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Portland Trail Blazers: Grading Neil Olshey’s past 5 Seasons

By Nathan Powers

Portland Trail Blazers, Neil Olshey, Damian Lillard Mandatory Credit: Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports
Portland Trail Blazers, Neil Olshey, Damian Lillard Mandatory Credit: Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports /
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(Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
(Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images) /

Portland Trail Blazers 2019 season

Re-signings:
CJ McCollum – 3 years 100 Million
Dame Lillard – 4 years 196 Million Max
Rodney Hood – 2 Year Mid-Level – Player Option 2nd Year

Players Lost:
Al Farouq Aminu – 3 year 30 Million
Seth Curry – 4 years 32 Million
Enes Kanter – 2 years 10 Million
Jake Layman

Additions:
Moses Brown – Minimum
Pau Gasol – Minimum
Mario Hezonja – 2 years 3.7 Million
Jaylen Hoard – Minimum
Carmelo Anthony – Minimum

Trades:
Evan Turner to Atlanta for Kent Bazemore
Kent Bazemore/Anthony Tolliver to Sacramento for Trevor Ariza/Wenyen Gabriel/Caleb Swanigan
Myers Leonard/Moe Harkless to Miami for Hassan Whiteside

Draft:
Nassir Little (No. 25)

This offseason represented tearing down integral parts of the western conference finals team losing Aminu, Harkless, Curry, Kanter, Leonard.

This offseason will always be a success solely because Damian Lillard chose to stay in Portland. CJ resigning is also a huge win.

The problems come after those, with only the mid-level exception available for salary only one of Hood/Curry/Kanter. After Rodney Hood’s great playoff run it was a relatively easy choice bringing him back. Looking back this was a mistake, Seth Curry is now putting up 20 a game in the playoffs and Hood is a salary filler in a trade.

There was excitement having Whiteside’s contract to make a trade for a high-level high-salary player but that never materialized. This season showed how much the team missed the size and length of Harkless/Aminu and the defense was historically bad.

The draft is TBD, I like Little, and he improved a lot from year 1 to year 2 but he was another pick that was drafted as a project in a time when a team should be trying to draft impact players.

No. 26 Dylan Windler, No. 27 Mfiondu Kabengele, No. 28 Jordan Poole, No. 29 Keldon Johnson, No. 30 Kevin Porter Jr., No. 31 Nicolas Claxton.

Keldon Johnson has easily been the best of the group, Poole has shown some potential as has Porter Jr. but I really like Little.

If Little does not hit everything minus CJ & Dame extensions was a miss from this season.

Grade: B

Getting Dame and CJ extended are huge wins. Beyond that, choosing Hood over Curry (who is averaging 20 a game in the playoffs, did I mention that already?) looks bad, the Leonard/Harkless for Whiteside doesn’t look great. Olshey took some swings but nothing hit.