If you get #1, you don't trade it....period. After that, perhaps you entertain it to see what types of deals are out there, but a super high Lottery pick on a rookie scale contract is very valuable. Philly's situation will be very interesting if they don't make the Conference Finals, and if Harden decides to leave, I can see Embiid wanting out. Jaylen Brown already isn't thrilled about being in Boston, so that has the potential to be of interest as well. Who knows what the Raptors will do with their log-jam of wings, so yet another possibility, but that seems like a distant 3rd in terms of value coming to Portland.
not sure the Blazers could get anything else besides Embiid...assuming Philly would be interested timing would be tricky. IIRC if the trade happened around the draft, the draft pick would not have a cap-hold. But Embiid's salary is 33.6M and jumps to 46M in the off-season making a trade harder to match....although Ant (24M), Nurkic (17M), Wemby (12M) is 53M the 1st + Ant + Nurkic for Embiid would be really tempting. Dame Sharpe (Thybulle?) Grant Embiid that looks kind of like a contender to me (with significant questions). It would be expensive though, would the Vulcans pay for it?
I think Luka might be the only star player who potentially wants out. I really dislike the guy though. I don’t see the Nuggets ever trading Jokic or the Bucks ever trading Giannis. Would the Celtics trade Tatum?
That’s an overpay IMO. Wemby AND Simons for Embiid is too much. I’d like to see if we can send out Simons for a small forward.
I don't think I agree. Embiid is a top-5 player right now and there's absolutely no guarantee Wemby will ever come close to that. Dame + Embiid will be good for certain. Dame + Wemby? but the main thing is the Blazers have to match salary and Ant is the only realistic way they can
I don't know if they will but if the Sixers or Bucks lose in the first round then they might consider Wemby, Ant and Nurk for Embiid or Giannis. Those are the only two teams I could see freaking out and giving us what we would need in exchange for Wemby. I honestly think if you put Giannis or Embiid on a team with Dame, Jerami, Shaedon, whoever we get with the Knicks pick, whoever we could get with the MLE and some of the bench pieces we currently have Matisse, Trendon and maybe Drewbanks. That's a contender and we might not even have to worry about Trendon or Drew being in the rotation because if you put Dame, Giannis/Embiid, Jerami and Shae on a roster, ring chasers would follow. We could also guarantee the Bulls our first rounder for next year with a second rounder and then try to pursue a difference maker with our future firsts that makes 8M or less.
If we get the first pick we take Wemby because from day one he's going to be a problem. Defensively he can guard the perimeter and recover to protect the rim like every play. Offensively he cuts really well, he rolls really well and he shoots extremely well. We would want to take our remaining draft capital, Ant and Nurk and try to get a bulky player to play with him and Grant. We could pick Wemby and trade either four future firsts with Ant and Nurk for an all star that makes sense with the team we'd have or three future firsts and the Knicks pick.
Buck won't trade Giannis. Embiid? real long shot but maybe one quibble is that with Embiid's 46M next season and a resigned Grant, I really doubt Portland could go the full-MLE route. They could use the tax-MLE and re-sign Thybulle; maybe Reddish too if he signs for 3-4M
"If we get the first pick we take ODEN because from day one he's going to be a problem" best laid plans reminder: if Portland finished 5th there's a 90% chance they won't win the lottery
So instead of the great MLE GP2 or Derrick Jones Jr signings the Blazers have been able to do: we'd have to settle for signing players like Otto Porter Jr or Malik Monk.
