Bottom line, whenever someone speaks in absolutes they're usually wrong. When you compound that with the lack of any actual knowledge about what's going on behind the scenes, your assertion that we won't trade Dame to Miami unless he expands his list is silly in it's certainty. Don't get me wrong you may be right and maybe Joe's position is that Miami doesn't have the right assets and/or having only one team to deal with doesn't give him enough leverage to make a fair trade. We might also trade him to Miami on Monday. There are thousands of maybes that could make you look right but I think there are at least hundreds of maybes that could also make you wrong.
I don’t expect Dame to continue scoring at such a high rate, but 32 and his highest efficiency… I been saying it for a decade… Dame’s game has a lot that allows him to age gracefully. I mean, what, Steve Nash was an all-star at 36 or 37?
In 2 years yeah Dame will earn 60 million but we'll have players earning 70-80+ million so his contract won't look that huge. Brown just got $305 million and those new deals will increase every summer. The cap will approach $200 million per year. If Dame is still playing at an allstar level, which is very possible for such a skilled shooter who doesn't have a game reliant on athleticism, his contract may be a big benefit - and not at all a cost or a negative. Now I do acknowledge there is risk in holding Dame - but there is certainly the potential he will be worth more in x number of months if we keep him. I'd try to get a deal done before camp, but if the Blazers aren't getting everything Miami is capable of sending out they should hold firm for a better deal. The nightmare scenario where the Blazers just hold on to Dame and get stuck with his overpaid contract isn't the worst thing in the world either. The Blazers probably need the next 3 years to build with Scoot/Sharpe/etc anyways - so they don't need to get Dame's contract off the books to bring in the final contending piece or anything. This notion that the Blazers should 100% trade Dame for whatever they can is a terrible strategic long term decision. If a trade makes sense then trade him, if not then take your time and wait. If it takes months it takes months.
I just can't imagine the Blazers agreed no matter the return they'd trade Dame wherever he wanted. So they'd take on the worst contracts in the NBA with no assets in return if Dame asks? That doesn't make any sense. They might have said they would make an effort to trade Dame to whatever single team of his choosing. Maybe Dame has even told Miami this and thats the reason for the lowball offers. The Blazers don't have to agree to some shit return regardless of any statements they made previously. Yeah it might burn some bridges if Dame feels they aren't keeping up their word, but the long term direction of the Blazers should be a bigger concern to Blazers management than one players opinion of a confidential private un enforceable conversion.
I try not to say "I told you so!" because I've been wrong, plenty, although not for hours now but..... I've been pushing back, for more than a year, against all of the people who have been calling for Dame to be traded while they were expecting a "haul"...a godfather package in return. I just haven't seen that thinking as anywhere close to realistic. The reasons are obvious: Dame is in his 30's; he's 6'2; he's weak defensively; he's on a 4 year contract that pays over 60M when he's 36 the easy excuse to reach for right now is the unreasonable Miami-or-bust stance he and his agent are taking. But even without that, which teams would actually roll out some major offer? * Brooklyn doesn't seen interested, at all...understandably; especially considering they have resurrected their future out of the grave of previous stupid moves and transactions * Philly has no assets other than Maxey. Only one 1st round pick and it's not till 2030 * Boston? their interest was always grossly overrated around here and the Brown signing has torpedoed what little there was * New York? 26 year old Brunson at 25M/year or 33 year old Dame at 54M/year? c'mon man * New Orleans? great...Dame for CJ * Utah? Cronin vs Ainge; yeah that will work well you don't think Pat Riley can read these same tea leaves? By most 'accounts', Miami isn't even approaching the max offer they could make for Dame. Maybe they will by training camp, but they sure as shit won't go max until Dame backs off of his Miami-or-bust posture; and even if he does, that won't generate the kind of offers some are expecting. Right now, to me, it looks like Cronin's best option is too simply tell Dame to be ready to report to Blazer training camp and be ready to play when the season starts. The best lever Cronin has is that the Blazers are going nowhere next season
Well..... first of all.... who said we'd get a haul? I always thought we should try to get as much value as possible while we still could. Second, nobody and I mean NOBODY thought Dame would come out and give us a list of one team. That has massively impacted our ability to shop for better deals.
