No...Scoot is just his teammate. If Dame hadn't demanded a trade Scoot would lead the bench mob and learn from Dame for the next couple of years...rookies aren't replacements, they're hopefuls...you don't replace the 75th best player in history with a teenage wunderkind. You have the best of both worlds...an all star vet and a rookie of the year on the same team. Teams need 3 pt guards. Too late now. It's like saying you can't hire another center because you have Nurk.
1. Needs: High-ish quality, youngish veteran 3&D forward to pair with Grant 2. Needs: Center who stay healthy, plays great D, and brings great attitude and grit to the position. 3. Draft: BPA if trade for above isn’t happening … yeah, he’s currently Lillard’s back-up, but I hear that will change … and followed by a pick at 23 for a forward with the requisite size and functional athleticism and skillset of a young forward and who is the identical twin of last year’s lottery pick … okay, I preferred a center but Murray was higher on my draft board than those drafted below and a number above. And Rupert? Give him 2 years terrorizing on the Remix and Blazers 1-4 in practice.
"what would you have done different? Hmmm?" it's a trick question already used by Blazers PR. Adding good players will mess up next year's top 5 pick. The Blazers are knee deep in a rebuild, any good player added to the roster "just to keep Dame", negatively effects the rebuild. a list of good players would be used as target practice. It's too late for that. We need PICKS !!
Bottle up everything the Blazers have been saying publicly what their goals were with Lillard. I posted a JR podcast below, it's right after Lillard's trade request. Sprague finishes his general Blazer fan comments with a closing summary @11:45 . It gets shot down in 30 seconds by Marang, who was holding Cronin's hand while trying to convey, "there's nothing the Blazers could have done" That idea has already manifested into: - what would you do different? - name some players you think are better. Which then can be tee'd off because X list of Y players makes absolutely no sense. The Blazers have already chosen rebuild from scratch through the draft. And it's looking pretty damn good so far with Scoot & Shaedon. > Admiral Ackbar - " It's a TRAP !! " https://www.youtube.com/live/wjg5yD8Luws?si=rXrxvcDVl7UMUjKn
We’ve added “good” players for years and ended up in purgatory. Not good enough or bad enough. Small market teams win through the draft
I don't argue with the reset button. I just wonder if it could have been handled better by trading Lillard last year before writing Dame's supermax extension? The haul for Dame on a regular max 3 year deal would have been extraordinary. Would have avoided this "Miami only" drama. Yes, Lillard had some surgery, but by the end of the season he had fully recovered, said he felt "better then he has in years." Clearly he was fine, Lillard popped off 32.2 ppg, #3 in the NBA in scoring during a storm of lightning bolts in the 22/23 season. Dame was ready to rock & roll with a variety of teams before the supermax extension. Another franchise could do an actual version of building a team with Lillard, work on adding all these cool ballers then signing Dame's extension, or just trade him on a 1 year expiring to a super team and make everyone in the media happy ($$ Cash incentives $$). What happened is a head guru in the Blazers front office pressed the "possible disgruntled superstar" button while simultaneously pushing "rebuild" through the draft. I dought the 2 timeline strategy was a Cronin idea, I think there's a collective money making brain trust ahead of Joe calling shots. We need to look cool while we sneak in this rebuild, so we're keeping Lillard. Jerami Grant is a tanker. Anfernee is a tanker. Nurkic is a tanker. Play 3/4 of a season and get paid in full. I totally thought Lillard was on board with the Blazers stealth tank, but omg, the horror of Lillard trying to choose the next team he wants to play for . Get him!
