The Trail Blazers have agreed to a contract extension for Neil Olshey that will keep the president of basketball operations under team control through 2021, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. According to Wojnarowski, Portland will exercise its two remaining options on Olshey’s contract to lock him up through 2020, and the two sides added an extra year to his deal on top of that.
Olshey, who has been the head of basketball operations in Portland since 2012, joined the Blazers after spending multiple seasons with the Clippers as their GM and VP of basketball ops. Since Olshey took over in Portland, the Blazers have compiled a 223-187 (.544) regular season record, earning playoff berths in four of his five seasons.
While some of Olshey’s moves in the summer of 2016 – including signing Evan Turner and extending Allen Crabbe and Meyers Leonard to lucrative long-term deals – received criticism, he has done well overall during his time with the Blazers. Olshey drafted Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum during his first two years with the franchise, and more recently acquired Jusuf Nurkic and a first-round pick in a seemingly lopsided deal with the Nuggets.
The Hawks had interest in interviewing Olshey for their GM job earlier this offseason, but were denied permission by Portland, says Wojnarowski.
According to Basketball Insiders’ data, the Blazers are carrying $124MM+ in guaranteed team salary for 2017/18 and have $114MM+ in guarantees on the books for 2018/19, even without taking a potential Nurkic extension into account. As such, Olshey will have his work cut out for him as he looks to continue building the Blazers’ roster into a title contender.