This franchise owes Dame everything to give him a second star for the rest of his prime

I guarantee you that Dame has directly had a hand in CJ and Stotts still being members here.

whether you, me or anyone else likes it or not, GM’s consult their all-NBA players.

quite frankly it would be pretty idiotic for them not to do so.

Now you may say, Dame’s answer is “don’t care, do what you want” but it’s pretty clear that he isn’t on that side of the fence.

he has OPENLY praised CJ and Stotts.

shit, the clippers *just to sign Kawhi* were consulting him about their roster and what they should do.

you may also say Olshey should just “do his job”... and that’s how you lose players because they don’t feel included in the decisions and feel like their input isn’t heard. (The reason PG13 left the pacers, if you recall “we could’ve traded for AD, they said no, so I said I’m out.)

 

Of those 14 shots, how many of them were on 1 pass possessions resulting in a bad shot? 2? 4? I'm not claiming Portland's offense/defense schemes are perfect, but those corner 3's were wide open shots by CJ and Powell (great shots), RoCo had two misses inside the restricted area (should be a great shot for a PF).

If the shots we got in OT fall under the "doesn't put players in a position succeed" category, then we're greatly overpaying these guys and shouldn't have even made the playoffs.

These numbers don't support the theory that our offense had a ton of guys taking really bad shots:

https://shotquality.com/game/nba/2021/Portland Trail Blazers/Portland Trail Blazers @ Denver Nuggets-77

 

Neither does Portland.

 

I disgreed that Dame would agree with your logic that his loyalty to his teammates is one of Portland's major issues.

I could be wrong and maybe he thinks the way he is at his core is a major problem holding this franchise back. I just feel like if he thought that were the case, he woul have been actively trying to change it for years. You provided your unfounded opinion of what Dame would think of your take and I profounded my unfounded opinion of what he would think. That's it.

 

The Blazers sold Dame's future when they gave CJ a max contract. For all the Blazer fans talk about trading CJ, his contract is untradeable for what he brings. The culture of the team (and this has been the way it's been since it's inception) is to overvalue it's own players and pay them more than anyone else would to keep them. Only Bob Whitsitt broke this mold, and his legacy is so stained by the Jailblazers debacle that that will never happen again. Mediocrity is the goal for this organization, and it always has been.

 

not really

 

nonsense

nowhere did I say that Dame doesn't have influence? But he's not the fucking GM so blaming Dame for moron Olshey NOT doing his job is bullshit

you came into this particular discussion by saying

what you're saying right there is that Dame is preventing Olshey from making moves. If that's true, Olshey needs to be fired for being a useless fucking wimp. If it's not true, Olshey needs to be fired for not building a contender because he's been too busy pouring massage oil on his own ego

and you're also saying "fuck Dame, he doesn't deserve a contender because he's loyal to teammates"....yeah, like I said, nonsense.

 

so does jamal murray.

 

our roster is so much better than this hobbled denver one it isn't even close. yet, let's keep pushing the talent narrative-- some people are incorrigible.

with even an average coach and system, we would have won this in 5.

the big advantage Denver has in this series isn't the bench. it's coaching.

 

for sure he has SOME influence. But not as much as the fucking GM

Dame was very good friends with Will Barton...and Nic Batum...and Mason Plumlee...and Tim Frazier....and Rodney Hood. All were traded. He's talked about those friendships in the context of understanding it's a business.

I love Dame and believe he's the greatest Blazer ever, but that does not mean I believe he should be vetoing due diligence by the front office. Dame hes not played in one single victory past the 2nd round of the playoffs. He should not have the power of a Lebron or an MJ. At some point, the GM HAS to be the GM. That point was years ago

 

Better? Yes. So much? No.

Portland has been the underdog in 3 of the 5 games. Not something that happens when one roster is far superior. It's hard for some fans to be honest with themselves and not fall in love their own players.

 

On paper and offensively this team should be better than Denver.

Defensively we're the same trash team that we were in the first game of the season.

