Kinda interesting how it went from LA and Dame meeting and then I thought it was a phone call and now it's just texts. Pretty crazy. I think we are in good hands though. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/damian...tml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
“And now it kind of knocks you back to square one. Now people are saying, ‘His team is terrible.’ “Everybody is saying things like that. It puts me back to my natural habitat where I got to prove that we’re better than that. We can accomplish more than people might think.” I don't think he plans on tanking.
Here's some more on Lillard, being a cheapskate myself, i love this: http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on...s-120m-extension-flies-coach-to-summer-league
Everyone keeps talking tanking ( Brainiac... ) Never gonna happen with a winner like this on this team and I am pretty sure PA is not a tanking type either. Dame is doing everything it takes to take it to superstar level. Just needs to translate to a bit more D on the court and verbal leadership in the huddles and he will be our CP3. Everything he is doing off the court..I don't think I have EVER seen an all star do so much. We are absolutely lucky to come out of this 180° turn we just made and have this guy for our future.
Tanking is taking steps to try to lose. This team is not trying to lose. Not the players. Not the management. What they are trying to do is build a foundation and get better.
Trading away and/or losing four starters is tanking. You can spin it as a "rebuild," "retool," "reboot" or however you like but the result is the same. That said I'm glad Damian isn't going to take it lying down.
The result in the win column may be the same or similar but it is not the same thing at all. The intent is different and so is the execution. The Blazers are trying to add valuable pieces and develop a winning team going forward, not jettison everyone of merit so as to hopefully gain a top lotto pick. It's a retool, even if we lose some games in the process.
Me too. I just hope we don't run him into the ground on our way back up. It's going to be interesting next season to see what Stotts does with this roster. The conservative defense he likes to play that put us last in the league in forcing turnovers in multiple seasons isn't going to cut it. Everyone keeps saying we're going to be a more athletic/uptempo team, but that's not really Terry's style. We don't have LA on the left block & floor spacing with shooters. Dame struggled at times last season when defenses started trapping him & forcing the ball out of his hands. We're going to see a lot of that next season. It's going to be a struggle, but coach needs to at least help forge an identity & implement a new style on both sides of ball that is tailored to our current roster. If that doesn't happen he could be on the hot seat, which could mean he's putting Dame out there for 40 minutes & asking him to do too much.
Tanking requires active effort. The Batum trade is the only active effort that anyone could point to that might constitute tanking, and it's really defensive in that we received a player whose production last year compared to Batum's, along with a top 10 pick. The free agents leaving was their choice. What the front office has actively done does not constitute tanking. They tried to keep Aldridge, sign Monroe, sign Kanter; they traded a draft pick for a two-year vet who can start; they signed Aminu and Davis (young vets who can contribute now). None of these are tanking moves; they're all moves designed to make us competitive ASAP. We're not tanking.
The intent seems exactly the same. You intend to get more talent added to your roster, divest yourself of large contract players that aren't going to be part of some future team you hope will contend, and you intend to contend a few years down the line. What's so different?
