Didn't get enough good ones. Didn't lose long enough to build enough quality depth. Halfway rebuild now relies on gambling and hoping that our front office is smarter than everyone else's. Not ideal, but it's what we've got.
I was unaware that if we lost a few more games the NBA had promised us Cooper Flagg. Now I know that I can see that winning was a mistake.
I HOPE this is tongue in cheek, because if this is a disaster then Trump does a couple of things every day that are positively apocalyptic.
if you're reaching back 30-40 years in the draft, things were really different back then. There were no draft combines; no organized format of pre-draft measurement; no formalized organization of pre-draft workouts and there is simply no denying, no matter how many times people try to hedge it, that being in the top-10 of the first round is much better than being 11-30. Just go back about 20 years in the Blazer draft history: top-10: Martell Webster (CP3 available) Lamarcus Aldridge Brandon Roy Greg Oden (should have honked twice?) Damian Lillard CJ McCollum (10th) Zach Collins (10th) Shaedon Sharpe Scoot Henderson Donovan Clingan 11-30: Sebastian Telfaire Sergei Monia Jarrett Jack Sergio Rodriguez Joel Freeland Rudy Fernandez Petteri Koponen Jerryd Bayless Nicolas Batum Victor Claver Luke Babbitt Elliot Williams Rondae Hollis-Jefferson-->Mason Plumlee Caleb Swanigan Nolan Smith Meyers Leonard Anfernee Simons Nassir Little Kris Murray 2nd Rd picks: Ha Seung-Jin; Ricky Sanchez; James White; Josh McRoberts, Taurean Green; Dante Cunningham; Patty Mills; Armon Johnson; Jon Diebler; Will Barton; Allen Crabbe; CJ Elleby; Rayan Rupert obviously, at this point; we don't really know what the trajectories of Sharpe, Scoot, and Clingan will be so set them aside for the moment then, look at those lists with the perspective of "hey, the Blazers just need to do a good job of draft evaluation outside of the top-10 and they could find a star". That's a common refrain around here we're looking at 7 top-10 picks; 18 first round picks outside of the top-10; and 13 second round picks. Granted, the water outside of the top-10 is a little murky because of all of the trades jockeying around the draft order; but that's always the case so then 7 rolls of the draft dice in the top-10; and 31 rolls of the draft dice outside of the top-10. In those 7 top-10 rolls, there are 19 all-star games and 14 all-NBA teams. In the 31 rolls outside of the top-10 there are ZERO all star games and ZERO all-NBA awards. Meaning that hoping for the Blazers to strike gold later in the draft has been hollow strategy for the last 20 years or so. Hasn't happened. Blazers have only struck gold along the river, not in any streams sure, other teams have got really lucky; Booker was 13th; Giannis 15th; Butler 30th. But counting on the Blazers getting lucky is as dumb as counting on them winning the 9th pick instead of the 10th yesterday
It was never Cooper Flagg or bust. It was always consistent high picks to maximize young cheap highest quality possible assets to build for long term success. Like Boston, OKC, San Antonio, etc. Freaking cheaters...
ALSO, the last time the Florida Gators won a National Championship…..we won the NBA Lottery FAMS! Shit 95.8% of this forum are virgins…..let’s start sacrificin!
I rank our current situation somewhere between the current presidential situation and the most recent episode of The Last of Us…….sigh
I will say this, while it obviously drove me pretty nuts that we won so many meaningless games down the stretch, after the Deni move I trust our front office a lot more. I was sure that was an overpay but it was a steal. We'll see what happens but at least we've seen some solid moves lately that should give us hope. Maybe in guys like Tou, Shaedon and Deni we do have enough stars to just surround them with role players, maybe Scoot should be on that list. We'll see what happens in the next two and a half months as far as building out the roster more around them and hopefully moving on from guys making more than them. I don't think any of us should be whining (not that you were) between now and then. The wins that didn't make sense are behind us, so let's hope the moves make sense going forward.
I liked this post because I like the sentiment but fans, on this board and in general, loved the Dame pick. Dame had given some interviews already and his workout was reportedly great. I do remember a lot of consternation (not necessarily criticism) of the Meyers pick and a lot of people wondering what the fuck we were doing the year after when we picked a guy in CJ that seemed like Dame Lite. That being said, I agree that we can strike gold at 10, we could even move back, picking up another pick and strike gold twice... maybe we even get lucky and move up. We'll just have to wait and see. We do have a better than 1 in 6 chance of moving up and I don't know anyone who thinks those are slim enough odds to play Russian roulette.
