The Trail Blazers model

[Eric Montross 00]

You always take the best talent, not the most needed talent, because you can trade the best talent for need +. BC could have showcased both JV and Drummond and then traded one of them for a player better than Ross. It's that simple.

That night of the draft last year, Drummond wasn't considered the best talent, very simply fact if he was very talented why did he picked at 9th? I clearly remember last year's draft and the draft combine workout and the mock drafts, Drummond wasn't considered a top talent so from that perspective he wasn't even in the postion vs talent conversation. On top of that Ross was actually the talent over positional in your suggestion, look we had derozan at that time we picked position over talent and we had Derozan? bottom line, I agree with you we should pick talent over position but using ross and drummond example is not viable cause, number one Drummond at that time wasn't considered to be talented, and number two we picked Ross was not for positional need because we already had derzoan wouldn't make sense to pick another wingman, so we picked talent in Ross because of his shooting, athleticism, and his defense. Sometimes you need to consider position over talent look at the Atlanta Hawks, they need a point guard few years back, but instead they skip Deron Williams and Chris Paul by taking more talented Marvin Williams, now looking back was it a good pick talent over position? now it would make perfect sense that if we can have both extremely talented and also positional favorite which we have for this year's coming draft, and if we tank for bottom, worst five teams we have very high chance to draft him, so why we aren't taking? the player I am talking about is Marcus Smart.

[peanutwoozle]

And a smart free agent acquisition in Matthews (offer sheet Utah couldn't match).

And a stellar draft night trade - 28 (Greene) and 33 (Dorsey) for 25 to get Batum in 2008. *BTW Raptor fans, the hate on BC for not using 17 to land Hibbert should be about Batum. Raps supposedly had promised Batum*

Trading a veteran (Wallace) that ended up being a #6 pick (Lillard).

Value free agent signings: Wright, Williams,.

Using cap space to take on players others teams are looking to move to make deasl (i.e. facilitating): Lopez, Thomas.

Still don't know what comes of McCollum.


The Portland model was essentially build through the draft (some picks worked: Lillard, some did not: Leonard), cut the dead weight contracts/players with no future with team, obtain financial flexibility, sign value contracts.

That sounds similar to a few posts I've read around here.

From what I heard about Batum, BC went into the media and claimed that Batum had a heart condition, then Batum said he would never come here because of that.

[golden]

That night of the draft last year, Drummond wasn't considered the best talent, very simply fact if he was very talented why did he picked at 9th? I clearly remember last year's draft and the draft combine workout and the mock drafts, Drummond wasn't considered a top talent so from that perspective he wasn't even in the postion vs talent conversation. On top of that Ross was actually the talent over positional in your suggestion, look we had derozan at that time we picked position over talent and we had Derozan? bottom line, I agree with you we should pick talent over position but using ross and drummond example is not viable cause, number one Drummond at that time wasn't considered to be talented, and number two we picked Ross was not for positional need because we already had derzoan wouldn't make sense to pick another wingman, so we picked talent in Ross because of his shooting, athleticism, and his defense. Sometimes you need to consider position over talent look at the Atlanta Hawks, they need a point guard few years back, but instead they skip Deron Williams and Chris Paul by taking more talented Marvin Williams, now looking back was it a good pick talent over position? now it would make perfect sense that if we can have both extremely talented and also positional favorite which we have for this year's coming draft, and if we tank for bottom, worst five teams we have very high chance to draft him, so why we aren't taking? the player I am talking about is Marcus Smart.

I've posted this 2 times on this board already. The fact of the matter is that BC himself considered Drummond "top 5 talent", "top 3 physical specimen", and knowingly passed on him to draft Ross "for fit" and "mental makeup issues". Colangelo confirmed this himself, on the record, defending his selection.

BC said...

"Picking eighth, I passed on somebody I consider a top-five talent in the draft because we felt like he didn’t have the right mental makeup. I passed on someone we thought was a top-three physical specimen because we felt he wasn’t the right fit for our team and didn’t have the right mental makeup."

http://thebiglead.com/2012/11/16/bry...mental-makeup/

Dwane Casey is also an accomplice to this crime, as it is pretty clear from this interview right after Ross is drafted that Casey is really high on Ross and a strong supporter of the pick. Without knowing the details, I would go so far as to speculate that Casey was the main driver behind the Ross pick, based on his glowing comments.

[Nilanka]

If I remember correctly, Drummond was jockeying back and forth with Anthony Davis for the first half of the year for the #1 spot in mock drafts. The talent was always there.

[S.R.]

OC - Portland is a nice team, but they have a very limited ceiling. What are they ever going to accomplish in the Western Conference playoffs, really?

The take away from them is that they have had success by building an identity around Aldridge and finding guys who fit the mould.

The Raps need an identity to build around and fit players into, but they also need franchise talent to help define their identity. In some ways, tank/anti-tank comes down to which of those comes first - the chicken or the egg?