I remember watching Clyde near the end of his career demanding a trade from a Blazers team that had no prospects of competing for a title. That was sad. I can imagine that seeing Dame do the same thing would be even more sad. If this is what it takes to avoid that outcome, I can live with it.
I think it’s pretty clear that the plan is your second option. I don’t think we’ll ever see the Blazers’ top pick play in a Blazers uniform. OTOH, if no trade for a proven star presents itself, then I agree that it would be time to move Dame for a Harden-esque package. Man, I hope it doesn’t go that way.
I may be in the minority, but I vastly prefer the team as is with a clear sense of direction over the middling reruns of yesteryear with the CJ and Dame combo. Losing is no fun if you're only watching with the intent to try and win, but if you take a step back and understand the bigger picture then it's quite enjoyable watching the development of players over the course of the rest of the season. It gives us a better understanding of who will fit, who we should keep, and what we really have going into next year. This off season should be more interesting than most in recent memory as it will be interesting to see if Cronin decides to trade the picks, or keep them to try and add to our current squad.
Agreed. Before the trades we were bad and boring to watch. Now we’re bad but interesting. In either case we were bad. In one I had little hope that things would be different in the future, while in the other I get to see options and development and have more hope for the future because it isn’t a repeat of the past, just with some names changed to provide a semblance of hope for the future. Unfortunately too many of the “name changes” involved trading away our future.
You'd be surprised how not in the minority you are. Also because it's the right thing to do at this time.
for sure, after all, Portland has has only landed one or two good players from the draft: Geoff Petrie Sidney Wicks Larry Steele Dave Twardzik Bill Walton Lionel Hollins Bob Gross Johnny Davis T.R. Dunn Mychal Thompson Ron Brewer Darnell Valentine Fat Lever Clyde Drexler Sam Bowie ---> Buck Williams Jerome Kersey Terry Porter Arvydas Sabonis Dražen Petrović Clifford Robinson Jermaine O'Neal Bonzi Wells Zach Randolph LaMarcus Aldridge Brandon Roy Sergio Rodríguez Rudy Fernández Nicolas Batum Damian Lillard Will Barton CJ McCollum Anfernee Simons let's see, how does the top-10 in Blazer history for points look: imagine that....all 10 were drafted by Portland in other words, for Portland, it's the draft much more than trades and free agency that has landed it's best players. Now, I suppose you could argue that Portland didn't tank to get most of those players. In one way it's true; the Blazers were just a bad team at times. But in a very real way it's not true because Portland has definitely tanked seasons other than this one. I saw it obviously, the draft is a win-some-lose-some proposition. There are no guarantees. But there are no guarantees to any transaction, whether it's a draft pick, trade, or a signing. It's about maximizing the odds right now, Portland's best assets are Dame, Simons, and their draft pick. Dame's value is diminshed because of his injury. Ant's value is limited because he'll be RFA. But the draft pick has the best immediate value. It's a floating value right now because of not knowing where it will land. But for damn sure, if a half-dozen extra losses are the difference between a #2 pick and a #10 pick, those 6 losses have a fuckofalot more value than 6 meaningless wins by the way, saying Dallas got Docic thru trade is distortion. They traded draft picks, just like Portland landed Aldridge and Roy in the 2006 draft
Yeah to me this is really bad Karma. The team is intentionally losing at this point. If you want to say it’s the front office and not the coach or players then I would reply that the entire organization is doing this and that includes the coach and players. Sorry but nothing good comes from intentionally losing in my opinion.
Philly is the best team in the east….maybe the league Cleveland got good quick OKC did as well It works with some good scouting and some luck
We’ll see I guess? What I see is them working hard to lose and hoping for a chance to get at least back to where they were? Only way I see them changing their fortune is getting extremely lucky and landing a #1 pick and getting the pels pick in the 6-8 range and then signing a solid FA to go with Dame, Nurk, Simons and Little. Then hoping they stay healthy. Then hoping the picks they get work out well. Then hoping Dame and Simons combo doesn’t do exactly the same thing Dame/CJ did. So many things have to go right.
Those are some pretty narrow ranges of possibilities that end in success. You neglect trades completely. You depend on a solid FA which is kind of unlikely but don't seem to see more likely options to improve. You discount the possibility that if Dame/Ant doesn't work that one will be traded for a piece that fits better with the other. You also seem to think that if we draft with the first pick that he won't start immediately and be one of our best players like most first picks are. You also neglect that this draft is a more than a one man race or at least that's how many see it... so landing the second pick is almost as valuable. Understanding that their are many many paths to getting better than we were is important. Obviously there are more paths to us being only as good as we were or worse but that doesn't make those outcomes more likely because we have a lot of people working towards getting better which has an effect on the outcome.
You can’t honestly tell me that some of those teams we threw on the court in the 2000s were legitimate attempts to try and win games. Putting a product out on the court that you KNOW has NO SHOT to win is much, much worse than deciding to tank the last 30 games of the season when you’re so far behind the 8 ball. The only person twisting themselves like a pretzel to justify their position is… OP.
Welcome to the modern NBA. Unfortunately this is the only way mid markets can compete in our situation. I don't think we'll be in this situation again after this season.
If that Pelicans pick doesn't convey I expect a whole different "they" to be the ones making moves this off season. If it does convey the current "they" have already said that those trades weren't made to free up room for free agents this summer but to help facilitate trades. So although I thought that we received woefully too little in the trades we just recently made, I think they were made with the idea of recouping value in trades this summer. I don't think that's a perfect idea but it's better than the limited ones that you suggested. Also, unlike what you posited, I have no fucking clue what all of the possibilities are that could make us better. I do know that if we do have two lotto picks, the ability with cash or a second rounder to take the conditions off of the pick we owe the Bulls and therefore free up all of our FRPs 2025-29 for trades, the 20M TPE, Bledsoe's contract that in theory can bring back more than 23M and other contracts that aren't seen as core pieces of what we're trying to do going forward, that we could make some pretty impactful trades.
All complete and total speculation. Fact still remains this is one of the lowest points of Blazer Basketball. Is it the lowest? Well that’s all to be seen right? Just as much as this COULD be a quick reset this could be a very long and troubling time for this franchise. Might even turn into the new Kings or Knicks.
The organization set up the talent pool with which the coach can draw from. The players are playing to get contracts. Logic and common sense make this really easy.
