I agree with you Portland needs to upgrade their forwards to compete. Spoiler @BonesJones prolly got tired of my spam during the draft. About how upset I was when Porter fell that Portland didn't make a move for him. He did point out that once Porter fell that the 14th pick prolly became unavailable. Still tho, Portland had options to move to get him. But that's one of the reasons why I'd advocate for Butler to play the three. Portland has Curry, WB4, Trent, and prolly someone else I'm forgetting who could play the two. Butler at the three, forces Harkless into the backup role. While putting an additional proven shooter on the floor in Curry. I say all this while not being on board with the swap of CJ for Butler. I'd be more on board with the swap of CJ for Wiggins. But even then I'm not on board for that. If I'm going to deal CJ, it's going to be for the max return. I don't believe Butler, or Wiggins is the max return. Simply because Butler and Wiggins have too many concerns. When CJ has too few.
Getting Butler without including CJ puts us in the championship conversation. That should be the goal.
I agree with Gronk. Neil's such a con artist we might as well call him the Flim Flam Man. He has no plan to attempt a workable trade.
What are Miami offering? They don’t really have anything of value, Winslow and Adebayo are their only half decent young players and I think they can only trade the 2019 pick as with 2021 gone to Philly they cannot offer 2020 & 2022. It’s not like Whiteside has positive value. Maybe Richardson?
Whiteside is pretty much it. So I guess it depends on whether they think KAT can play power forward, but Miami has zero shot at re-signing him. That team is not good and has no future.
Am I the only one that would be a little nervous about trading some combination of Collins, Simons, Trent, 1st pick and filler for Butler? I originally thought it would take CJ, but Minne could do a lot worse. KAT, Collins, Wiggins, Trent, Simons, pick could be an interesting lineup in a few years when GS might be fading. Overall I think you have to focus on Dame and if you have a chance to compete now you have to take it. I guess if it fails then you rebuild harder without Collins and Simons.
I lived through the Kiki Vandeweghe trade once, don't need to live through it twice. Not saying that Kiki and Jimmy are the same player, but giving up a lot of players for 1 player might be a bad idea, especially if it's for 1 year rental. Lose Collins, Simons, Trent and a 1st round pick for a player who might leave in a year? No thanks.
From what I have read, Thibs is only interested in players who can help him right now. Of those mentioned, only Collins would be close on that.
I believe media day is today(?) You’d think a team trading for him wouldnt want to be out there introducing players they are going to trade soon after. For example that would be really weird to roll out Harkless and whom ever as Blazers then tomorrow trade them...
I think Thibs ideal trade would be Turner, Aminu and Collins for Butler and Dieng. I think their owner would be OK with that also.
This is where I'm at on this topic. I'm not against trading CJ, but I don't think I'd gamble our most valuable trade asset on Butler without some sort of assurance/protection. I don't think it's ever been done, and is not likely to be done, but I also don't know that there are rules against this idea: It would be interesting if, as a way for teams to protect against the "rental" scenario, MIN would include a conditional draft pick in the trade - as in, if Butler walks we get a MIN pick but if Butler stays MIN keeps the pick. Obviously this would only happen in a scenario where MIN wants a specific package (CJ in this example).