really? you have not noticed all of the Dame trade ideas over the last year, and over the last month, that has Portland receiving good young prospects, expiring contracts, and 5-7 first round picks and swaps? There have been dozens and dozens of those and you have made several and I specifically mentioned the Miami-or-bust thing. It matters for sure, but I think people are really overrating the perceived market without that single team demand. What if Dame has said: Miami, Brooklyn, and Philly as the preferred destinations? Philly may be the one team that has worse assets than Miami; and the Nets really don't seem that interested, especially after making out like bandits when trading away an aging superstar. Why does anybody think they'd mortgage 5-7 years of their future after getting it back in the Durant trade?
Why move past New Orleans and just say CJ? They have Herb Jones and Trey Murphy. Both players better fits and with more potential than anyone Miami is offering us. They also have Dyson Daniels and Jordan Hawkins and multiple picks. It might not be a "haul" but its good assets and stuff to move forward with from a depreciating asset.
I already said that yesterday that it seems like his value is even lower than we thought. And yeah... it's fun to imagine different trade scenarios..... but I don't think anyone has EXPECTED a god father package. We can HOPE for one... but like I said, I think most of us had to drastically temper our expectations after Dame torpedoed our leverage by giving us a list of one team.
Brooklyn isn't in a position where they'd really need to mortgage anything. They have seven tradeable first round picks and I don't think anyone is saying that we'd get back more than four from them and they'd likely only have to give up Simmons and one of there two rookies. I think that the position that we would be putting Miami in as one of the top teams in the league should warrant a very good offer from them by training camp. That offer would be them guaranteeing OKC their 2026 pick so we could get their FRPs in 2024, 28 and 30, we should not have to take back a shitty contract like Duncan Robinson's, we should get both Jovic and Jaquez. Honestly I don't think it's crazy to say that we will send them Dame and Nurk, they will send out Lowry, Herro, Jovic, Jaquez and those three FRPs without protections. Obviously we would need to find a team that values Herro that might be the Spurs who are sitting on a lot of picks and would likely give up something like the Suns 2025 FRP, expiring vet contracts and maybe one filler contract that isn't expiring. So we end up with Lowry's expiring deal, other expiring deals (McDermott, Birch), Jovic, Jaquez, let's just say Branham and four FRPs.
Couldn't this be flipped around - to mean the Blazers should've tried to trade Dame BEFORE he made the list of one team?
I also look at is as hoping and inquiring or exploring vs expecting. I never expected its a guarantee we would get a godfather package for Dame. I hoped if we did trade him we'd get a great haul and maybe the return would even be more than I thought. I still think it could be a very good to great haul. Personally if we can get 2027-2030 Miami draft equity all unprotected I'm very happy with that aspect of it. Others might scoff at those but I think they could be a massive haul. Biggest fear I had was the Blazers shipping out the pick for irrelevant or overpaid vets. Super glad that fear did not happen.
Bro that was like 9 years ago….you honestly keep mental receipts of stuff like that for almost a decade? You must not have a job OR kids!!!
"You did this to yourself Damian. You were the chosen one. It was said you would destroy the Heat, not join them. Bring balance to the Blazers, not leave it in darkness."
The Blazers are coming to the point that the trigger has to get pulled cause IF the franchise really wants to turn this over to Scoot and Sharpe then this has to end sooner rather then later and no way this can get delayed until the deadline during the season. I think if that happens it's unfair not only to Dame but to Scoot and Sharpe and hurts the future of this team with them at the helm. I am not going to get into the Dame drama of who is at fault cause for one the truth no matter what it is will come out at some point so not going to dwell on that until that happens. This rebuild needs to fully get going and until we know what we are getting back in a trade package then how can this team get rebuilt since we have no idea what will be needed in terms of team makeup and right now this team is in limbo. My message to this front office is you had your vacation now time to get back to work and get this done ASAP so we can all move on to the future no matter what that future might hold but this delay only does more damage the longer this is drawn out -- PERIOD
