Exclusive 2022-23 Portland Trail Blazers Roster

Forwards (big wings) seem to be the most important position in the modern NBA game. We have one in Grant, one on a rookie contract in Little, one who is a limited vet in Winslow paid $4 million, and a couple on minimum salaries.

Just seems to be a total failing in the Olshey years and now continued in the Cronin regime.

I thought we were fine at Guard with Hart complementing DameSimons. Now by default he likely will have to slide over to SF for all of his minutes. People actually talk about 6'3" GP2 playing at PF.

All this talk of the problems with the 3 guard lineup. Now we are going to use a 4 guard lineup?

 

I showed he was listed at PF. But if you want to move him to center thats fine, not terribly relevant when he's a vet minimum.

 

Bro…… I’m seeing 5 G-League players on this roster. 5th -8th seed?

 

Billups views SGs and SFs the same. The main problem has never been size imo. The problem is we had players that just couldn't defend, and being undersized just magnified the problem. With the way the game is played now, the most valued defenders are guys that can switch onto wings, guards, and even bigs. It's why Smart won DPOY imo. The more switchable players you have, the better you'll defend imo. We didn't have that with McCollum, Powell, etc. We have much more of those types now, as well as a coach who actually values defense.

 

I'm pretty bullish on Trendon Watford. I think he slots in as our backup center at the moment, and he'll play some 4. Basically he can be plug and play at all our forward spots. He's got the dribble, pass and defend part down. Just needs to learn how to shoot. And he's signed for 3 more years on a cheap deal. It actually does so much for the future of this team from a team building perspective if he proves he's a rotation quality player.

 

Billups is supposed to be able to coach this team. This year i agree. Gonna be hard to even make the playoffs but i would expect 2023-24 they should be much improved.

 

He's only 6-8? Listed as 6-9 on some sites. he's a PF at best.
Blazers need to bring on a buyout Center and play Drew Eubanks as well.

 

We’re going to play small

 

And lose again.
Might as well get that tank warmed up again no?

 

We probably want to keep the option open to duck the luxury tax, so I doubt we bring in a center. We probably play undersized with Watford, Grant, or Winslow at center if Nurk misses time or has foul trouble. I'd think Eubanks is more of a 3rd string player than a backup/emergency starter.

 

Yeah it's a downer but the Tax now seems to be more important than trying to win because they ain't gonna win this year. So stay under the tax.
bring on the tank and while at it might as well send dame packing. Billups time here is limited as well is my guess.

 

I'm good with keeping Billups, he seems good developing guys. Heck if we want to keep Dame for a rebuild as Kobe stayed on the Lakers thats fine too. Sharpe and Simons are interesting to start a rebuild with. But the team needs a lot more young assets if they hope to ever have a chance to build a contender. The Blazers are likely many years away.

What I'm not ok with is giving up young talent/draft picks for mediocre veterans, sending out starting talent for nothing in return, or bidding against ourselves to overpay our players. All of these actions keep the team in mediocrity with no way to contend today, nor build towards contention in the future.

 

You have not seen him develop anything so i don't know how you could know this?

That pretty much put the Lakers in Purgatory. The Blazers cannot afford that. You know this as well as anyone. I've read your posts. Your smarter than this.

On this we agree.

I honestly don't think anyone is okay with that and i highly doubt that has ever been the plan however trading for veterans and adding good quality pieces that have role player value seems to be what every championship team i have ever watched has done to get where they are.

 

Hi. Couldn't log in with my old login, but I really wanted to ask this. What was the plan last year?

I mean, all I read was Cronin makes clearance with those (kind of ugly) trades, so Blazers have A LOT of salary space to make big signings and all of sudden there is a hard cap and they are done. Like, WTF?

This offseason feels exactly like the season when RoCo supposed to be missing piece of championship run. Or Toliver, really.
I mean, I like Grant and love Payton signings, but they are not Ayton or Butler and I was expecting even more

And another thing. Correct me, because I might see it wrong. For years Blazers played with Dame/CJ duo and now it looks like we'll go with Dame/Ant duo and I really see not much of a difference, to be honest. It feels like they don't want to trade Lillard (obvious reasons) and at the same time see their future in Ant. So, we have same situation as Dame/CJ situation was.
It seems like we are one leg in good direction with addressing defensive issues with signing Hart, Grant, Payton and Nurk, but one leg is in the past and is addressing loyalty issues.

And when I look on this roster I have to ask this: Do we trade Ant or do we trade Lillard? When can Blazers do it? Looks like this needs to be done, because for now it looks like a classic coconut monkey trap.

 

For what it’s worth this is my opinion.
Ant should be a 6th man scoring machine off the bench.

 

I have seen this, and other things...
The Man is a Natural Born Leader, and his Young Guys Love Him.
He will develop them as players AND men,.

 

Discussed on this forum many times when CJ was here.

 

Yeah it was. IMO nothing has changed. Ant should come off the bench.

 

100M player off the bench lolol