Perhaps ... Cronin tried to trade the 7th pick for OG but the asking price was crazy town. So he made the correct move not in Lillard's timeline ... and which Lillard more recently liked given that Sharpe is a different piece of work. Perhaps ... Cronin tried to bring in another veteran after Grant and that didn't happen ... or tried to trade the 3 that is Scoot + Ant for a difference maker worth that value but the value in return just wasn't high enough, and ... may be Cronin made the correct move, again, but not in Lillard's timeline. Was there a plan for the go-young, rebuild timeline? Obviously, yes. Was there a plan for the Lillard timeline? Obviously, yes. [Their names are Nurkic and Grant.] Which plan was more likely to happen? The one that did. It's not what I wanted, but I understand (given what's been reported and talked about) how it worked out this way. And the non-lottery picks last year and this year are players I like. Cronin may have wanted the Lillard path, but he pivoted and picked the Scoot/Sharpe path. What's left is trading Nurkic for a more athletic, healthier center ... and Lillard for maximum return of size that has skills and youth along with picks (and filler contracts of 2 years or less). The only question I have regarding the Lillard timeline decisions by Cronin: Should he have made the OVERPAY move last draft or this draft, regardless of it being serious overpay?
I still don’t understand this argument. Who was available in trade to build a winner around him? If Giannis or Jokic or Embiid were available for Ant/Scoot and Joe decided to draft Scoot instead, you would have a point but there were no needle moving trades available! Sharpe/Scoot for OG would not have given Dame a better chance to win. Since Dame is signed for 4 years, he could’ve benefitted from 3rd/4th year Scoot/Sharpe before his contract was up and have a much better chance of winning a title with them than with OG. Instead, Dame wants to take the easy way out and demand a trade to a team that just went to the NBA Finals. What happened to “it will mean more if I win a title in Portland” and not running from the grind? What Dame is doing is the polar opposite of being loyal. I mean even LeBron is more loyal than Dame. He always honors his contracts and plays them out.
Cronin didn't pivot, Joe "was retooling" this team from day 1 after Olshey got the boot. Picks and picks and oh hey, look at all these picks over there. Lillard freaked out last tank, he was told picks were gonna do all kinds of picky pick things to get win now players, not win later players. Cronin & Billups knew Nurk, Grant & Simons would take the vacation so Blazers could tank the hell out the team. All 3 of those starters have a history of resting for the lottery improvement agenda. Lillard got mad about tanking, Mark Spears reported Dame told him where the line got crossed. The Blazers were in the playoff hunt. Damian's squad had already battled it out for 4 months of grueling NBA action. Portland was 28-30, more or less .500. Maybe the Blazers would have been a 1st round exit? A team stuck in mediocrity ... We'll never know. I was rooting for these guys. So were other fans. It's called happy and sad when your team wins and loses. People want to see Ant in the playoffs, Grant in the playoffs, these guys are really good at basketball. ..am i right? We know Lillard can go Supernova in post season. Nurkic had been getting lots of rest, I figured he could do some playoff damage. Trading Josh Hart cratered the Blazers. With Winslow out and Nassir in la-la land, Josh was the only swiss army knife left on the team. The win later trade was once again advertised as the predecessor for the big move to get a "superstar"... ... which in mind was always going to be awesome new rookie #1-2-3-4-5-6-7
It would have been a 1st round exit, guaranteed. That team just wasn't good at all. Thank god we tanked and got Scoot
1. Hart was leaving the Blazers after the end of the season. From what I have read and heard, that's the story. He was a class act, and I'm a fan. IMHO, he's not a quality, starting SG or SF, and he developed a baffling allergy to shooting that was a kink in the team offense. Paying Hart what he's getting from NY makes no sense for the Blazers. Getting the #23 was a good return, and when no trade got done with 3 (and, likely, Ant), keeping 23 and drafting Murray made sense. Lillard was gone. If the Blazers had been at 5-7 in the draft, they're going after a Thompson brother or, more likely, trading the pick in an overpay for a veteran (who was not worth the 3 and more) ... IMHO. I see it as lucky and unlucky to lose Lillard at the same time. 2. Cronin retooling from day 1 (going young) would make him a liar from day 1 -- Flat out. He doesn't have that reputation that I know of. Please expand on how that was his reputation, because I must have missed that. 3. The tank for Sharpe was on with rotating injuries to players and Lillard having his surgery; coming back that season for Lillard would have been dumb as dirt risking it. Last season, players got dinged up. Lillard missed some time with calf tightness. Then, the tank was on at about 58 games in? 24 games left? Okay. Good call. Well tanked and great luck to get to #3 and then to get Scoot -- even better. 4. Was it a perfect storm of not overpaying during the 2022 draft by trading 7 and what Toronto wanted? And getting lucking with 3 and having teams lowball? Maybe. Where Olshey earned his rep, his insincere statements cemented it. I'm not going to attribute failures regarding the Lillard-roster by Cronin in a worst-possible-light and with the same towards Cronin, himself. Nor will I do that with Lillard (or even Goodwin, but that dude makes it pretty difficult).
