How's everyone feel about Smokin' Joe Cronin now?

I agree with you. That and maybe Joe probably had something in the works that he did not want to discuss with Dame and did not want to have to lie to him if asked...so he just avoided him. But these are examples of "the other side of the story"....that Haynes did not want to mention....he just tried to make Joe look bad by the way he wrote it.

 

The entire "rebuild around Dame under Cronin" idea was a Quixotic fallacy. We weren't stripped of assets with the s***ty deals made by Joe, we were stripped of assets when Neil used what few assets we had to trade for Powell and Covington. In fact, one could argue that we never got over losing LaMarshmallow for nothing. Or taking two draft picks to take Zach Collins. Jody was never going to spend like her brother. In the end, Dame couldn't convince a star to take less to play here.

Plenty of blame to go around; it doesn't all fall on Cronin. When you're a market like Portland, you have to have an error-free front office. You can't miss on big swings. We have been Joey Gallo.

 

I've said this and maybe it was to you but I seriously doubt that Joe was going rogue on this one. I would be almost positive that Kolde and other Vulcans were the driving force behind the decision not to bring Dame back for this season. To be honest that decision was probably made either when Scoot dropped to us or when we landed pick 3. I also think a logical explanation for Joe avoiding Dame is that he didn't like being the guy doing the dirty work for Vulcan at all and didn't feel good about what was happening between him and Dame. That's all conjecture though.

The part about Vulcan being on board with both squeezing Dame to ask for a trade and not accepting Dame's attempt to rescind his trade demand seems like it's almost a no brainer. I think if Joe was acting on his own on that we would already see the Vulcan's distancing themselves from that decision in preparation to fire Joe after the season starts. But who knows?

 

I generally find a lot of fairness and merit in your post and I'm not going to bash your opinion. The only thing I'll say that I think what you consider "overwhelming evidence" wouldn't be considered that by most people without a vested interest presented with it. It seems like a lot of your recent change of heart was based on Haynes' story, but Haynes has long ago been considered compromised. If I'm looking for an unimpeachable source in this whole situation, I might consider Haynes less credible than Keljin Blevins or Dame's mom because Haynes not only is close personally with Dame, but his own career aspirations might have been impacted by how this played out.

 

I don't know how anyone can look at the Olshey years, the roster that Cronin started with and the roster, draft picks/swaps and salary situation of the Blazers now, and then shit on Joe. Unreal. Cronin made ONE bad trade that increasingly looks not even horrible as RoCo fell off a damn cliff and getting rid of him when we did was genius. I also contend that was the Vulcans testing Joe for loyalty and following orders, a test he passed.

After he was given the reins he's made great decisions especially around draft picks having the best back to back draft in Portland history. Really only the LMA/Roy draft was better and it might turn out that drafting Sharpe and Scoot were the greatest two drafts in Blazers history.

When I look at our lineup, our flexibility, our assets, our cap situation, I'm actually mega impressed by what Cronin did. Especially him standing up to Riley and the intense media pressure and telling the Cryami Heat to pound that imported white sand. Cronin is the best GM we've had since Whitsett, straight up.

 

Considering how beloved Dame is/was and trading him is essentially putting the team in at best a 2-3-year rebuild realistically, I can't imagine how Cronin does this without the understanding if not the blessing of Jody and the Vulcans. He'd get fired if they read all the initial blowback on Twitter if Vulcan didn't know what was going down. He's not taking that chance.

 

Trading for Jerami Grant didn't indicate trying to build around Dame?

Signing GPII didn't indicate trying to build around Dame?

The cupboard was pretty damn bare because of Neil. Joe was trying to add assets, either through trades or the draft. Plenty of trusted sources have said that Joe tried to trade the pick. Nobody has been able to produce irrefutable evidence that Joe was sand bagging his efforts to put talent around Dame. But you know who did sand bag those efforts? Dame. Publicly making comments about the pick did not help the team's leverage in negotiations.

 

I think everyone is so focussed on the trade request that they act like that is the starting point.

Dame sat out the close of two seasons. He put his trust in Joe. Hell, he put his trust in Olshey. So after years of ineptitude, he gets a few years of what essentially amount to either failure or lies to reward him for his trust.

 

And you know that Joe lied because?.....

 

I don't think that's necessarily true. It was probably broken with Cronin (and Kolde). But, in Dame's POV, it likely wasn't broken with the Blazers, his coaches, his teammates, the fans, the city, his home, and Damian Lillard Toyota.

 

Trading and RE-SIGNING Grant. Dealing an unhappy, Toradol-ravaged GPII for tradeable assets.

People are conflating not trading every pick we had in this draft for any vet with not trying to build around Dame, conveniently leaving out a number of scenarios, actions and just general facts that contradict that view.

 

You just said it yourself. It’s just Dame’s narrative. I think you’re confusing yourself.

 

He didn't rescind anything. He just said he would be happy starting the season with us while we worked out a deal. There's a difference.

 

that’s not what the Haynes article indicates.

he said if no Miami, I’d rather stay in Portland

 

Dame sat out the last year. The year before that he was wounded and the Blazers did the right thing to take a long term approach with him, all you have to do is see what happened to GP2 that tried to come back earlier than Dame did from the same kind of surgery.

I read it differently. He thought that GM'ing is easy and it would take faster for Joe to turn around the shit-show of a roster he inherited or he disagreed with Joe on the value of the draft picks in the trade market vs. talent level - so, he practically did not trust Joe to do his job, exactly the opposite of what you say.

 

CJ and Josh Hart said that Joe was a standup guy, so something doesn't add up here. But since Dame and his camp are the only ones doing the talking, some of you seem to want to believe everything you hear.

You talk about Dame's character, but Dame has been acting completely out of character for the past three months. And now there are rumors about his marriage ending. Something is going on with the dude.

 

You can't count this first season, though, can you? That was a legit injury that was exacerbated so Dame could play in the Olympics. He missed most of that year for a very legitimate reason, and the Blazers got one of the bright young talents in the league as a result after (reportedly) not finding anything of near equal value in trade. The jury's still out on Scoot but Dame missed 10 games when we were fighting for the play-in spot, so I'm not sure if it's fair to classify this as failure or lying but rather prudence that might have put multiple hopes at odds.

 

Correct it was either they failed him or they lied to him. I personally think they failed to surround him with the necessary
talent. So Dame moved on which I am ok with. But the leaks to the so-called media is a mistake. It never ends well for either side.

 

Right that wasn’t reconciliation, that was Dame saying, “If you can’t do what I want now, I’d like you to do what I want later.”.

Im not mad at Dame anymore, but this latest Haynes article that is clearly from Dame’s camp is not the way I wanted to see him go. I still want Dame to retire a Blazer, contingent on him building a rocket and launching Goodwin directly into the Sun. Merely firing Goodwin after the Bucks, Nets back channel negotiations is no longer sufficient.