Good call. I think regardless of if you're still mad at Dame for how he left or not we can all agree we miss the years when Dame made our team's games mean more. Yeah he didn't get the team around him to where any of us realists ever thought we were going to win it all but he led our team to the playoffs where games matter and contending to make the playoffs where games matter. I'm really hoping that a big jump from Scoot and Shaedon can have us back to the point where we have a real shot at playing in and therefore for the playoffs. Happy Birthday Dame! Thanks for giving us everything you had while you were here.
I too love Dame and always will. Arguably the top Blazer of all time. I wasn't happy with his "loyal to the soil" shtick, if only because I learned at a young age to never say never. He ended up looking bad because of it, especially coupling it with his trade demand to Miami. Maybe Portland didn't send him where he wanted but they still did him a solid (way better than Milwaukee treated him). It was a fairly ugly divorce (from Portland) and that's (IMHO) entirely on Dame. But......................from where I'm sitting in the cheap seats, this has to be somewhat of a humbling situation for Dame. I'm sure he's done a lot of reflecting and it wouldn't surprise me if he wishes he hadn't handled things differently. He found out the hard way that he is not indispensable. Too, I think when he's done playing, he'll stay an Oregon guy and continue to be an asset to the community. I may have been disappointed with the Dame situation, but I was never mad at the guy. I blame the clowns running the team for not doing a better job of putting the talent around him that a generational player like him deserved. And if I was gonna be making $21.5M a year for the next 5 years AND had the option of signing pretty much wherever I wanted to, I would be having one helluva birthday myself......
I don't agree with this. Dame was great to be a robin or supporting player as when LMA was here. But I don't think you can contend with a player like him as your franchise leader. I was very tired of the decade of Dame teams with crap defense and Dame iso offense. I hated the deep threes being jacked early in the shot clock. I don't miss that era at all.
I'm remembering when he immediately tried to create tension between Ant and Scoot the moment Scoot was drafted, aka a full summer of 'Anfernee Simons is really good, best as a point guard/lead guard, really' content.
