Neil Olshey Under The Microscope

After the departure ofPortland Trail Blazers’ Head Coach Terry Stotts, the focus has now shifted, reports杰森快速of the Athletic in a recent mailbag. Now, President of Basketball Operations Neil Olshey is under examination instead.

就像在最后一个休赛期的那样，如果他在季后赛中没有改善西装外套和他的练习，那么今年夏天的显微镜就会面临解雇，这夏天的显微镜是专注于Olshey。

His nine-year ledger has produced a consistent winner but never a real contender. He has made some good trades (Jusuf Nurkic, Robert Covington and Norman Powell), and some bad ones (Will Barton and first-rounder to Denver for Arron Afflalo).

快速争辩，虽然Olshey在这方面做得很好NBA Draft, he has missed other chances and awarded big contracts that perhaps were not deserved.

He has drafted well (Lillard, McCollum, Anfernee Simons, Nassir Little), and found diamonds in the second-round rough (Gary Trent Jr., Barton, Allen Crabbe, Pat Connaughton, Jake Layman).

But he didn’t capitalize on his two biggest opportunities — the 2016 free agency and the 2017 draft. In 2016, flush with cap space, he signed Crabbe (4 years, $75 million), Evan Turner (4 years, $70 million), Maurice Harkless (4 years, $42 million), Meyers Leonard (4 years, $41 million) and Festus Ezeli (1 year, $8 million). Only Harkless and Turner came close to justifying their contracts.

The 2017 draft in particular stands out to Quick as one of Olshey’s biggest miscalculations.

In 2017, he entered the draft with the 15th, 20th and 26th picks and exited with Zach Collins (traded 15 and 20th picks to move up to 10th) and Caleb Swanigan, leaving on the board Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, John Collins, OG Anunoby and Jarrett Allen, and later Kyle Kuzma, Josh Hart, Dillon Brooks and Monte Morris.

没有人在起草方面是完美的，但今天2017年是一个痛苦的小姐，考虑到扎克柯林斯的伤害史，并在联盟中不再在联盟中不再进入。

Quick makes the point that Olshey’s history doesn’t matter, so long as he has the support of Damian Lillard.

The bottom line is we can debate his track record all we want and it doesn’t matter. What does matter is what Lillard thinks. If Olshey is indeed losing traction with the franchise star, then this is likely Olshey’s last chance to make a difference.

Olshey的季后赛新闻发布会没有帮助他，而不是与公众一起，而不是在内部与仍然尊重仓库的玩家，即使他们可以看到需要改变。I believe it would have served Olshey well to take some ownership of the team’s shortcomings (a bench with Carmelo Anthony and Enes Kanter that struggled defensively? Who could see that coming?) and to be more graceful in ushering Stotts out the door after what was a memorable nine-year run of success and class.

Additionally, Quick notes that there is now no one else to blame for Olshey’s shortcomings.

But we should know by now that Olshey doesn’t care what we think about his tact. He has been short, hot-tempered and downright rude so many times over his nine seasons it’s become almost expected. But now, there are no more excuses. No room for spin. There’s no Paul Allen to blame for making him match Crabbe’s $75 million offer sheet. There’s no Stotts to blame for a lack of defense. These are his players, it’s going to be his coach, and for three years he has operated with an autonomy afforded to perhaps no other front office executive in the league.

However, Quick does have some praise for Neil.

我认为Olshey是最聪明的行政机构在我的23年里雇用的那些竞争对手，其中包括剃刀锋利的Bob Whitsitt。但就像用斯托特一样，出现了结果必须改善的时间。制作季后赛，并在边缘围绕边缘移动不够。Olshey必须用这支教练雇用来击中很大。他需要重组一个名单，毫无疑问在Lillard的头脑中，这是完成他职业生涯的地方。没有时间等待上限空间。没有时间等待西蒙斯的喜欢，很少开发。没有时间责怪其他球队不同意交易。燃烧者现在必须变得更好，如果奥尔辛无法在今年夏天交付，那么就没有人责备但自己。

You can read the entire mailbag这里, which also touches on a possible CJ McCollum trade as well as Mike D’Antoni and Chauncey Billups as candidates for the head coaching job (subscription required).