Im glad Joe didn’t cave in. Honestly, screw Nawlins. I guess Zion is about to become more famous if he isn’t traded.
I suggested this would be a likely outcome a week or so ago, mostly because it -- assuming it was Scoot and not Miller that fell to 3 -- was an extremely logical outcome. Scoot was the easy right pick there, Dame or no Dame, so we risk nothing by taking him. CLEARLY NO wants Scoot and wants rid of Zion, there's tremendous potential in a 22yo Zion but still immense risk, so that's not the kind of deal you just immediately say yes to. The fits are there, the desire to make the broader frameworked deal are there, but we have the leverage, so need to make sure the intake matches or supersedes the risk. Could definitely see this as a summer-long flirtation...
[QUOTE="glazeduck, post: 5539512, member: 21908" Could definitely see this as a summer-long flirtation...[/QUOTE] Summer league will be interesting. If Scoot looks great, teams will up their ante. But if he does look great....we might not want to move him or we might increase our asking price. Or he could get hurt and we are fucked.
Cronin’s best move is to not act out of desperation. Teams will try to play off that. He’s best to avoid it, regardless of Dame’s wishes.
Summer league will be interesting. If Scoot looks great, teams will up their ante. But if he does look great....we might not want to move him or we might increase our asking price. Or he could get hurt and we are fucked.[/QUOTE] Such are the risks with playing the dual-timeline strategy, right? Dame could wake up one day and ask out. NO could decide one day that they're ready to cave and move Zion + whatever we were asking for. It's all a game of chicken (though I suppose, to our benefit, our "worst case" is starting over with 2 young studs + trade assets in Dame, Nurk, Ant, and Grant...
Exactly. In a way (and if it's done right), it's a win win. Would LOOOVE to win with Dame, but happy we have contengiencies.
It's like when we used to shop for cars. (now we just get gouged) You have to actually be willing to walk out the door if you don't get what you want. Threatening isn't enough. You have to make them believe that you are willing to walk away. Right now it seems like Joe has to earn the respect of the rest of the GMs because they don't think he has the balls to walk away.
Question, then: he did walk away with this draft saying no to (rumored) trades. Is this enough to garner said respect?
I think it's a step in the right direction. But I have a feeling the rest of the league is watching very closely to see how Joe handles this summer.
Happy that Joe said no to this. A more panicked GM would have acquiesced under pressure to “get something done.”
That was my biggest fear heading into the draft. Mortgaging the future has worked absolutely but with this crop of talent to make deals with, none of them made sense or an impact in the short term enough to mortgage long term.
This is best case scenario honestly. For now. We're blazers fans, we must have conditional modifiers such as "for now".
I am not a big fan of Cronin. Other than the Grant trade last summer, I thought his off-season was really questionable. The contracts of Ant, Nurkic, and Payton were all mostly yuck. Not egregiously so, but I do believe the contract numbers of Ant & Nurkic have been biting Cronin in the butt during trade talks But, in his short sample size of transactions, I think people are going overboard in gauging him as incompetent, even though I do think it's possible he's in a bit over his head. Bad time to be learning on the job
Then again, if we didn't sign Simons/Nurk to those deals, we wouldn't have any contracts to match incoming salary
