Is Lillard a Gobert equivalent? In opposite ways but with the same results? Both are very good in one aspect of the game which helps their team but neither has the all-around game to take the team over the top? Both being paid an arm & a leg but are they really worth it? I have to believe that if Ainge had come to PDX as the GM, he’d have traded Lillard like he did Mitchell & Gobert. What are your thoughts? Is Dame our Gobert or is he different?
Ant duplicates all the strengths of Dame so neither player can be fully utilized, but hides none Dame's weaknesses. Grant has been great but the rest of the roster is totally irrelevant. Nurk is a tax MLE level player paid 4x his value. Dame could be the best offensive player on a contending team; but he needs a great roster built around him. He can't just be thrown on a team like Luka, Steph, Durant, young LeBron, Giannis and have them contend. It would've made the most sense to trade him and rebuild. But if the team is set on sticking with him they need to rebuild like the injured Kobe Lakers did. Trying to win now with this current roster and lack of assets this franchise has was a terrible decision.
Maybe, but either could be part of a balanced contending starting lineup as the Billups Pistons were. I guess the trick is being able to build such a lineup when these guys are on supermax contracts.
That Pistons team had 4 all-stars + Tayshaun Prince in the starting lineup. That model isn't an option for this team.
I think there was a time when Dame was arguably a top 5 player in the league. His ability to run an offense makes him more than a one dimensional player like Gobert. With that said, I'm worried that the window has closed on that stage of Dame's career.
Gobert hasn't once put a lottery team on his shoulders and carried them to the playoffs. Dame has done that 3 or 4 times
Yeah I really don't think people understand how much he carried this team. He made Terry Stotts a lot of money.
Only Sheed was an all-star BEFORE he became a Piston. The rest of them varied from non-entities (Ben Wallace) to decent (Rip Hamilton) before they were acquired. (I think almost everybody thought the Pistons were giving up the better player when they traded Stackhouse for Rip.) So you trade for a player who doesn't fit where they are and Bob's your uncle! Besides, part of the reason ALL of those guys became all-stars after becoming Pistons was because the Pistons were so good without having a clear best player. You couldn't NOT have a Piston all-star, given that they were a top 3 team in the league, so they had to have ALL of them. Same thing happened with the Lakers before they got Kobe - you even had Nick Van Exel as an all-star.
If I'm picking a team I choose Lillard over Gobert everytime..it's not even close. Dame is in a slump, so expect a lot of Dame bashing threads until they win a game.
Don't forget the Eastern Conference was such a joke back then too, there was the Pistons and who else? Allen Iverson on the Sixers? The East was such a joke back then, the Spurs had way better players and they rarely got all three of their big 3 starters on the Western All Star team because the West was so stacked at that time.
I been telling ya for years. Dame is overrated with his 3 point shooting. Feast or famine. Now you guys are asking questions like this on this thread lol
This was not intended as a bash, just asking a question. Outside of a number of very exciting Dame-time moments and a few going-nuclear moments, where, exactly, has he led us? Not bashing, asking. As I asked myself that question, I wondered if he was more of a Gobert type player. Very good in one/two areas but not complete and hasn't led his team to significant success but paid as though he had. I don't question his loyalty nor his skill, just his ability to lead the Blazers to a championship.
My target concerning Dame's season so far is on Chauncey....I think Chauncey has failed to put an address on our vets and coached poor endgames. Dame even shooting horribly still puts up 30 pts and a pile of assists and is trying on defense. In fairness, nobody has taken this team to a championship since Walton so that's not a measuring stick for me but Dame will have folks eating crow by the playoffs I predict. Our problems have been injuries and chemistry so far and it shows. The Dame/Ant pairing has to go. We are not running many pick and rolls with Dame which is his bread and butter. I'm one of the few that thinks this roster under Stotts would be winning more games and finishing games stronger. I don't think Stotts will coach again so that's just my opinion but Chauncey isn't impressing me in the X's and O's department so far.
