I don’t think J is saying not to start a rebuild......he’s questioning the players this guy said to rebuild around.
So a 7’ PF/C who is 20 years old and plays both ends of the court, and picked 10th in the draft is not someone to build around? Or a 7’ Center who had 2 games of 30 points and 20 rebounds in a 20 game span last year, and is only 23 is not some one to build around? How am I losing cred?
No, please. It's hard to find talent like Dame and CJ. Let alone quality individuals like Dame and CJ. Those guys represent Portland well. Keep 'em as long as they'll stay. The Blazers are currently tied for 8th in a loaded Western Conference, and we're above 500. Yes we've had a 3 game losing streak (all on the road), but now is not the time to throw in the towel on this team. It's easy to say 'blow it up', but to do that you have to find willing trade partners and get good value back for your assets. The Blazers have a lot of good trade pieces in Shabazz, Vonleh, Harkless, and Davis. Keep looking for that value consolidation trade to upgrade at SF and/or PF. We're the 2nd youngest team in the NBA at 24.9. We've got Nurk who's only 23, and Collins at 20. The future looks bright. No way I want to 'blow it up' and hope for the lottery to save us. "Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for entertainment, not investment purposes."
I think your logic is flawed. Dame is a top 20 player right now. CJ is a top 30 player right now. Is there any hope that Nurk and Collins will ever get to that level? Or higher? If you don't think they'll ever get to this level, then what's the point of building around them? I think the more sound argument is that we haven't truly built a compatible roster with Dame/CJ to maximize their skills while minimizing their deficiencies. This roster Neil has put together after Aldridge left has been a collection of (now, overpaid) misfits.
We should not trade Dame or CJ. They are elite talents. We need some help at small forward and Stotts needs to play the guys that will be cornerstones in the future. That is not Aminu.
we are kinda just muddling around in that 'make it to the playoffs, goodbye after round 1' zone. i dunno what the answer is tbh, we have a bunch of solid players, but we are a very small back court, and have a pretty inconsistent front court. sometimes thats gonna hurt. i think we can get away with the dame/cj combo if we had a legit SF to take some of the pressure off on both ends of the court. then just double down on defense in PF/C and hope 1-2-3 produces enough most nights to put us in with a chance. i really like shabazz, and i really wish cj and dame were inverted positions on the team and .
Good example of what I am afraid might happen, drafting or trading for guys guys like Fultz or D'Angelo Russel with our top picks. Players like that are OK, but I can't see them making us any more satisfied. I have been on the message boards for almost 30 years. I am trying to remember how many Blazer players during that time frame we have not crucified. Fuck we even wanted to trade Clyde in 1987....for crap.
You don’t make any sense... if the surrounding talent is so bad how do you expect to make trades to get better players? Stars are the ones responsible for team play, not the fringe players... you are making excuses for them.
The thing that's concerning is Neil seems to be in perpetual asset acquisition mode. When will he actually build a team? He blew his capspace on Turner because he felt he HAD to. It was an opportunity cost move as he'd lose the FA space in the coming summer. Turner is a horrible fit. He did the same with AC/Moe/Meyers. These weren't players that he kept to be future cornerstones with Dame/CJ-- rather, they were "assets" he intended to keep only to move in future deals. We don't need to surmise this, he actually has said as much. Unfortunately, that hasn't worked out with the reduced cap and these players regressing and Neil has been unable to turn these supposed assets into anything of significance. Nurkic was the first piece that actually complemented these guys skill wise, and he fell into Neil's lap in a trade that was made to create cap flexibility. Let's not suddenly believe that he targeted Nurk and found him as our CotF. And I seriously question whether he feels the same about Collins. Zach screams of a pick that Neil made for another team in a deal that fell through (Indiana, anyone?) With this history, I'm wary of whether Neil actually knows what it takes to build a playoff team, rather than just going on and on collecting assets for (what he believes is) cheap.
This team is just not good. Lillard and CJ do not play well together. The record, even at .500 seems to be overachieving when you actually watch the games. Dead last in assist and fast break points is not a team you want to go all in on. The stars are the ones responsible... not players getting 15 min every other night
We already have stars. Dame and CJ are stars. What we need is a competent small forward and we need to go big up front with Nurk and Collins. It might be ugly at first, but I firmly believe that is the track we should take to become an elite team. That may mean replacing Stotts as well. He hasn't shown me that he can take the team to another level.
When your house has a bad roof and is leaking, or when the carpets are worn out, there are solutions other than sticking some TNT in the crawlspace and lighting a match.
Neil went after Paul George. He went after Melo. He's tried to get stars, but like most of the league, he wasn't able to. This translates into "know how". The OP has very merits, but he could at least have said Nurk, Collins, and Shabazz.... Like it or not, Dame is our Dirk. Olshey won't be trading him or tanking, even when Dame's 40.
I guess this is where we simply disagree as IMO they are not "elite talents", one is a two-time all star the other has not made an all star team and they are one dimensional offensive "talents" and are at best average on defense if not below average. I like these guys and really do not want to see them go, but we are going nowhere with them and are locked into an ugly and inflexible salary cap situation so our options to change are severely limited. Therefore IMO we are better off getting top value for these guys while we can as they are in their prime and locked into longer term deals.
I had almost blanked them from my memory until I saw this picture. All those years of Mindfullness training, worthless. Shit!
I would trade McCollum for a top 5 pick in this draft. And I'm a huge McCollum fan. But the defensive deficiencies of this backcourt are never going to get us anywhere.
Tear down projects are rarely quicker routes to greatness than starting with an okay team and trying to find ancillary talent where you can and hoping for one or two to unexpectedly flourish. We just saw how that could happen (though currently it looks like it ultimately did not) with Nurkic. If Nurkic had, in fact, been the star that he was with Portland last year, Portland's situation would look much better. You take the talent you have and try to make the smartest moves you can going forward. That doesn't preclude trading Lillard or McCollum, or even trading them for younger assets if the net-present value seems higher. But tearing it all down because "this isn't working and we should start over" is silly.
For starters, Pat is not someone you build around. You barely build adjacent to him. Secondly, 24 isn't "finished" products, but 26 and 27 is?
