Worry about what Neil Olshey believes about the Blazers

A disastrous exit interview for a defiant GM.

Jun 8

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Neil Olshey, general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers, gave a defiant press conference on Monday. In the fall-out of Portland’s disappointing first-round loss to the Nuggets and the subsequent firing of coach Terry Stotts, Olshey wants you to know that the Blazers have a bottom-3 defense two years in a row is not his fault.

I can’t in good conscience recommend you watch that whole thing. Some highlights:

“The first-round loss and the defensive rating at 29 was not a product of the roster.”
On the coaching search: “At least they know what they’re dealing with for the most part in terms of, how do they get this group to get to another level on the defensive end of the floor? That’s going to be absolutely critical in anybody advancing in the process. They’re going to have to prove they’re going to have the ability to do that in much the same way some of the coaching hires from last summer were able to do it without a lot of personnel changes.”

Olshey aka PortlandDad_Defiant! also lit some strawmen on fire, taking legitimate questions about how he’s built the roster into critiques of modern superstar movement (claiming every star that moves is doing so in a predetermined fashion) and indictments of the hobbyism of finding a C.J. McCollum trade within the NBA fandom. Folks, the Blazers haven’t been a horrendous defensive team because national columnists lament that Damian Lillard doesn’t have a defense-first guard as his backcourt mate. It’s more likely they’ve been a horrendous defensive team because Damian Lillard doesn’t have a defense-first guard as his backcourt mate.

Citing Anthony Davis to the Lakers and James Harden to the Nets without explicitly citing them is eye-rollingly silly, and a trope from smaller market GMs that media and fans should reject on its face. No one is criticizing you for not getting A.D. or Harden. They’re criticizing you for having a worse roster than you did two, four and six years despite having a top-10 player in Dame.

But the overall takeaway here is that Olshey thinks he’s built a top-drawer Western Conference team, and that a coach with some more defensive juice will prove it. He’s going to have his chance to hire a defense-first coach and we’ll see. He very well could be right: what passes for a good defense in this era of offensive explosion isn’t exactly on the level of the 2000s Spurs or 1980s Pistons. A high-end defensive wing, a coach who skews defense in his rotations, practice time and film study and some injury luck and a top-12 defense is attainable. It’s not assured, but it’s attainable. The Warriors are a good proxy for this: they finished No. 5 in defense this season with Draymond Green and … not another name you’d find anywhere near an all-defense team. Portland doesn’t have anyone like that, with all apologies to Robert Covington. And the other players in the rotation, with the exception of Jusuf Nurkic, just aren’t good enough defensively to make up the difference, at least using Stotts’ schemes.

Here’s the thing: Portland has had good defenses under Stotts with rosters Olshey built. The 2015 team, one of the last bastions of the pre-Olshey teams with Nicolas Batum, LaMarcus Aldridge, a third-year Lillard and a second-year McCollum, finished 10th in defense. The 2018 team finished 8th on that end. Here was their rotation: Dame, McCollum, Nurkic, Al-Farouq Aminu, Evan Turner, Moe Harkless, Shabazz Napier, Ed Davis, Pat Connaughton and Zach Collins. This was 2018, not exactly ancient history! Also, that team got swept out of the first round by the Pelicans.

Complaints that Stotts doesn’t have the patience for defense, or can’t teach a scheme — those fall flat given the history. Aminu, Turner and Harkless have turned into Covington, Carmelo Anthony and Derrick Jones Jr. Ed Davis has turned into … Enes Kanter? I see what Olshey has been trying — on paper Cov and DJJ fix some of the problems. But it hasn’t worked, and Olshey now wants us to believe that’s because Stotts couldn’t do it, not because Olshey picked the wrong horses or hasn’t adapted to what defenses need in 2021. Both of which seems to be true to an extent.

I don’t envy any GM who has to fire a coach — it’s a messy business. You have to reiterate how good a job you’ve done building a roster while tearing down the successes of the team to justify ejecting the coach. You’re in the position Olshey found himself, touting eight straight playoff appearances as an achievement and bemoaning four first-round losses in five years as a disaster at the same time. Messy business. Olshey knows the drill even though he’s never fired a coach in Portland.

What was so jarring about his press conference is how hot he came in, unwilling to share any of the responsibility for the team’s limitations, spouting off about how amazing Covington and Norman Powell were defensively as individuals. Maybe it’s a pose, a survival instinct to ensure he’s not on thin ice this summer. Maybe he has not personally received a legitimate vote of confidence from ownership and feels the need to plead his own case.

Blazers fans should be worried the opposite: that Olshey is safe but truly believes what he’s selling, that this roster is truly built to contend in the West and just needs the right defensive-minded coach to get them there. That seems awful optimistic given the two straight bottom-3 defensive finishes.

Scores

Bucks 86, Nets 125 (BKN leads 2-0) — Oh deer. Milwaukee has one game to save its season. Kevin Durant is unstoppable. The Nets are unstoppable?

Zach Kram @zachkram

The Nets are now up to 50/44/91 shooting splits *as a team* this postseason

Zach Kram @zachkram

The Nets are now up to 44% on 3-pointers as a team this postseason

Having started P.J. Tucker from the start of the series, are there any rotation adjustments left? For what it’s worth, Mike Budenholzer did play Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo most of their first half minutes. Giannis might even have hit 40 minutes if the game was competitive!

Nuggets 105, Suns 122 (PHX leads 1-0) — A superb start to a series they should win for the Suns. Deandre Ayton came close to playing the MVP to a draw. That’s just massive. Mikal Bridges was superb, Devin Booker was in control and Chris Paul had a stunning fourth quarter as the Phoenix crowd went bonkers. Heckuva start to the series for them all. Denver has to figure out some defensive answers for both members of the Phoenix backcourt and Nikola Jokic is going to need to have an epic series here.

Schedule

All times Eastern.

Lynx at Mystics, 7, Twitter
Hawks at Sixers, 7:30, TNT (ATL leads 1-0)
Clippers at Jazz, 10, TNT (GAME 1)
Wings at Mercury, 10, CBS Sports Network

Links

Tom Thibodeau edged Monty Williams in the closest NBA Coach of the Year ballot ever. Monty had two more first-place votes than Thibs, but Thibs was No. 2 on more ballots that had Monty No. 1 than was the case for Monty on ballots that had Thibs No. 1. It’s fine, Monty will take a summer with the O’Brien over this one.

Neil Olshey isn’t the only GM with a dodgy exit interview. The Mavericks’ Donnie Nelson is, uh, saying Luka Doncic needs to get his teammates involved more? And not that he, Donnie Nelson, needs to build a more coherent roster around him?

Kevin Arnovitz in ESPN Insider on Luka Doncic and Trae Young representing the next generation of NBA superstars. ($)

Brian Windhorst on the coaching job Steve Nash is doing for Brookyln.

Luka implies he will sign his early extension this summer, passing up the chance to be the first superstar to take it to the qualifying offer in Year 5.

Marc Spears on the mutual support the Morris twins provide.

Sixers and Daryl Morey each got fined $75,000 over this tweet.