[Schilly]

Hmm a Houston Based person with legit insight to the Blazers...Also a good connection to Kiki and the Ownership sitiation. Able to have a good feeling around the league....

 

[Schilly]

The easiest thing to do, IMO, is look at the track records of Paul Allen and John Nash.

Paul Allen has a history of listening to the people he's hired to run his basketball team, he has a history of spending a lot of money, and he has a history of winning.

John Nash has a less successful history as an NBA GM. His time with New Jersey and Washington saw his teams firmly cemented in the lottery.

Is it possible Nash is suddenly a great GM and Paul Allen a meddling owner that's screwing everything up? Sure.

I find it more likely, though, that Nash simply isn't that great and that Allen is less willing to make moves that cost him a lot of money and/or deplete the young talent on the roster.

We know that Allen's not entirely averse to spending money (see: Zach and Theo's extensions, Miles's contract, and the reported kibosh on the Penny Hardaway salary dump) and I find it very hard to believe that he's to blame for everything that's gone wrong because he's been ignoring great advice and potential deals from a guy with a history of failure in the NBA.

Ed O.

We also know that since the extensions of Zach and Theo and re-signing of Darius, that Paul Allen...I hate to say mixum may have been right...appears to have been angleing to put the franchise in a more sellable situation.

We can look at speculations of dead deals.

Example
Shareef (expiring) plus fille (NVE IIRC)
for

Carter (45mil left)
Rose (35mill left)

If you added Carter and Roses contracts to our current salary instead of roughly 60mill, portland is sitting at almost 90mil. WHich is easier to sell? 60mill in contracts or 90mill in contracts...Talent aside.