It's pretty cool to get to experience all the love Dame is getting right now. I was too young when Drexler was doing his thing and Roy was really just starting to get going when his career ended. The teams from the late 90s didn't have a superstar player like Dame or Drexler. I think Sheed COULD have been that guy but his attitude was just not in the right place. So Dame is the guy. I might never see another player like him in my lifetime put on the Blazer uniform.
......... what? I don't have any conditions on my appreciation for Dame. I'm angry at our team for not doing everything in their power to take advantage of Dame.
Drexler was great, but he was always missing "something". I think Dame has that extra thing. The intangible.
If I’m the billionaire owner of the Blazers, I will buy a ring just for Dame. I’ll pay all the penalties and taxes just for Dame and bring a championship back to Portland.
All of his teammates loved him. LOVED him. The main issue I had with him was that he was lazy during practice. The team had fines for players that wouldn't use the weight room and Sheed would just pay the fine. He wasn't in very good shape towards the end of his career.
I think (hope) next year is the year Portland goes all out since they won't be in a repeater tax year.
I dunno...I was in my teens-twenties with prime Clyde and trust me he had “it”. He’s was never really all-in it felt with the Blazers and didn’t play with a chip on his shoulder like Lillard, but he routinely was a SportsCenter highlight, consistent all star, won a ton of games here and went to two Finals. He played when fricking Michael Jordan was also in his prime, along with a ton of other stars (dream team), had Clyde been a little earlier or later I think he gets a ring in Portland and he’s considered the greatest Blazer ever.
The GOAT talk has accelerated the past decade+ of the internet age. It always seems a bit odd to me to try to compare players in situations that vary so much. Different teammates, different opponents, different rules all factor in to making (for me) the discussion largely impossible to resolve and it always comes down to subjective judgement of who you like. As a kid, my friend would get us into the Jewish Community Center gym where we'd shoot hoops. Various Blazers would also show up to shoot with a ball boy. The two best I saw draining jumpers were Drazen & Jim Paxson. They'd rhythmically lace 20-30 in a row before a miss and then start another ridiculous stretch. In Clyde's rookie season, a 26 year old Jim Paxson earned his 2nd straight All Star appearance. By Clyde's 3rd season, he was coming off the bench. Clyde wasn't an above average perimeter threat. If thats the something you can't put your finger on, I guess. Other then that he was a dominant force on the court that few teams had any sort of an answer for even in whats thought to be the golden age of hoops. He took it to the hoop at will, dunking on all comers. Those drives happened even more in the 4th where he seemed to break the will of the opponent. Somehow he had vision/awareness on those head down drives to the hoop to average 5.7 assists per game during his 10 1/2 seasons in Portland... the Blazers did a whole lot of winning in that stretch. He was an incredible talent & as great as any Blazer IMO. STOMP
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Drexler had raw talent that was superior to Dame’s. I also think it’s a given that Dame has worked far harder to maximize his skills and physical abilities to make the absolute best version of himself as a basketball player. If Clyde had had that drive to perfect his game, he would have been an even more amazing player and he might have brought a title to Portland. But he didn’t have that drive and so, in my book, he’s on a slightly lesser rung of the ladder than Dame.
Your retort is some media finals hype where they don't even bother to mention any players and instead just repeat their storyline nonsense? Portland will always be the media's bad guy in any future finals regardless of how they're playing or who is on the team.... even during Dame Time. Smaller market equals fewer eyes on product. Feeble drivel. STOMP
Whats your real evidence of this? Do you know someone who has worked out with them both many times? To my eyes, both improved on their rookie years though Clyde improved far more as while he looked brimming with potential he was also largely lost while Dame was ROY and often described as polished. right, it's subjective... an opinion. Mine is give either a running mate like a prime time Pippen (or hell, Sabas in his 20s) and they're likely both champions many times over and in the all time league GOAT discussion. Btw, Dame has the exact same number of Blazer titles as Clyde and one less overall, so thats a moot point at best. Clyde was a 10 time All Star and did finish 2nd in the MVP vote to MJ while Dame is a 6 time All Star and his best MVP finish thus far was 4th. STOMP
Of course it’s an opinion. That’s why I used the phrase you quoted. As for facts, there were a few reports of skipped practices, as I recall. The rest is just my observation that he never seemed to work on his shooting form. He stuck with that flat-as-a-pancake, kick himself in the ass jump shot his entire career. It seemed to me that he counted more on his immense athleticism than he did on improving his game. That said, I loved him as a player and I agree that the addition of one more big talent would have pushed that team to multiple titles. If Sabonis had come over for the Drexler years, Jordan would have had about three fewer rings and his GOAT claims would be severely tarnished.
Bottom line is if you could put Lillards brain in Clyde, you’d have something very close to Michael Jordan.
Reggie Miller? A career .318 3 point average, with a lot of years in the mid-20% range being hauled upwards by some 36% years at the end of his career.