you seem to think that's worse? Free agency has never been kind to Portland....we all know that I'd rather see a player like Porter for 2-4M on a 1 or 2 year deal than Jones/Payton at the full-MLE for 3-4 years with Portland hard-capped you're bitching about the Blazers constantly now, but what about Portland's current situation is functionally worse than the years when they were making the playoffs and getting swept in the first round by the Warrior and Pels or losing 1-4 to Memphis and the Lakers or losing to the Nuggets 2-4 while Dame played like a superstar and all his low-level teammates shit the bed? That wasn't better. That was an Edsel crashed in the dead end alley of a dysfunctional, unbalanced, midget roster with piss-poor draft prospects...or none. And managed by an egotistical buffoon after years of that shit it's actually a little more hopeful to at least have the possibility offered by high draft picks instead of picks in the 20's or wasting picks monumentally or trading the picks for nearly useless role players. I'm glad Portland is not battling for the last couple of seeds in the play-in. There's no future in that situation the biggest problem is that 13 months ago a lot of Blazer fans were completely unrealistic about what was ahead. Portland wasn't going to be able to trade a bunch of dimes and nickels for a dollar and a few quarters. They were sitting with a completely shitty collection of assets. They weren't going to be able to trade CJ for an all-star or Powell for a high-level two-way wing. Any realistic assessment of the situation was that the Blazers were going to have to get worse before they had a path to get better. And by worse, it's important to remember that the Blazers were 10 games under .500 when last year's trade deadline rolled around. They absolutely were NOT the team that made it to the WCF...where they got swept. Olshey had seen to that with a series of idiot moves. Dame was injured and all those players Portland traded that guys like you are nostalgic for couldn't lead Portland to wins..... that's what is important to remember: Cronin didn't dismantle a playoff team...he dismantled a team that was 10 games under .500. Expecting a contender 13 months after that is ludicrous
We are a 17 point underdog against the Wolves this afternoon and later in the afternoon the Magic are 11.5 point favorites against the Pistons. ESPNs matchup predictor gives both us and the Pistons less than a 10% chance of winning our games today. If we lose and the Magic win that will mean we have a two game cushion between us and any other team to retain the 5th position in the draft lottery by ourselves and not have to share a portion of those odds with any other team. I don't think there is much of a chance of us winning two out of our next three especially with how close things are for the teams we play the rest of the way besides the Spurs who don't have much to gain by tanking under the Rockets given the fact that the 1st, 2nd and 3rd positioned teams in the lotto have the same chance at the first pick and according to tankathon the same chance of getting a top four pick. The Grizzlies are two games away from being the one seed in the West and two games away in the other direction from being the three seed. Both the Clippers and Warriors are a game or less away from having to be in the play in tournament but that could change by the time we play them. When I look at their rosters and ours I think the Warriors will all have a really hard time dropping a game against us if they are trying to and we are also trying to. The end of their bench is just better than the end of ours. So there will still be some intrigue going into the Spurs game if there are teams that are still only two games behind us or if we somehow win against the Wolves or Grizz. Five games left in this season, I think we will match last season's eleven game losing streak to close this one out.
I think that's a bridge too far. Maybe 40 providing he's really really hot, gets to the line a lot, and doesn't face a good defender. But 50 seems out of reach to me
I mean if the guy gets hot, stays aggressive and gets to the line more, I think he's capable of that however if it comes after tonight and if we lose tonight and Orlando wins like the odds makers seem to think, we can take one win at that point. I honestly think if Shae dropped 50 in a game and that got us a win, they would shut him down for the rest of the season, especially when considering our most recent signing.
The kid can shoot, he can be aggressive at times. It would take him being aggressive the entire game, the team we are playing against to not double him or ball deny him, him having the hottest shooting he's had and him getting calls. Very very unlikely but I guess it could happen. Again, I think if Shaedon has any kind of standout performance that leads us to a win, then we will shut him down for the rest of the season. The objective is very obviously to keep the fifth position in the draft lottery that we currently hold and I think Cronin will do whatever it takes to make that happen... I mean I don't think Joe is going to kill anyone to make it happen but as far as sitting guys down, Joe will do whatever he thinks he has to to secure losses if we were to pick up a win. I still think the most likely scenario is that we lose out and finish the season with the same eleven game losing streak we finished last season with.
