Blazers have talked to San Antonio about Kawhi

We should try to expand it to a three way by offering CJ and Turner to the Spurs for Derozan and Pau. We would be a much better team with Dame/Derozan than Dame/CJ IMO.

 

I doubt we only made CJ and Dame unavailable. I think CJ, Dame, Collins and Nurkic are off the limits for any possible trades going forward, all 4 of them. Olshey would not even trade CJ for Embiid or Towns.

 

Wow, Toronto will actually have their entire cap space cleared in Summer 2020. Like EVERYTHING.

 

And why would SA even come close to considering that?

 

Even if Portland offered CJ for Kawhi....

Derozan > CJ.

Spurs take Derozan every time.

 

Or the other way around, Kawhi is healthy enough to play in the practice, so Toronto feels comfortable unloading their all star

 

I let myself get roped in to thinking we had a shot. Stupid, I know.

 

“Not even”? Those two are much more valuable than CJ

 

Wow, what a bummer to wake up to this news. Not only do we not get Kawhi, but Spurs trade him for another all star so the will keep being good during Dame’s window... at the same time, I can’t get mad because DeRozen is better offer than CJ. I just really hope Neil is looking at deals like CJ for Butler to improve this team, because the West is stronger than ever and Blazers will have hard time making playoffs with status quo

 

Yeah and with the way Olshey has been over the last two years, if either of them became available (they won’t) Olshey would still go there and tell them he can offer everything bar Dame, CJ, Collins and Nurkic.

 

Watch Pop turn Jokob into a monster.

 

Raptor announcer on Blazer radio just said Raptors haven't been allowed to see Kawhi's medicals, but they are encouraged that he was able to commit to come to the USA practice.

Huge gamble, but Raps were in a similar boat to us. It was time for a risky move. Go big or go home, especially in the wide open east.

 

Gotta say...

I feel like the Spurs made a really, really poor move.

DeRozan, imo, is not that good.

And reports on toronto’s Side - Kawhi doesn’t wanna go there already hahahaha

 

You certainly are NOT stupid, but that thought sure was

 

The way I see it, they weren’t getting a high lottery pick or an established young player on a long contract back for DeRozan, this wasn’t happening. They were also not going to win anything with their current core as proven by the previous three season where they were excellent in the regular season but failed in the playoffs - not only against Cleveland but also they struggled to basically everyone else, they barely beat an average Washington team last year.

They got a brilliant player who is top 5 in the league easily when healthy. He might not be healthy for another season, he might not get back into top form and he might not re-sign there but there is a chance that he will and for that chance it was worth the risk.

You aren’t winning titles by keeping a team that cannot win together. Now it’s either compete with Kawhi or rebuild after this season, at least they aren’t locked to the same core for 2 more years. Just after Cleveland series everyone agreed they needed to change something and getting Kawhi could be a home run deal.

 

Thunder took the same risk with George and even though they failed last season they managed to re-sign him and now have a great asset going forward instead of having virtually nothing to build on (Oladipo was never going to be the player there that he has been at Indiana).

 

(Olshey) We had some serious discussions with the Spurs but it just didn't work out. (Offered ET/Meyers for Kawhi/Green)

 

It all came down to Spurs not wanting to deal Leonard to the west like they had said.

 

It is a game of match ups and they did not match up well against Lebron. But Lebron is no longer there. International players like playing in Toronto. It is a great city. But they have a history of their American born stars leaving ASAP. (Carter, Bosh, McGrady)
Good luck with keeping Kawhi. I am sure the Lakers are happy today.