...as a Blazers fan? I'd have to go with the trade for Damon in 98'. I remember finding out listening on the radio, probably the Cowherd show and thinking how much he would bring to the team.
damon was pretty crazy i gotta say that, he was 2 years from roy, big move. i remember thinking pippen was old i think.
ahh yes the sheed deal, although at the time strickland was the bigger star. but i thought sheed was a cool dude.
i remember thinking we gave up too much for smitty, but i didnt really know how good he was at the time, we got a steal.
Wasn't a trade but when we signed Kenny Anderson. Don't remember how old I was but I watched the news non stop to get every bit of Kenny Anderson I could.
I remember only knowing that he had a huge attitude problem. Glad he showed he was mild mannered after he got here!
Pippen . . . I really thought he would bring a title to Ptd. I had no idea how good Sheed was going to be and liked Strickland. I was really excited about the Damon trade too. I'm liking this Camby trade. . . if I knew Roy would be 100% for the playoffs.
Mid-season trades only? Jermaine for Dale Davis had me pretty stoked, as I recall. I thought (like Sabas did) that "there's something wrong with [O'Neal's] brain" and that he'd never really be a great player. Davis was an All-Star though. Proven goods. After the 73rd pre-dunk pump-fake, I was slightly less excited. When Jermaine blew up in Indiana, I felt completely gypped.
Damon was cool because he was Portland boy. But I thought Pip was the final piece to a championship. Not just a final piece but a clincher. I remember calling our kid when it happened and saying "We won't lose 2 games in a row all season long!!!!" Honorable mention because I haven't seen it mentioned yet: Walter Davis, but that ended up fucking up the rotation. Why does god hate us?
The trade I was the most excited about at the time it happened was when we traded Kevin Duckworth for Harvey Grant. I remember spending the whole summer listening to the radio waiting for a trade to happen. Then while I was at summer camp my dad sent me the article about the trade. Man, I was so excited. The idea that we were getting a go to guy for Kevin Duckworth blew my mind.
Tossup between Pippen and Steve Smith. That was the offseason that kept on giving - I was pretty stoked about getting Schrempf, and then Whitsitt just kept on a roll. They didn't call him Trader Bob for nothing... I was reasonably optimistic about Stoudemire but too upset that we were giving up Alvin Williams to get him. (Although I was very happy to see the back of Kenny Anderson - I never liked Whitsitt's FA signings, Brian Grant notwithstanding.) I was actually pretty excited about Duck for Harvey Grant, but that didn't last long. Worst trade? In retrospect the pick that became Deron Williams for the pick that became Martell, and I wasn't stoked at the time. I hated the Rasheed trade at the time, but quickly came to realize how good it was. In retrospect, the best trade ever was either Telfair for the pick that took Randy Foye or the swap of Foye for Roy, depending on which you take to be most essential to getting Roy. Essentially turning Telfair into Roy is un-fucking-believable.
Ooh, you just beat me to it. I then remember tracking Grant's scoring in pre-season and getting steadily more and more alarmed. Ahh, it'll pick up once the season starts, I tried to tell myself. Then the season started with a loss to the Clippers...