Yup. At least Joe is not willing to sell the farm for Dame's cousin, CJ's untapped potential or Masai's inflated value of OG. Hopefully, he is will continue to hold firm until Miami figures it out or bows out.
Can't be, I've been told it was Joe Cronin's fault because he "lied to Damian and the fans". Don't become logical man, mediocre man!
The thing is, EVEN IF Joe said he was "going to trade" to keep Dame (which he didn't say that), it makes no sense for the team to gut itself to marginally improve itself. Especially when you use your brain and realize that the #3 pick is rarely, if ever, traded for a vet player of significance *at the time* of the draft or after it. Unless Dame is a complete and utter twat, he *knew* that was the case. He just looked for plausible deniability when it came to why he wanted out. Dude didn't even wait 24 hours into the FA period to demand a trade. And if the reason is because Portland didn't make a "splash" in the FA market, how exactly do they make a splash with what little they have to spend?? And what trades has the team missed out on?? It's not like the players traded (Beal, KP and CP3) make sense for Portland or were even remotely an option for Portland. Zion wasn't traded, Brown wasn't traded, Bridges wasn't traded, OG and Siakim weren't traded. But damn that Joe Cronin for lying so my podcast can get more viewers! Er, I mean, he lied to the fans and Damian by....realizing that the trade scenarios offered were crap? Such an odd take (not by you @Natebishop3 ...you have other odd takes)
I still remember Olshey's first PC after he was hired. He explicitly said one of his primary jobs was to insure the Blazers ALWAYS had a cache of attractive assets to use as leverage in trade discussions. Maybe not in those exact words, but the meaning was clear year after year after year, he failed in that primary job. The current state of the Blazers isn't all on Olshey, Cronin has some accountability and so do Jody & the Vulcans, but there is still a mess of a roster and a lack of talent to pin directly on Olshey
Yep. I think it's time that people realize this was the case. It's easy to be loyal when you're being given more than any other player in the league. There's also this revisionist fantasy that the Blazers didn't to anything and weren't competitive through Dame's time here, but three 50-win seasons, a 49-win season, a COVID year where they won 58% of their games, seven winning seasons and eight playoff trips in 11 years (including two seasons where the team intentionally tanked), trades for Afflalo, Nurk, Hood, Ariza, RoCo, Whiteside, Powell, Nance, signing Turner, Kanter, Melo, GPII, moving up for Collins ... that's not a bad team being content with being bad. One can easily argue the Blazers poorly executed putting a great team around Dame. That's indisputable. It's equally indisputable to say the organization didn't try -- there's just too much evidence that the team did everything it could to make him happy -- so it's way out there to say they lied. Trying and not succeeding isn't lying.
Lmao? Herro has never come close to 50/40/90. His career TS% is 56% which is about league average. Ant was 58% last year.
50/40/90 <--- The 50 in this context usually refers to overall FG%. But regardless, TS% is a much better measure of efficiency, and Herro is league average.
In discussions of the 50/40/90 clubs, the "50" implies not simply 2pt.%, but overall FG% (i.e. 3pt% & 2pt% combined). His overall FG% last year is 44%... which means he is a decent ways off of the 50%.
Herro is a little better than Simons. If I had to choose one over the other it would be Herro. But my preference would be neither unfortunately for Portland, I think that's the preference of most NBA teams
