For the first blog post on this site, I figured it would be fitting to talk about the Blazers’ most recent off-season. There were quite a few acquisitions and new additions to the team that had some people scratching their heads and some people praise the Blazer GM, Neil Olshey. I will be talking a little bit about each player and what I think them in their own blog post. I will also, at the end, be giving my own grade on this off-season. Let’s go!

The biggest player we got this off-season was Robin Lopez. Praise the Lord! Finally, a center that is actually 7’0″ and can contest a shot or two (no offense Meyers). Most people wanted us to go get Omer Asik in Houston and even some people had this fantasy of us wooing Dwight Howard to come here…yeah right. Really, our options were Nikola Pekovic of Minnesota, Zaza Pachulia, a backup center in Atlanta, Omer Asik in Houston, or Robin Lopez in New Orleans. Pekovic was the best case scenario. He would have been the center we needed to start and it would give Meyers more time to develop. People were on board and it seemed like the perfect fit. Yeah, one little problem with that, he was a restricted free-agent and Minnesota was adamantly saying that he was part of their long-term plans going forward. Some fans in Portland thought this was all smoke and mirrors to throw us off, but I think most of us realized the writing on the wall. We had already tried that RFA thing with Roy Hibbert last year and struck out. No way fans wanted that to happen again. I was glad that Olshey decided to not even present an offer sheet as it would have probably have been a waste of time.

Next best case was Asik. We had tried to get Asik last year, but were beat by Houston when he signed a three-year deal with them. At first, most people probably did not understand why were looking at the backup center in Chicago to be our starting center. Well, that opinion was squashed almost instantly as Asik averaged 10.1 points and 11.7 rebounds a game. Say what? At the beginning of the off-season, it seemed like Asik was off-limits. He had a great season in Houston on a team that rising rapidly. Why would Houston want to give him up for anything less than Batum? The trade machines started going again when Dwight Howard finally picked Houston as his next team. Almost immediately rumors swirled that Asik wanted out and did not want to play backup to Dwight Howard. Portland fans immediately wanted Olshey to go hard at Asik. Sign-and-trade Hickson, trade Wesley Matthews and some picks, every scenario you could think of, people were suggesting it. People were also thinking that since we had allowed them to offer Howard a max deal by trading for Thomas Robinson (will discuss this in a future blog post), we could maybe play the friend card a little bit. But, surprisingly enough, the Rockets refused to trade him and he will continue to play for the Rockets even with his apparent displeasure.

The I-guess-it’s-better-than-nothing options were Zaza and Robin. Both just oozed with mediocrity and nobody here was really that stoked about either of them. “Robin Lopez, isn’t that the guy with the funky hair and the brother to his much superior sibling Brook Lopez?” “Zaza….nuff said.” Zaza was a center that had played in Atlanta for the past eight seasons and did not really wow much of anyone. Playing behind Horford and Smith, he averaged last year 21.8 minutes with 5.9 points and 6.5 rebounds. Man, that would have been a great pickup, right? Seriously though, anything was going to be better than Hickson last year. No offense to Hickson who did a phenomenal job in the position we put him in and honestly much better than I had originally though he was going to do. But, the number of one-dribble layups last season was disgusting. We could have put a giant piece of meat in the middle and it would have been better. I think fans, even though they voiced their displeasure loudly on comment forums, just wanted a big body. Someone to at least make it maybe just a little bit difficult to get a basket. Out of those two options, I think Robin Lopez was the one people wanted. He was four years younger than Zaza at 25 and he had the best year of his career starting for the then New Orleans Hornets. Averaging 11.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks per game last year, everyone was feeling okay about this pickup. Some fans obviously still wanted the big splashy center, but it was not going to happen. Olshey did an excellent job of working his way into a three-team trade to land Lopez for essentially change. Yeah, I think everyone wanted to see how Jeff Withey from Kansas would pan out, but we already had a project center. We did not need two of them.

My opinion on getting Robin Lopez is that it was a low-risk high-reward scenario. Robin had started in all 82 games last season and played some decent defense. There was also this lingering reason that maybe he was finally coming into his own. 25 is still pretty young in NBA terms and he had an infinitely better season with New Orleans than any of the seasons he had with Phoenix. Who knows? All-in-all, it fills a desperately needed role and we got him for cheap. If we had traded someone like Wesley Matthews to get him, I might be a little bit more annoyed at the acquisition. One thing we already know is that he fits into the Portland culture extremely well. He is quirky with the big hair and the way he talks on Twitter and in interviews and I think people here are going to really like his personality.