Needs to add a couple of other ingredients and take out a couple of the ingredients, but overall it's going to be a great cake to have
SG is the biggest question for me. Long term I like our other 4 spots. (Starters) But you never know, maybe Wes is the perfect role player for the other starters. Maybe he compliments what they have to offer. But we need 3 "scorers". So if Nic is that 3rd guy then Wes will be fine. If Nic is not that third guy then we need a new SG. Elliot and Barton could possibly develop as well into that 5th starter. So I want a few months to answer this question, but my guess is we need another ingredient. Little luck in next year's draft?
If the goal is a championship then I'd have to say the odds are that this team as constructed will fall flat -- there's no just sitting back and hoping it develops into something great. Even if Damian turns out to be great and Leonard isn't a bust, they'll be decent to good team at best in about 3 years. They still need another stud.
If Lillard turns out to be the next coming of Derrick Rose... The Bulls with Rose the first two seasons won 41 and 41 games. They won 61 his third season, but that was after they scrapped most of their roster for $30M+ in cap space, signed Carlos Boozer and 3 $5M FAs who gave them depth and versatility.
I did once decorate a cake with chocolate lillies, but they were white chocolate. Oh well. Pick a cake.
I don't think we have enough pieces to threaten for a title, either. Best-case scenario, where both our lottery picks turn into all-stars? We would clearly be good enough. But realistically... ? No. Ed O.
That's an interesting comparison. Rose was 20 and 21 in those seasons, while Lillard is 23. So maybe it'll take less time for Lillard to adjust. Looking over those Bulls rosters, I have to say they looked better in terms of role players than our current roster, but our best player (Aldridge) is better than those Bulls' teams best (non-Rose) player (Gordon or Deng or Noah). Certainly no guarantees that Lillard is on the tier of Rose, but even a tier below that would be quite nice. So yeah, a .500 team seems pretty reasonable when you take it all in. I'm optimistic by nature, so I'm putting it at around 45 wins.
That's very optimistic. I say we need another ingredient at SG (especially since IMHO Elliot will not be with the team next season after his injury). We should have over 16+MM in Cap room next season. Enough to overpay Harden to get him in a Blazer Uni.
Elliot most likely will be cut before camp in order to make room for a replacement. The Blazers only have 5 guards on the roster and I don't see them going into the season without adding another.
