I say in next 2 weeks on Stotts if he stays or goes. If he not fire by then look who will next year coach my prediction I still say he has 50-50 chance to be back.
Honestly, everyone should be on the table outside Dame. Nurk has shown he's not even close to a top-tier C.
It takes a team to win. With our current cap and tradable assets, you can't improve upon what we have. In other words, we're going to have to get worse before we get better. By that time, Dame will be past his prime. Portland is a backwater. It's Sacramento, Milwaukee, Orlando, OKC. It's not a glamour gig.
Major changes. I think Olshey steps down. He used all of his ammunition getting RoCo. He almost always overpays. He doesn't have anything left to use to put talent around Dame, and it hurts his brand to try to handle what's going to be a painful rebuild. Stotts will be fired if he doesn't resign. Melo will leave. Powell's a SoCal guy ... I expect him to be a Laker or Clipper next year; he has no allegiance to this franchise. Giles isn't coming back, as if it mattered. Jones might opt-in because his free agent value is negligible now. As someone said above, expect him to be traded if he does that. CJ almost has to be moved. Tonight was an example of selfish, unclutch play that already made him a provocative player here. To pull that stuff tonight with the season on the line and get booed off the court, he's not coming back, and he'll be traded for pennies on the dollar. Now you're down two starters with really no way to replace them on a team that barely made the playoffs. You're not going to get anything in return for Powell and you aren't going to get equal value for McCollum. And you're bringing in a new GM and coach with their own ideas of how to put together a winning basketball team ... but you have no draft pick and no cap space. This is where things get uncomfortable. RoCo probably has trade value. I think he'll be shopped and shipped. Nurk's shown himself to be too unreliable, and I don't think that'll fly with someone trying to rebuild. I think Ant, Nas and potentially Kanter will be back ... the first two unless they're needed for a trade. Elleby ... I don't think it matters either way. Collins actually might be back now simply because the Blazers are going to need bodies. 50/50 on that. But I think, sad to say, this was it for Dame as a Blazer. Even if he was willing to be here through what potentially could be something like the Darius Miles and Viktor Khryapa days, why would you do that to the guy? I think the compassionate thing would be to try to trade him like most smaller markets do with their stars these days when there's going to be a major turnover in personnel. The Blazers won't get back equal value, but they'd at least get enough assets from such a move to start to rebuild. This is going to be very painful. More painful than watching the last 14 minutes was tonight.
Blow her up Gonna be going on 10 years of Dame next year, and he has one of the worst active NBA playoff records. 22 Wins, 38 Losses. Gotta be brutally honest folks; what have we won with Dame? What are we winning? "Get him a star!!!!!" Like?????? Time to move on, and be a fan of the team, not just the player on the team. We called those GSW fans....
The idea that this team is trading Dame makes no sense. He's too valuable both as a player and in marketing. They can build something better around him and move forward from there.
Nurk was huge difference maker when he was on floor, never going to be big time scorer but does everything else great. Honesty if we were able to get a great coach I wouldn’t mind giving it another try with majority of this group
He's not valuable as either if you put him on a roster like OKC's. If someone can tell me what assets we have to get quality players to put around him next year, I'll listen. But if you think he has marketing value scoring 35 ppg on a team that's losing regularly by double figures in one of the smallest markets in the NBA, I'm going to have to disagree with that.
No OKC mode unless Dame demands a trade. Honestly the best case scenario for the Portland would be a CJ for Porzingis deal if the Mavs wanted to move on from him (he's awful so far in the playoffs). Dame Norm Roco Porzingis Nurk
Why does anyone think Powell would be back? Have we heard anything that leads us to believe that other than the fact that fans want it? Because I seriously don't see a reason to believe it and I think expecting it is setting ourselves up for a big blow in the coming weeks when he decides to go to LA.
No top 10 player has been traded without actually wanting out. Unless Dame wants out he's not leaving. The closest you can get is Westbrook, but he was not nearly that level of player when OKC moved him.
To answer MM's questions: 1.) Yes. Olshey has been fending off his bosses and critics for years playing the injury and cohesion cards. He can no longer play it, so something will have to give. 2.) I expect Stotts to be fired, as that's the last ace card Olshey can play. You know, it was the coach, that's all. Sometimes, a team needs a fresh look, blah blah. Apparently, overlooking that the front office can benefit from said fresh look. Yes, I'll be upset if Olshey remains, just like the last 2 offseasons. 3.) Olshey has got to go. I'm not one who believes coaching is all that important in the NBA. The handful of elite coaches, sure, yes, they can elevate a team in culture, focus, BBIQ. The remaining 95% of them get passing grades from me if the team consistently play hard, disciplined, and competes. That's been a little spotty the last few years with the Blazers, especially the discipline part, but I really believe that's more a function of the deficiency in talent/veteran experience on this team than the coach's influence. Generally, a HC will bench a guy for not playing team basketball or playing hard. I think Stotts did that at times in his tenure, but option 2 was often opening a different pandoras box. In the end, Stotts had a 7 man rotation. Benching wasn't really an option. We're being held back by talent and mix. Olshey, inher...hrm...acquired the franchise player in year one of his reign. He's had his entire tenure to add a couple core pieces to ride with Lillard. In those 8 years he added an ideal 6th man to play Robin and the all important 3rd option would be the worst starter on a championship team. How much more evidence do we need that he isn't capable of building a contending team around Lillard? In the end (if this is the end), the team identity is to be 3 point centric and try to outscore everyone. Okay, not my choice, but if you're going to go that path, shouldn't you have at least 2 elite three point shooters in your lineup and two elite rebounders to surround Lillard? Off the top of my head, Lillard's only played with one elite 3 point shooter. It lasted one season and the team made the WFC finals. Coincidence or correlation? 4.) I think a Lillard/CJ led team could make some noise with an able cast. If the 3rd option was close to CJ in scoring ability and talent, that could make things interesting. The pairing isn't ideal though and it's choosing the harder path. If he's really asking should we finally break them up, I'd say yes. CJ appears to have peaked.
