PORTLAND, Ore. – For Trail Blazer fans, there’s no denying that seeing the team fail to make any big moves before the trade deadline was a huge bummer but the big question is this actually a good thing?

The answer to this question depends on who you ask, but the reality is that many fans are upset with GM Neil Olshey for failing to make trades which could help the team; although to give Olshey credit, he did make one trade before the deadline when he sent Mason Plumlee to the Nuggets for Jusuf Nurkic and a first round draft pick.

Fans Disappointed

There’s no doubt that after having a strong season last year many Trailblazer fans were hopeful that the team would add key players to fill the holes and help the team win this year.

Olshey for his part did defend himself in a recent interview with oregonlive.com by saying that trade calls before the deadline were “pretty dead” so you can’t fault the GM for not making any major moves if he didn’t have much to work with.

Not Dropping the Ball

Although Trail Blazer GM Neil Olshey could easily drop the ball and blame other people for his team’s mediocre performance this season, the GM is standing up and admitting that some of the blame for his team’s performance this year can be put on his shoulders.

“I think we’ve underperformed relative to the expectations people had for our roster. Some of that is situations out of our control, some is on me,” Olshey said. “I think we’re a better team than people have seen these first 52 games. We’ll build on what we’ve established this year. The new players were integrating, we’ll add the draft picks, we’ll be opportunistic in trades, we’ll put together a better team to put on the floor to compete next summer.

As with any team that is still in the building stages, it’s looking and sounding like Neil Olshey expects fans to be playing the “long game” with him and focusing on where the team is going to be not this year, but in the years to come.