ya it's tough to see what we achieved this year outside of simply rolling out the ball on the floor with youngins who were or weren't healthy
It could be much worse. This roster is worse than our current roster. https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/POR/2006.html We just need a draft pick or trade where we hit on someone to start to ascend. I'm hoping it's in the 2025 draft where potential stars are plentiful. Luck into a Sarr or take a Matas or someone this year. Trade Brogdon at least. Suck again next year. Take Flagg or one of the other potential studs next year.
I hated that team (Juan Dixon is one of my least-favorite Blazers ever) and I hated the PatterNash years... but I don't see much more going for us now than we had going for us then. Telfair allegedly had promise. Randolph was looking like a stud. Miles hadn't melted down yet. And (as far as I can recall) we weren't locked into big deals like we are with Grant and Ayton. I am not giving up on this rebuilding effort, but like you said we're going to have to have some luck and/or (IMO) we need better decision-making by the front office.
It's a bit hard to look back in that because we know the upper limits of every player. Back at the time many of us were pretty high on Webster and Outlaw potential, each much higher than any of Camera/Walker/Rupert/Murray. Telfair was traded for the Roy pick. Yes Miles and ZBo were likely better young talents at that time than Sharpe or Scoot are now. Jack probably similar value to Ant, Ayton=Pryz, Brogdon=Blake, Ruben=Grant. RGIII=Theo That was about the lowest point I can remember as a Blazer fan, maybe it will be better now with some good development, youth, picks. But there's a real chance it will be just as bad or worse, and that's pretty damn depressing. I'll always follow the team, especially at draft/free agency/deadline. But until we have talent worth watching Ill be tuning out of most games and totally understand all the people talking about letting go of their season tickets.
theo was better than rgiii, but come on man. Pryz isn't close to as good as Ayton. Brogdon is better than Blake. Grant is substantially better than Ruben. Sharpe has more promise than Miles. Z-bo is probably better than anyone we currently have at this time on our team though. This team has more going for it than that team did.
Serious question; is it really tanking if Portland trades Grant, Ant, Brogdon and Time Lord running all youngsters (Ayton is young) and journeymen? Worked for OKC as SGA honed his skills. I realize Ant is young also, I just don't see him working with this group. I like Scoot to Ayton.
We absolutely should have flipped Timelord and Brogdon when we got them. Their value has already depreciated.
I'm 100% in on this plan for our future. All four of those guys and Tisse should probably be traded for young talent, picks and bad contracts. We should suck next year unless Scoot, Shaedon, Deandre, whoever we draft, whoever we get in trades along with Tou, Bari, Kris, Delano, Rayan and Duop are playing at a level where we are winning.
Grant, Ant, and Brogdon can be traded for picks and prospects to load up on top level talent. Might make the playoffs in 4-5 years...
Chauncey only has another year left. Bringing him back for another 2-3 years after with an extension would not be a wise decision.
Definitely not. We need one more year of tanking probably so keeping him for his last year makes some sense.
Sad part is, when he leaves, there are some on here that will think our win totals while under him were HIS fault.
Ya'll are ridiculous and over-critical. The bottom line is it takes an insane amount of luck, regardless of strategy, for a small-market team to win in this league. Tanking and praying for that insane luck is the best option there is. If tanking is not the chosen strategy, then an even more insane amount of luck is required (nailing someone like Giannis or Jokic with a late pick).
This team curently has the 14th highest payroll and finished 28th in record. Jody is actually paying 1.3 mil in luxury tax this year. If we did not have an absentee owner, there is 0 chance that either Joe or Chauncey would be employed with this track record of mismanagement.
Tanking sucks. But then you have the worst case of tanking for years in the case of OKC - and now they are the #1 seed in the west - so it's not going away.
