I know I don’t know the behind the scenes stuff but while Mike and Mike in the mornings could be annoying I find it better than what either of those guys are doing now.
If Damian really is after a championship, then she's probably not wrong that he'll need to go somewhere else. The Blazers look maxed out unless there's some major shakeups and those don't seem to be forthcoming anytime soon because of their contracts and very little talent in the development pipeline. Them's the breaks.
Compared to the juggernauts developing in Boston, and Philly, and stacking up against the "in their prime" powers of Houston, Golden State and the ascendant teams like Utah, maybe Minnesota, the Lakers, et al. The Blazers' cupboard is pretty barren. Those three you mention are at best rotation players on the teams I mentioned. Only Collins seems like he might be built to play in the modern game, but I didn't see a whole lot in his rookie year to make me think he's got "foundation-piece" potential.
The Lakers? Are you assuming they get two superstars this summer? I think the Harkless has his best month of basketball before he got hurt. He was looking like a complete player at 3, that version of Moe would start or be in the rotation almost anywhere. Collins showed flashes, and especially on defense looked like he had a good bow, he still is always away though. Nurkic is interesting, he makes the Blazers a lot better defensively, and offensively while he had an inconsistent year could play a big role for them.
I think the chatter about Lebron is more than just idle chatter. But more importantly for the Blazers. Collins, Nurkic and whomever being "interesting" or "pretty good" or "showing flashes" isn't good enough to propel this team past Anthony Davis, or Kevin Durant, Or Giannis, or Harden, or Curry, Tatum, Lebron, etc., etc.
Dame is 1st team all NBA and his regular season was deserving of it. He just needs other guys to play better. Yes he needs better talent or the guys already there to get better in order to compete with Houston / GS.
There's something that's been bugging me about this thread. Why is there a comma in the title after "How dare"?
We were the youngest team in the playoffs this year. The teams that are in the prime like Houston/GS are not going to resemble anything like they are in two years because of cap situations and flexibility is really killed because of Meyers and ET who will both be expiring contracts after next year. While we don't have a great load of depth behind our starters that can actually contribute I don't see any of the teams behind GS/Hou as being above us. The reality is we are going to be near the same team we are now for two more years with most likely Collins as our only bench player who can make a significant improvement, so our growth needs to be like Toronto and come from within instead of getting better by acquiring top tier talent otherways. I think we have a decent shot of staying very relevant in the west and being able to make a big push in the next few years when GS and Hou start losing key pieces because of the luxury tax.
Unless a lot changes this summer. I think the Blazers look to be in the same position going into next year somewhere between 3rd and 10th in the West because all those teams are so close. It seemed like things went there way this year, so they got the 3rd seed. Now hopefully their offseason solidified them as more of a 3-5 seed.
Yes, that is troubling. Add that to the fact that neither a question mark or an exclamation point is used to close the line and you have a real grammatical puzzle.
