Get over it. This isn't personal. Things change. He said those things right after the team won 54 games and he made it past the first round for the first time in has career. He was giddy from the success of his best season as an NBA player. Then this season, the wheels kind of fell off. After getting drubbed by MEM in the first round, would you want to stay around for more of that? He hasn't left yet, but if he does and goes somewhere to improve his chances of winning, I can hardly blame him. Most people bitch about athletes being greedy (Show me the MONEY!!!!), and now we're bitching about an athlete potentially taking less money to have a better chance to win. BNM
Which is a polite way of saying the Blazers are idiots. Who makes a deal like that in a vacum? If it wasn't part of a larger plan...we really are boned!
Agree with the first part but on the second part the improved chances of winning somewhere else (that has money for him) is highly debatable at best.
Depends on where he goes. If he takes less money to go to SAS, I think it's all about winning a title. If he takes less money to go to LAL, well then fuck him! BNM
Exactly. It's a slap in the face. This team was built around him. He wants a C, he gets Rolo, he wants shots, he leads the NBA in FGs, and the coach caters to every one of his requests. If he dismisses all that AND an extra year of guaranteed money to go to even an equally talented team, I will not be okay with that.
It's a business, a player can leave once they hit FA, and a team can trade a player unless they have a no trade clause in their contract. I also wanted to trade LA and get something for him rather than give up a huge pay day. Anyway, Portland may yet get something in a sign and trade. And of course, we get his cap space. So it's not all for naught.
My own feelings are that LMA gave it nine years and the Blazers appear no closer to winning a championship than when he first got here as a fresh faced rookie. But the "hows" and "whys" don't really matter. The reality is that the free agency era of sports pretty much guarantees no athlete will start and finish their career with the team that drafted them - either the player moves on in search of a better paycheck or better opportunity, or the team cuts bait or trades them. So will I be upset if LMA decides to chase a ring elsewhere or a situation that he thinks will be better for him? As a fan of his I guess I'll be a little bummed that he's no longer playing for the team I root for, but on the other hand I'm a full believer in people being able to work where they want to work and chase the opportunities they want to chase; if I made an exception to that principle for athletes that'd make me a hypocrite . . . but, when you get right down to it, is/was a team built around Aldridge ever going to win a championship here anyway? I don't think I've ever felt that way, so it's not like he's depriving us of something that was tantalizingly close (the way Lebron did Cleveland when he went to Miami). If he leaves all I will say is "good luck" to him and hope to god the Blazers have some sort of contingency plan in place and an idea about how they want to get to the ultimate goal of bringing the Larry O'Brien trophy back to Portland.
It's not the leaving that pisses me off. It's the bullshit he said last summer. We could have dealt him. We SHOULD have dealt him. We could have sent him to Cleveland. Who knows, maybe we would have Wiggins right now. Or maybe Klay Thompson? We held on too long, holding out hope, and there's a very good chance it's going to bite us in the ass. We're going to lose him for nothing, and that is never a good way to run a franchise.
If the Blazers management was stupid enough to take those kind of public statements at face-value and didn't plan for the possibility that he might bolt in free agency then that's on them, not really LMA. Because I think at that moment he said those things he probably was genuinely interested in staying here after a really nice showing in the playoffs against Houston and nice nucleus ... and then the wheels came off (again!). Things change, feelings change, circumstances change.
I think the hardest part is that we are the closet we've been to a championship since 99' and if he leaves we will be back at square one...if he does leave he should at least let Olshey know so we can do what we need to do..time is of the essence...probably he has told Olshey.
Honestly, do you really think we were that close? We've had a paper-thin bench for several years, we have a defensive sieve at point guard in Lillard and a coach who doesn't really preach D. This doesn't even mention the fact that Aldridge just isn't an MVP caliber player (which is a near necessity if a team wants to seriously think about winning a title). One nice showing against a favorable matchup in the playoffs two years ago doesn't make for a contender
Whatever square we were on wasn't any closer to a championship than square one is. In fact, one could argue that we were FURTHER away from a championship than we are now that we're back at square one. It's like coming to a fork in the road and not knowing which path leads you home - we went down the left path and eventually found that we needed to take the right path to get home. Now that we're back at the fork in the road (square one) we're much closer to being home.
Another way to look at it is this: It's much easier to go from bad to decent/good than it is to go from good to great. Assuming that the progression is linear (in terms of talent, luck, etc.) misses just how hard it is for a team to win a championship.
IF LMA must leave then I like the Spurs destination the most. We aren't getting Kawhi but I would so like to have both Danny Green and Patty Mills plus a pick. I not interested in Splitter personally but it may take another body to fill the salary gap.
