Tidbit from today's Zach Lowe's ESPN article

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...ictions-giannis-big-decision-trades-watch-for

4. Portland trades Hassan Whiteside or Kent Bazemore, plus at least one asset (and additional money if needed) for one of: Kevin Love, Danilo Gallinari, Blake Griffin, Marc Gasol or Serge Ibaka

This is league's clearest win-now move. Portland will haggle hard over sweeteners, and they will need more of them for the high-wattage names on this list. Anfernee Simons is almost certainly off-limits. Zach Collins probably is too. That leaves Nassir Little, Gary Trent Jr. and Portland's future first-round picks.

Love has been mentioned most (guilty!), but Gallinari might be a cleaner fit. He's on an expiring deal, and more of a clear-cut power forward. Love lives between power forward and center. That flexibility is useful, especially as Jusuf Nurkic recovers from injury, but it could become awkward as Nurkic regains full health.

Portland wields the leverage of choice. The market could be flooded with rotation power forwards from blah teams: the three guys listed above; Marcus Morris and Bobby Portis; Davis Bertans; Jae Crowder; Marvin Williams; Nemanja Bjelica; Robert Covington; others. Why pay whatever Cleveland asks if you can get a decent player for much less?

Portland also surely wonders how many teams will really bid for Love. Houston will poke around, because that's what it does, but I'm not sure the Cavs are much interested in Eric Gordon and Clint Capela. Would a third team jump in? A swap centered on Love and Gordon Hayward makes some sense, but trading Hayward raises uncomfortable issues for Boston. His college coach wooed him in free agency, and then his leg snapped in half.

Cleveland would argue Love is flat better than almost every other available big, and anyone Portland will ever get in free agency. If the Blazers start slowly, they may not have the luxury of waiting for every option to become available. On the flip side, a team that knows it's a seller on the power forward market may want to jump on a good deal early -- before the market gets crowded.

Keep half an eye on Griffin. Detroit does not want to trade him. The Pistons are hell-bent on making the playoffs. Griffin is their star attraction. But if things go badly, teams will call. Griffin would be one of the few really good available players with a max-ish contract that isn't too short or too long.

Gasol and Ibaka are here in case Portland decides to pursue a center on an expiring contract.

The Blazers have the goods to make a second win-now trade if they want. You can build some intriguing deals with Memphis involving Iguodala and/or Crowder.

 

Also from same article:

If you froze today's rosters for the season, Portland would be my pick to miss the playoffs. But they seem to feel more urgency after a conference finals run. The Blazers can pull a win-now trade (or two) almost whenever they want.

 

I'm a pessimist and there are 6 West teams clearly better than us (Lakers, Denver, Utah, Clips, Houston, GState) but what are the other two in his view? Dallas? Minny? San Antonio?

 

Really? Even without Nurk but with healthy Whiteside / Pau - I am not sure GState, Denver and Utah are clearly better than the Blazers.

 

Yep. Look at the rosters. Blazers are better than Utah. They have the best player too. Every year people say Utah is better and then we end up with a better record. Utah would rather have Dame/CJ than Conley/Mitchell if they were smart. And BOJAN Bogdanovich isn’t the second coming. His brother (or do they just have the same name?) is better. Ed Davis isn’t as good as Collins. What the fuck am I missing? Rant over.

 

6 teams clearly better?
Smh.

 

OKC may surprise people. They are officially underrated this year.

 

I don't think Utah is better than us. The Lakers are but I'm not convinced they will have a better record than us. Lebron and Davis are going to miss a handful of games. Houston's chemistry is a question mark but they'll likely have a better record that us. Denver and LA Clipps for sure. Without Clay GState is a question mark. We should be neck and neck with them.

I'm thinking we finish around the 4th, or probably the 5th seed, providing no changes.

 

Utah hasn't looked great in preseason, but they've just got too much talent. People perpetually underrate Joe Ingles (I'm not blaming them - just look at him) but he's low key turned into Chris Mullin with defense. And as soon as Conley settles in, they're going to be out of our league.
Denver is ridiculously talented. Just because we hung with them for 3 quarters without our two best players and Whiteside doesn't mean we'll do it when the games count. Grant is perfect for them, and on a lottery team Porter Jr. would be all-rookie.
GState is a mystery. The Lakers have been destroying them in preseason, and who knows how Russell will settle in, but if Curry and Green stay healthy, I can't see them slipping out of the top 6. However, they are the most vulnerable, so if we beat any of those 6 it would probably be them. But then, we're pretty vulnerable too - if anything happens to Dame we have literally no other PG.
Also: Eric's right about OKC. Everyone's going to improve without Westbrook, and Chris Paul never takes losing lightly.

 

Booooooooo!

 

You say people perpetually underrate Ingles, but aren't you perpetually under rating the Blazers?

 

GS doesn't scare me this year while Klay is out. Have you looked at their roster? They lost a TON of talent and it isn't only Durant. If we had all of their no name bench players, the sky would be falling around these parts.

 

There's isn't a team in the league I can say is "clearly better than us"

 

I don't see how Golden State is better then Portland let alone clearly. Among other issues for them, why would teams do anything but dare Green to shoot his clunky J when there are only 2 shooters for him to dish to? Glen Robinson III is on his 5th team in 5 years, has a career average of 4.4 points with a mighty 10.6 PER yet he's the unquestioned starting SF. They're 100% screwed in any game that Steph isn't playing in. In his 10 year career he's averaged 69 games a year and he's on the wrong side of 30 now. It's almost as if they're starting the year 0-13. On top of all that, teams are going to be looking for payback so everyone will be up for them giving them their best shot. On top of the other 5 teams you listed, I'd put PDX, San Antonio, Dallas and the Kings ahead of them.

STOMP

 

We have the highest payroll in the league. To me it is going to come down to how good Collins looks and how well the Blazers perform in the next two months.

If Collins looks good at PF then why trade for Love, Gallinari, or Blake? His minutes would go way down. If he looks better at center then it makes sense to trade Whiteside for a PF.

Also there is a slight possibility that someone else has a break out season who we would want to resign next season. Having that high priced PF and resigning someone like Hood or Mario who have player options would really put us way over the salary cap. Will the cap be reduced if the NBA loses out on China "revenue"?

 

Yeah why is Zach always so Low on our Blazers?

 

I would be furious if we trade for Love. I'd much rather have Gallinari or an expiring if we need to do a trade. We need to give whiteside a few weeks but if it looks bad I'm all for trading him for a one year rental.

Warriors will not be good. Houston will see that CP3 is better than westbrook. Westbrook can't shoot and he doesn't have the athleticism to score efficiently as he used to. LA teams wont win a lot in the regular season but can make the playoffs.

I'm very concerned about our defense without Aminu Harkless.

Eager to see some games played!

 

Cauley Stein\Kevon Looney
Green
Thompson
Russel
Curry


I'm sorry, but that starting 5 can still make it to the WCF. Don't under-rate them, we're not at their level yet.

 

Depending on how his recovery goes, Klay will with either miss most of the regular season, or all of it.

 

Yea. I don't think his injury is that bad.
He walked,ran,jumped and shot free throws right after he injured himself.
Plus, his game isn't really based on athletesism or speed.

People also need to remember GS will be a big buyout destination later on.