 

Here’s the thing... I don’t give a fuck if it’s a “good shot” based on “standards.” Yeah, corner 3s are “good shots.” But that doesn’t put Norman Powell (or Derrick Jones Jr. or whoever else we throw out there) in position to succeed and highlight what they’re truly good at (and take advantage of it.)

Stotts, instead of adjusting his offense to get Powell shots at the rim (or DJJ, and cause foul trouble for the other team) shoves them in a corner and says “you’ll get great looks at corner 3s.” now yes, they should’ve made those shots, especially given what they’re paid. But my point of contention is that shoving people into the corner and giving them “good quality shots” is part of why Stotts is a shît coach. Kinda like when he had ET working on his corner 3. Who gives a fuck? I don’t care if it’s a good shot. Don’t minimize ET into a corner 3pt shooter, which eventually he kinda bailed on that idea.
And yea, Roco missed some bunnies. Don’t care. Norm Powell had like 3-4 straight layups and they went away from that action for some dumbass reason only our genius of a coach can dream up.

honestly between norm and dame it should be a layup drill when Jokic is in the game. Notice how the Nuggets don’t just camp in the corner and watch Jokic? Yeah alright like I said I can’t rethink this game anymore. It was a complete abomination and highlighted every single issue I have with the team.

 

The GM has to be the GM, then the star/franchise player demands a trade and gets fired.

Notice how you didn’t say anything about Paul George? Or AD? Or Kawhi? Or Kyrie? All players that said they didn’t have enough “sway.” Although AD probably just came up with some bullshît, forgot all the excuses he and his team made during his trade request.

It’s a player driven league. When you’ve got a player with the talent level of Dame, you bend over backwards for him whether you like it or not.

And none of those players had the same significance as CJ — and most of them got canned before Dame was “Dame”.

And Dame was very, very, verrrrry upset with the Barton trade. Just go through his Twitter and read a bunch of the stories and watch podcasts. I’m not gonna bother going thru all of them again.

now if it was CJ dictating moves then I’d be all onboard with what you’re saying.

but to act like Olshey can do whatever the hell he wants is idiotic.

(and I also agree that he probably doesn’t have the stones to trade CJ anyway but Stotts I firmly believe is a product of Dame campaigning for him, quite openly)

 

Exactly, so not having a 2nd star isnt why were losing.

 

Have you had time to watch the second overtime back?

Just tuning into you an Eric's post game stream and I don't think your frustrations match the film imo.

We ran Dame off ball off a pindown into a handoff with Melo that put two on the ball, that Melo failed to make the defense completely pay for. Norm corner three in rhythm, but Jokic was able to get in a better contest than he should have.

I also struggle with the off ball vs pnr/iso argument when, as you noted, Dame was completely gassed. Is sprinting off / setting up a screen (that also will most likely be switched) not as exhausting and likely less effective than what we saw putting Jokic in every pnr?

I mean hell, we got a Dame layup, the play that I talked about before that yes you can call a pnr if you want--a pull up 3 with Jokic laying back--and dame turning the corner on Jokic and hitting Cov on a well timed 45 cut that led to a missed dunk?

Idk....

I don't think Terry is a great coach and would be excited by a change as well. But, there's a reason why I push back on a lot of what you and Eric like to point out about your issues with him.

I also thought questioning the effort for the first 5-6 minutes of the game interesting. Yeah Norm missed a box out and Dame lost Compazzo on a re-location, but I thought we were better on the ball and racked up a ton of deflections with nothing to show for it. The shot selection was what I was most disappointed in and even then, that's including 2 missed bunnies by Dame and Nurk that led to transition opportunities for Denver.

 

It's the reason we're in a close series instead of beating them easily like some think we should. Two teams, each with a super star, and the other teams superstar is a 7'0" MVP.

 

I don't recall your history of takes, but the standard take around here is we give up way too many easy corner threes. Then we take those same easy corner threes (and miss them) with high quality shooters, people want more dunks. I wish it were the easy. Maybe the next coach will have us getting 30 dunks/layups a game if it's as easy as some here think it is.

We took as good or better shots than Denver, with better shooters, we missed, they made more. Sucks.