Notice LONGTIME NBA ANALYST (MARK STEIN) PREDICTS BLAZERS WILL TRADE MCCOLLUM

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BigGameDamian

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http://www.kgw.com/mobile/article/s...cts-blazers-will-trade-mccollum/283-509315945

KGW's Orlando Sanchez, Jared Cowley and Nate Hanson talked about Stein's prediction during this week's 3-on-3 Blazers podcast. Here's a transcript of their conversation.


PORTLAND, Ore. — In his NBA newsletter published on Thursday, longtime NBA reporter Marc Stein, who now works for The New York Times, had a pretty interesting prediction about the Blazers.

According to Stein, the Blazers will trade CJ McCollum this year.

This was a prediction, not a report. But some of the predictions by Stein seemed to be based on things he’s hearing around the league, and there are few with more NBA connections than Stein.

KGW's Orlando Sanchez, Jared Cowley and Nate Hanson talked about Stein's prediction during this week's 3-on-3 Blazers podcast. Here’s a transcript of their conversation.

Orlando: Here’s what [Stein] said about the Blazers: “This is the year Portland will break up the potent backcourt of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. The Blazers don’t want to trade either one, especially when they awoke Wednesday ranked seventh in the league in defensive efficiency despite the annual external skepticism about the pairing’s capabilities at that end of the floor. But the easiest path to balancing the roster is by parting with one of their two guards — most likely McCollum — for a package headlined by a frontcourt player on their level. No one’s suggesting it’ll happen before the Feb. 8 trade deadline, but Portland’s latest so-so season threatens to be the impetus that finally pushes the longtime Blazers owner Paul Allen in a new direction.” Guys, what’s up with that?

Nate: We don’t want to get too deep into this this week. We talked a lot about this potential scenario last week, and I’m sure we’ll talk about it as we get closer and closer to the trade deadline. It’s interesting that someone, like you said, with his type of connections believes this will be what ultimately happens with this pair. So I’ll just leave it at that and we’ll talk about it more later.

Jared: And it’s also, the key thing for me is he said, “No one is suggesting it will happen before the Feb. 8 trade deadline.” He didn’t say, “I’m not suggesting,” he said, “No one is suggesting,” and that makes me think that this kind of chatter is going around the league. Whether that chatter is coming from Portland or not, that’s the question. But, you also had the report from John Canzano less than a month ago that Paul Allen is putting some feelers out there about what the rest of the league thinks about the Blazers roster.

Nate: And he’s 100 percent right, that the easiest way to try to balance this roster is trading CJ McCollum.

Orlando: He’s a desirable piece.

Jared: And it doesn’t say it’s to blow up the team. It doesn’t say trade him for a great draft pick or anything. It says for a frontcourt player on [Damian Lillard or CJ McCollum’s] level. I don’t think the Blazers would go trade CJ McCollum for, say, the Nets pick from the Cavaliers. I think if they were going to trade CJ McCollum, it would be for a small forward or a power forward who is on the same level as McCollum, you know, a potential All-Star or an existing All-Star.

Nate: Let’s just leave it that.

Jared: It’s really fun.

Nate: We’re going to have so much more …

Jared: We have two more weeks until the trade deadline, so we’ll get back into it.

Nate: And we have the rest of the season.

Orlando: It’s just a bomb from someone with clout, to at least throw that out there.
 
I love McCollum. Top 3 favorite players in the NBA. But, we just have to break this back court up if we ever want to go above this middle of pack place that were stuck. If you can get a top 5 pick for CJ you have to do it. A lot of premier frontcourt players in this draft.
 
I love McCollum. Top 3 favorite players in the NBA. But, we just have to break this back court up if we ever want to go above this middle of pack place that were stuck. If you can get a top 5 pick for CJ you have to do it. A lot of premier frontcourt players in this draft.
Dames not getting any younger and we already have Collins. This team is young enough. We would need to get someone on Dames level not a draft pick.
 
Blake's issue is his health. When was the last time he was healthy for a full season?

When the Clippers team was healthy, they weren't good enough.

His being injury prone works against us, too, if we traded for him.

Plus, CJ for Griffin adds about $5M to our payroll, net, and we're already over the LT threshold. Adding Lou Williams' $7M salary would put us $12M more over, and we'd obviously need to send out salaries to make the CBA rules work. Basically $15M over, including the ~$3M we're already over.

To get under the LT threshold, we'd have to trade CJ and $15M+ in salary for those two.
 
Trade SG for PF and how exactly does that help "balance" the roster? We go from having 1.5 players capable of playing SG (CJ & Pat), to 0.5 players capable of playing SG. Great balance!

Turner is a shooting guard.
 
Not gonna happen. No way.

If Neil wants to keep his job, he may have to - everyone is seeing the CJ/Dame backcourt needs a reshuffle to balance the roster.

Then again, Neil may already have a foot out the door.
 
If Neil wants to keep his job, he may have to - everyone is seeing the CJ/Dame backcourt needs a reshuffle to balance the roster.

Then again, Neil may already have a foot out the door.

Neil will definitely lose his job if he trades away CJ for a lesser talent.
 
Neil will definitely lose his job if he trades away CJ for a lesser talent.

Then he needs to put in the time. But he needs to do something. I'm for trading CJ if the price is right.
 
Then he needs to put in the time. But he needs to do something. I'm for trading CJ if the price is right.

I'm just not seeing a good trade though. They all have major flaws.

The Hornets are looking to deal, but their roster is a dumpster fire.

The Magic? We could probably put something together, but CJ would still be the best player in any deal.

The Clippers have players that fit our window, but would they make us better?

I have spent a lot of time combing through the trade machine and there isn't really anything that gets me excited.
 
I don't see a lot of trade scenarios like the one laid out in the OP -- all-star caliber 3 or 4 that a team is dying to get rid of.

I think going after the Cavs' Brooklyn pick might the right move. It doesn't exactly transform the roster into a title contender (at least not right away), but it might be the best they can hope for. Especially since the Cavs are in win-now mode, and are in extreme danger of Lebron walking at the end of the year if they don't get right back to the Championship series.
 
Neil will definitely lose his job if he trades away CJ for a lesser talent.
I dont mind trading CJ for lesser talent, as long as we look a better team
that means we could take lesser talent and some other asset(s) to improve the team

team is the most important thing, not the individual, but on the team you need to have a great individual, and we have one in Dame
 
I don't see a lot of trade scenarios like the one laid out in the OP -- all-star caliber 3 or 4 that a team is dying to get rid of.

I think going after the Cavs' Brooklyn pick might the right move. It doesn't exactly transform the roster into a title contender (at least not right away), but it might be the best they can hope for. Especially since the Cavs are in win-now mode, and are in extreme danger of Lebron walking at the end of the year if they don't get right back to the Championship series.
I dont think CLE will give up on BKN pick
 

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