Would you go all-in on the playoffs?

I estimate him.

 

Absolutely not. But it doesn't matter because this team doesn't have a snowball's chance of making the playoffs anyway.

 

30, not 20.

 

I don't know about other people but I have never thought just a draft pick is what is needed. But it could help, and we definitely need the help. Also a draft pick could be useful as one piece in making a trade for someone much better than a draft pick.

 

I personally do not want the team to adopt a losing mentality, I just want the team to focus on long term goals right now. That means allowing guys who might not help win now to play a lot of minutes, hoping that they become good enough to either become solid players or become attractive assets to use in a trade.

 

Agreed....a losing mentality can be a difficult thing to change course on. However, there have also been meteoric changes from one year to the next due to injuries, big trades or additions of mercurial talent. If Portland was 'tanking', I don't think that would be the right way to go about it even if it brought a better Draft pick. However, playing Dame/CJ to the exclusion of most of the rest of the team isn't really developing the younger talent either. You can develop and get more shots for Plumlee, Vonleh, Aminu, Harkless, Leonard, Davis etc without trying not to win. The results might cost you a few games but the effort and intention of growth would still be there.

So much of this would have been a moot point any other year. We're having a Playoff discussion with a team that won 4 of 5 games before last night and was still on pace for 35 wins. That should not be anywhere near a playoff discussion and has more to do with how poorly teams around them are playing versus how well Portland is doing.

 

Agreed. In a "normal" year, we wouldn't even think about having a should we try for the playoffs conversation with our record. However, with as poorly as other teams are playing and with how well we are playing (relatively speaking), we ARE having the conversation and it IS a relevant topic.

The Lottery is a crapshoot but the higher you are, the better your odds. We are in a position to be at the bottom-end of the lottery. In that case, I think the talent differential between say a 10-12 pick (roughly) and perhaps a 16 or so pick are negligible.

If we were in a position to land a top five pick (which has a much higher chance of landing the kind talent the lottery rooters want us to get), we wouldn't be having a playoff conversation.

As I see it, we are almost in a lose-lose situation. If we miss the playoffs, we likely get a bottom-end lottery pick. Odds are we get another Meyers Leonard or such - someone with potential but not game-changing - at least immediately. If we make the playoffs, if I recall correctly, we lose our pick (lottery protected) so we get nothing out of the draft. On the other hand, if we make the playoffs and show improvement throughout the season, perhaps we become a slightly more attractive location for the "right" free agent.

Gramps...

 

Edit: Nevermind Gramps. That is what I get for skimming. Disregard.

 

Dang! I missed what I am now supposed to disregard. Now I'll be regarding the disregard for hours!

Gramps...

 

There is too much disregarding going on this morning. I'm thinking of disregarding the whole forum for the rest of the day!

Nevermind. Disregard that.

Gramps...

 

Exactly where I was hoping this team did not end up this season. Just good enough to not get a decent pick but not good enough to make any playoff impact at all....the definition of basketball purgatory. Anything but that.

 

The lower teams in the east are far better than the ones in the west this year. Last night's loss pushed us from the 8th seed in the playoffs to the 8th seed in the lottery. The team ahead of us in the lotto rankings (DEN) is only 3 games behind us in the win column, with the same number of losses. And we're 3 games behind NO for the 6th seed in the lotto.

If you guys recall, in 2007 when we got the #1 pick, we went into the lotto with the 6th worst record.

It's not exactly bottom playoff seed and no draft pick vs. late lottery pick. It's playoff seed vs mid-lottery pick. And the difference between a #6 pick vs #12 pick is massive in terms of both probability of landing #1 in the lotto, and also landing a Damian Lillard vs a Jeremy Lamb.

 

And if there is a more compelling argument against hoping to get the number 1 pick, I don't know a better one than reminding us of 2007.

<sigh>

 

A four game losing streak will get us back into the thick of things in the lotto. We're not as much in purgatory as you suggest.

 

My point still remains. The fact that we struck out with GO not withstanding.

KP should have seen the injury signs and we should have had better luck. Bottom line is, we had the best chance to land a franchise changing player for the next decade. Ben Simmons is that kind of transcendent player.

 

As I read that post, the old Monty Python song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" popped to mind.

 

Their next 5 games are against the dregs of the NBA, the Sisters of the Poor, the Walking Dead, the inconsequential. As poor as their record is this season, it seems more likely they could go 4-1 or 5-0 during that stretch versus a 4 game losing streak at home. They will win the majority of those games and some fans will be excited that they have won 9 of their last 11....when only one of those wins would have come against a team over .500. Beating up on the lousy is what got Portland off to such a fast start the last two seasons as they pillaged the then weak East.