How did we all miss this? -Is your heart stay in Portland? - *laughs* man you know where my heart is... I ain't got nothing else to say about that, man." Easy to overthink and read into this comment.
10 min mark: Question: Do you feel unfulfilled as an NBA player w/o a championship? "If we put our best foot forward and we come up short, I can live with that. But if we cool with just not being a bad team, then we gotta re-evaluate." Listen to his answer. He's not going anywhere, and this pressure he's putting on Neil (@B-Roy ) this summer is obvious why.
I think he's just taking advantage of this moment of change to effect further change to strengthen team. Don't think for a moment that Jody&Bert don't have a direct conduit to Dame and he them. Dame could end up part owner of this franchise down the road and Im sure he knows it.
I have been begging him to do this for years. Use his status to put pressure on Neil. He's finally doing it, but it's still terrifying.
I know the question was asking him about which NBA team, but I think Dame's answer was not to say which team he sees himself with. Just where his heart is, literally. The guy he's taking the interview from is a native Oakland dude, that's why they're close. And I agree he's not going anywhere, at least this off-season, but it's more to do with his contract as well as his desire not to immediately sully his public image. He's doing this to put pressure on the Blazers because this is the only way he can force their hand, and he doesn't have time to wait around anymore while we waste his prime. The comment about not just happy to be in the playoffs was something I brushed off when I saw this for the first time a few weeks ago. But I actually think it's based on what he thinks management wants. I think Jody Allen and the rest of the Vulcans are perfectly happy selling hope to the fans, stringing along Dame for the rest of his contract, and just being a 3-6 seed with very little chance at contending. I think Dame knows that and that's why he's applying pressure on them to make a decision one way or another (either go all-in to contend, or trade me).
I can see why you might think that, but I don't see it that way. I think that Olshey and Blazers ownership want to win a title, but their hands are somewhat tied by the current cap situation. I think the moves to obtain RoCo and, to a lesser extent, DJ Jr. were aimed at being in a position to contend...or at least being in a position to contend if things with other teams broke the Blazers' way as they are doing now for the Suns. I think that the move to acquire Norm was also in a similar vein. Olshey is still in a tough position with respect to having limited assets for trades and nothing more than low level exceptions to use to acquire free agents. Are we really expecting that he's going to be able to spin CJ into a significant enough player that the Blazers suddenly are viewed as being on the level of the Lakers, Nets, Bucks, etc? As I see it, getting to the Suns' level of competitive is about the most we can hope for at best this year.
Yeah, I fully believe Olshey thinks this current roster is good enough if things break right. It's straddling the line between giving up all our future resources while also being competitive enough. I just don't think Dame sees it that way. Like I mentioned in another thread, Olshey has been very hesitant to trade firsts in the past for anything less than a sure thing. Last year was the first time he traded some firsts for a current player, and no disrespect to RoCo, but he wasn't going to put us over the top. Dame has for sure seen the type of all-in moves that other teams have made in the past few years. Basically, sell your entire future by trading 3+ firsts and multiple swaps to try and get a significant upgrade. So to say we don't have assets is disingenuous. I think the more correct interpretation is that we haven't been willing to sell our future for the now. But time's up for that. We had the chance to straddle the line between present and future between 2016-2019 and Olshey blew it. Also, mentioning the Suns is great. We should be trying to emulate what they did last off-season! They added an all-NBA player that finished 3rd in MVP voting that off-season, moving a good starter in Rubio to do it. Norm is a good player, but when was the last time we brought in an all-star player in a trade? (hint: never) I know in hindsight that Paul deal was a no-brainer, and there's not a no-brainer deal out there for us to go for. So you're looking at trading the farm for a guy in the same tier as Jrue Holiday and hoping that works. Or we could always decide it's not worth it. Maybe it's better to start looking at Dame trades.
