Meeting between Dame and Cronin today

I like Dame. And I ride or die with my crew. Happily.

 

Most of the arguments with people have been over a complete disbelief that people can interpret Dame's own words differently. I have never said that Dame is going to demand a trade. I did say that he told us twice that he'd have a separate conversation if we used the pick, which would tend to indicate that he would discuss potentially leaving the team. I have never said that I'm 100% married to trading him or keeping him. I have said multiple times that I can see both sides of the argument. So I don't know what I would be taking a victory lap about.

I think it is most likely in our best interest to trade Dame and build around Scoot and Sharpe, but if it was possible to put the right players around Dame to compete, I'm fine with that too. I just don't think it's likely. I haven't taken the hard stance on this that you seem to think that I have. With LMA, I was convinced that he was leaving. That was a completely different situation. The abuse is the same.... but my stance was different.

 

Exactly and we have a lot of threads of late to prove that is true. It is one thing to debate whether or not to trade Dame, but some of the ignorant posts claiming to be so sure about knowing what Dame was thinking and what Dame was going to do because he was "lied to" was beyond ridiculous. Not saying that he still won't ask to be moved at some point, but to think he felt betrayed because of what happened on draft night was about as dumb as it gets. Not a lot of logic by a few in the last 4 days.

To be clear I am not talking about the pro vs anti-trade Dame debate, that is a legitimate argument, but some of the remarks about Dame and Joe this week were pretty fucking dumb.

 

I feel bad for Joe.... because it feels like he's being setup to be the villain no matter what he does.

 

Sure but you don't know which path will lead/keep us in purgatory. You might think you do, but nothing is for sure.
So enjoying the greatest player in franchise history a little longer is not a bad option either.

 

In reading your tone and body language, you did somewhat imply that the separate conversation would be him demanding a trade.

Today was the separate conversation...

 

I'm not sure how you were able to read my mind while I was giving you the finger... you're quite astute!

 

But we do know.

 

We may not, but it seems that every former NBA player and analyst with the exception of Rich Eisen believes this. I tend to side with the folks who know the in's and out's of the league.

 

Here is what I think. I think Joe told Dame that we are done tanking, just like he has been telling Dame. We are now trying to win. We don't have any more players that we are trying to get rid of, so we aren't going to be making any more "lopsided" trades. So, if you want us to, we'll let you know if a team calls us offering a fair package for you. If your agent has a fair offer he can broker we'll certainly consider it, again, if that is what you want. But it will have to be a substantial offer.

And I think Dame knows that means that any team he would go to would have to give up too much to make it more appealing than staying here.

*Edit* And with that said, we'll be looking to make good moves to balance the roster moving forward.

 

Simons still has to go. At the very least, he has to be traded if Dame is staying and we have Scoot and Sharpe.

 

it's actually very simple. If Blazers use the full-MLE (about 11M) they can not, for any reason, exceed the apron; they will be hard-capped again. That apron will be around 169M

 

I think if Blazers were to trade Scoot or Sharpe to make Dame happy, and we don’t win a title or even get close, a lot of fans will turn on Dame. He will greatly damage his image and legacy here in my opinion. Any win now trade that happens at this point is because of Dame.

 

Just don't want to trade Simons until there's a clear plan...He would be a good guy to keep around for at least the next couple years if Dame is gone and they can sell him on 6th man along with a small ball lineup. This is a sticky situation.

 

LOL... it's just common sense!

 

You got to get me that list of former NBA players and analysts that you trust. Because from what I have heard over the last 30 years, I am convinced they know less about the Blazers (and the city of Portland) than the majority of fans on this board. And that is saying something.

 

You would hope that before Cronin makes some semi-big move, Dame would provide him assurances that it was enough to end this drama for years.

 

That's the problem.... we can't keep Dame unless we improve the team and Simons is one of our only assets that we can trade.... but if we want to rebuild around Scoot and Sharpe, Simons would make sense as a third guard, so we can't trade him if we think Dame will ultimately ask out.

Chick and the egg.