We got the #3 pick. Discuss the possibilities.

Wasn’t his name. It was his numbers. Zion’s career numbers are astonishing.

 

You cannot choose to not to hire someone because they have a mental illness. It’s against the law.

 

I read when Carmen Electra caught him in bed with 2 girls he claimed they fell through the ceiling. That guy is something else.

 

I'm sure it felt like that for Rodman all the time... When Madonna offers to pay you $20 million to knock her up, you know you've got the goods.

 

And now he's having dinners with North Korean dictators. What a crazy life.

 

OKC started Chris Paul, Dennis Schroeder, and SGA and got the 5 seed. Talent wins.

 

I remember reading somewhere that he broke his D running naked from 1 corner of a room and using that extra momentum to thrust into Carmen Electra. Haha dude is the man.

 

This team won 65 games, a franchise record:


This team won 56 games:

 

If we do draft Scoot it'll be so nice to have a legit PG off the bench. Not feeling like we need to ride Dame every night for 37 minutes. Plus it'd allow us to give Dame more load management games as he gets older to be more fresh for the playoffs.

 

well, were not a playoff team as of now and im not sure if scoot changes that

dane would still need to carry us (sure, you hope sharpe improves and that scoot is ready from the get go and that grant & nurk are really good, but thats a lot of ifs)

 

so, if I'm following everything correctly, when the Blazers got 3rd in the lottery, their target list was Bridges, Siakam, and Brown. Bridges appears to be off the table and probably was never on it. And the latest news is that the Blazers were reluctant to pay Siakam a max deal and/or absolutely needed a guarantee he'd re-sign in Portland. Reportedly Siakam would not commit; so those talks are dead. The same issue would be present for Brown, only he'd likely want a bigger contract. If Siakam is off the table, it's pretty certain Brown is too

that would tend to point to Zion being the only 'viable' candidate for a trade of #3. And I'd think there are just too many monkey wrenches lying around between Portland and New Orleans. One of those could be that Portland has way too much institutional memory of injury prone big men to risk the 3rd pick on a fatso who have played only 1/3 of possible games in the league. Another could be that the Blazers have enough residual angst from the Jail Blazer days to not want to risk bad behavior by Zion; Portland has been diligent about not adding players with baggage. And a 3rd monley-wrench could be what CJ has told Dame and the Blazers, in private, about Zion

I know some are counting on a trade for Zion. I'm having a hard time seeing it happen

if I were to bet, I'd say Portland drafts Scoot and we don't hear anything about Blazer trades tomorrow unless it involves 23 or 43

Charlotte could upset the apple-cart though

 

I'm sorry but if we're keeping Dame we have to be trying to maximize what he can give us... we can get Dame a legit backup with the TPMLE. You don't have to use the greatest asset we've had besides Dame since we had pick 1 in 2007 because it would be nice for Dame to have a legit backup. I'm not saying we don't take the BPA at 3 in this draft I'm just saying if it gets that far we still trade his rights because fit matters. The fact that this fan base hasn't learned that over the last 9 seasons is astounding to me.

 

Should we have drafted Jordan and traded him because we already had Drexler?

 

I appreciate your insights and that's not sarcastic but I don't think any of the reasons you gave besides Zion's health hold any water at all. The other thing is, do we really think only the teams who have been rumored to have players we want are viable trade partners?

I don't think Dame is asking out anymore. I think Joe will take the best deal for pick 3 available tomorrow. It's what everything points to. I could have seen drafting Miller but Scoot has so much value around the league and really doesn't have a place on this roster with Dame... especially given all of the things we've heard from Dame.

Or you could be right, we'll see really soon.

 

I think your summary is pretty close, I'm not sure your conclusions are, however...

• For one, I think Bridges is (or will be) more available than advertised. Just like "the Blazers are focused on drafting and keeping Scoot Henderson" is positioning, so too is "we're building around Bridges".
• On Zion: I think your concerns are certainly there for a lot of fans; I don't think they're there (nor should they be) for the front office. How does Dame feel about Zion? Literally our only piece of evidence is that he liked a tweet saying "Get Zion to Portland". It would seem fairly likely that if anything, CJ had good thing to tell Dame about him.

You very well may be right about Zion at the end of the day, but I think we see what we want to see -- you see reasons why we'd pass on Zion. I see him being about as perfect a fit for the predicament that we're in as possible, and signs, for a few days now, seem like that's the direction they're pointing in...

 

Another hiccup could be Portland feeling like they lost a bit in the last NOLA trade and want the edge in this transaction.

 

No those were two players who you could have built around together. They both had size... Clyde was plenty big to play the three. Both of those guys were wings and both of the guys we're talking about being incompatible are ball dominant 1s.

Have you ever seen two ball dominant lead guards try to co-exist? Yeah, it's all we've seen for the last 9 seasons and it's been two guys who are less than the sum of their parts every season. Why would we continue to do that? Also I'm not saying we should just draft Amen. Amen doesn't have near the value that Scoot does. We should trade Scoot for fair value that fits on our roster and can do the most to help us win now.

 

I think Joe feels like that trade was very fair and he should. Hart was good for us and now we have Matisse as a RFA and pick 23 plus likely Jerami on a long term deal. I don't think there are likely any hard feelings. In fact I think because both teams were so fair to each other last time they made a deal, that could bode well for another deal if both teams are interested in one.