The Trail Blazers may adjust their roster-building strategy to some extent during the 2018 offseason, team president of basketball operations Neil Olshey told ESPN (video link via Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com).
As Sean Meagher of The Oregonian transcribes, Olshey explained that the team has focused on retooling its roster around Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum since LaMarcus Aldridge‘s departure in 2015. While the Blazers’ goal in those years was to continue making the postseason and avoid bottoming out, Olshey suggests that it may be time for Portland to aim higher going forward, shifting the focus to success in the playoffs.
“I think this offseason we shift our focus to playoff-caliber guys,” Olshey said. “Guys that hit the right benchmarks or the body of work that can really perform come April knowing the rebuild got done quicker than we thought and it’s time to start thinking of playoff success over whether or not we can or can’t make the playoffs while retooling.”
According to Olshey, he believes in retrospect the Blazers may have been too conservative during the 2017 offseason and at the 2018 deadline, suggesting that there would have been value in exploring moves aimed at increasing the team’s ceiling in the postseason.
“We were probably far too protective of our draft pick and our trade exceptions and the tools we had to continue to build the roster long term, and maybe lost sight of the fact that the first round was going to be more competitive that we expected,” Olshey said.
While the Blazers may look to be less conservative during the 2018 offseason, they’ll also have to be wary of their financial situation. For instance, the club would certainly like to find a good use for its $13MM trade exception that expires in July, but with $110MM+ in guaranteed salary on the books for 2018/19 and Jusuf Nurkic unsigned, the luxury-tax line looms as a potential deterrent.
Have to try and move Evan Turners huge salary
i agree. evan turner hasnt panned out an his contract is albatross. he’s 6 million more than batum an batum was way better than this scrub. attach leonard an we should be able to get some kind of scraps back that will have us @ least w/ some room to sign nurk an whomever else. turner w/ multiple 0-2 pt games which doesnt equal 17 mill a yr.
He’s $7m less actually. Batum’s deal is 5yr/$120m, Turner’s was 4yr/$70m.
But nobody wants Meyers Leonard. Not if they have to pay him. Maybe if he’s free and the Blazers pay his salary, a team like the Bulls would take him, but no way someone takes Turner and Leonard without getting rid of a terrible contract themselves.
Still I wouldn’t sign Nurkic. Too expensive & so far disappointing, I was very surprised when Portland traded Mason Plumlee for him, I can see that they may have thought that Nurkic has a higher ceiling, but to be honest I like Plumlee much more, & his a warrior on the court, much stronger & energetic than Nurkic.