http://www.blazersedge.com/2011/6/24/2242336/the-trail-blazers-have-to-prove-it Wow, it's been a tough go of it
I think I remember back in the day Trader Bob saying that losers build through the draft. At the time, the Blazer roster was filled with lottery picks, all of whom were originally drafted by other teams. Of course, that was also the era when the Blazers were perennially in the playoffs and didn't get lottery picks.
If we get a hard cap in the new CBA, then building through the draft is going to be almost the only way to do it ... Hopefully the powers that be who govern this team get a whole lot better at their job.
I don't have the time right now to look it up, but have we had any luck with second rounders? We were able to flip Dante, and Johnson and Mills are still around, but it seems second rounders have been barren for the Blazers in spite of us having had the rights to (seemingly) a million of them... Ed O.
I can't imagine the players going with a hard cap -- it'd have to be set high for them to approve it and that'd gut the purpose. Also, I think the hard cap makes sense in the NFL because player careers are so short that players generally don't get as tied to their teams. In basketball and baseball, fans would be po'd on an annual basis because their teams couldn't keep fan favorite players (it's not for nothing that it was called the Larry Bird exception).
