the worst defensive backcourt in the NBA by far.

How do we know this?
So far this year, more guards have put up more big games vs Den and LAL, arguably also vs NOP and NYK
http://bkref.com/tiny/50tmQ
And 12 teams give up more 3FG/100 poss. Maybe because the Por interior defense also sucks; but the Mavs give up more threes and at a higher 3fg%

McCollum's DRPM is -2.2, worst among all SG who go >30 mpg
Lillard at -2.6 is better than Isaiah Thomas and Zach LaVine (?) among PG
Together they play all but 26 mpg at guard for Por. Evan Turner seems to get most of those minutes, at -1.4 on DRPM

The problem is they also have Crabbe getting 26 mpg with a DRPM of -2.01. Even if you filled out the rest of their roster with 0 DRPM players, a simple minutes weighted projection of their team DRTG would still come out to -4.73. That equates to a DRTG of 112.93 using the current league average for ORTG/DRTG. That type of rating is going to contend for worst defense in the league basically every year. Only the Lakers trio of Young, Williams and Clarkson comes close to matching them in terms of poor DRPM ratings, but they don't get as many combined minutes as Portland's trio. Even though right now the Lakers are slightly worse in BBR's AdjDRtg by ~1 pp/100 in DRTG, that's not nearly enough of a difference to claim they are definitely the worst defense.

Start by offering Crabbe for Biyombo as the Magic could see their roster as making a lot more sense with -1 big guy and +1 spot up shooter.

If that doesn't work try not to panic, keep McCollum and Lillard and do whatever it takes contract shedding wise to resign Plumlee. A decent chunk can be chopped off with pieces like Davis and Vonleh, if that's not enough consider attaching a pick to Crabbe or Leonard, there are still enough teams who just need any floor spacing they can get to talk themselves into it. Turner I assume they're stuck with.

Portland is in really big trouble. They have 15 guys under contract for 17-18. Festus Ezeli is only guaranteed for $1m, so he's absolutely gone. Pat Connaughton & Tim Quarterman are both non-guaranteed. They have 3 1st-round picks, so I would expect either a trade or at least two draft/stash picks. Even if they waive Ezeli/Connaughton/Quarterman AND trade all 3 picks, they'll still be $36M over the cap and $11M over the tax. They'll have the mini mid-level ($5.192M) to work with, but that doesn't matter all that much.

If I were the Blazers, I would be trying to use two of the draft picks to offload one of the awful contracts. Their only way to improve is to get off as much of that money as possible, but ultimately, I think they are stuck. Crabbe/Leonard are probably the only two guys I could see actually being able to move. Turner is simply dead money.

The goal should be to package Turner with a pick, maybe even the lower 2, to get him off their books. Crabbe and Leonard are overpaid, but at least they can occasionally add something to the team. If no one will take Turner, Crabbe and a pick should actually be able to get something in return. I listened to a podcast, maybe the RealGM one, where it was suggested they may try and trade Crabbe and a pick to Dallas for Wesley Matthews. Matthews is a far cry from the player he once was, but his deal expires a year sooner and effectively adds what Crabbe does with a bit better defense.

jgoldstein34 wrote:The goal should be to package Turner with a pick, maybe even the lower 2, to get him off their books. Crabbe and Leonard are overpaid, but at least they can occasionally add something to the team. If no one will take Turner, Crabbe and a pick should actually be able to get something in return. I listened to a podcast, maybe the RealGM one, where it was suggested they may try and trade Crabbe and a pick to Dallas for Wesley Matthews. Matthews is a far cry from the player he once was, but his deal expires a year sooner and effectively adds what Crabbe does with a bit better defense.

Does it matter that Crabbe/Leonard add something to the team if there's no upside in the current construction? Matthews actually has a player option for '18-19, so in theory, he could be gone after next year, if he's healthy. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.

Anyway, I'm not sure you can even get off of Turner with two picks. The deal is just so toxic. Tying up $18.6M in '19-20 is going to be a tough pill to swallow. None of the picks this year are super valuable and you would expect next year's pick to be in the mid-1st anyway. I think another team would need to ask for something like two of this year's pick, plus an unprotected pick down the road.

Getting off of Tuner is probably just a pipe dream, but Crabbe wouldn't be hard. Crabbe is a solid rotation player who can knock down 3s. Not good at defense, but if he even improves just a little bit than that contract turns out fine. Biggest issue for the Blazers is the roster has no upside and is already capped out. Kind of need to just hope Jusuf Nurkic is going to be an all-star and great at defense if they want to have any hope.