I don't think Joe lied, I think he may have over-promised and under delivered...but realistically there weren't any trades out there that would make sense for the team to trade for. As I posted earlier (I think in this thread? There's been a lot of threads that muddy the waters), the players that Portland was supposedly seconds away from trading for (I'm being sarcastic), *none* had been traded out from under Portland. Trading Sharpe for OG would be stupid. Trading #3, Simons and potentially Sharpe for Bridges would be EXCEPTIONALLY stupid. Hell, trading #3 and Simons for Bridges would be. Same with OG or Siakim. Either way, Damian probably wasn't dealing with reality when it comes to his reason for why he's demanding a trade out, but saw it as an opportunity to ask out and think he wouldn't be risking coming off bad. But oddly enough, for someone who claimed he never wanted to ring chase or go play with friends and that he wanted to play in Portland even if it meant he never won a title or had a chance, it's done exactly that. He's coming off as a massive hypocrite, and no different than all of the players he would ridicule or talk smugly about almost in a condescending tone. The only way that the team has "chosen youth" over Dame is because Damian has decided he wanted to choose taking the easy route over the potential of Scoot and Sharpe. And the team would be monumentally stupid to trade away the potential of Scoot and Sharpe for a temporary reprieve/*maybe* 2nd round success. There's a reason why both Scoot and Sharpe were talked about as potential #1 picks (in years without the unicorn). Admittedly, I say that as someone who is a fan of the laundry more than the players (i.e., if you forced me to pick between a player and the team, I root for the Blazers winning a title not the players). I also can't be the only one who hopes that the combo of Scoot and Sharpe has more success than Damian and anyone else does. Once he's gone as a Blazer player, I don't care what he does and in fact, I hope he fails miserably.
But how do you really feel? The last line got me. Well done. The rest was well said and the "over-promised and under delivered" seems reasonable and (in hindsight) wishful thinking by Cronin? I do disagree with the apparent valuation of Bridges, but matching salaries was not going to be easy without giving up way too much ... and Sharpe was more than unlikely as part of that deal. #3 + Ant was plenty, IMHO. I, of course, would've wanted Clowney, too. Having Scoot as the best Blazers player in 2-3 years and beyond? I hope not. PGs as the best is not good for rings, generally speaking. Here's hoping Sharpe is it.
yup, got Scoot, totally cool ... then thbbbbbfft! No moves to get any other players. Resigning Grant & Thybulle, they were already on a Blazers team that was stumbling and faultering. Cronin was setting up tank #3, which is exactly the opposite what Portland has been telling fans, and what they told Lillard when they wrote up his contract extension. let's listen to what Coach Billups said on the day Lillard signed his supermax extension; - Chauncey, "We’re trying to build our team up so we can give Dame and our great fans a fair shake and a fair chance to accomplish what we all want, which is a championship." trading every decent player possible while adding 8 new rookies/sophmores to the team, with a clear goal to run the stealth tank once more to great rookies next summer.... Dame would be retired if the Blazers ever get to the championship.
As things stand now, I think Sharpe would be the best player, but Scoot would be the floor general (I do love using outdated terms). I hope Shaedon develops a "fuck you, I'm going to destroy you" mentality, or at least I hope there is one of them in him.
I think it is about addressing the issue. And we got a few: Size, lack of ball movement, lack of defense and lack of heart. You not fixing any of them with pairing Dame and Scoot on the backcourt. In fact, you don't change anything if Dame stays here. It will be his team, with ball in his hands. He still be ours best player, that can't play defense. If you want Dame to stay, cover his weakness and win, you will have to build whole new team around him. I think it can be achieved by trading Scoot and Shea. But I guess you not ready for that.
Great PGs like Isaiah, Magic, and Curry never could lead their teams to multiple titles, could they? Not to mention our head coach.
