Yep, I already acknowledged that we have choices. Obviously, you're free to choose the pissed off and miserable option if you like.
Those moves weren't available, obviously. When you have overpaid players you have to sacrifice talent or financial flexibility. We tried sacrificing financial flexibility for the last 5 or 6 years and we didn't have any more to do. Choices were to keep that group together or sacrifice alot of talent in hopes of trying something different. Dame very publicly demanded that we try something different.
Jerami Grant is 28 Christian Wood is 26 Collins and OG are 24 The "win-now" players people are advocating for acquiring (and the one Dame apparently wants) are young, and can support both a present win-now plan, as well as a future "post-Dame". If somehow Sell-Low Joe is able to acquire a couple of the players above (I'm not particularly optimistic, but who knows?), and then add another young win-now piece with the MLE (Smith [22], Bamba [24], Warren [28], Anderson [28]), it'd be tough to say with a straight face that that roster wouldn't have at least a chance of developing into a contender, or having a decent future if Dame were to ask out.
I mean, add Grant, Collins and Bamba (for example) to our existing roster, and you're looking at: Dame/Ant Ant/Hart Grant/Nas Collins/Winslow Nurk/Bamba I'm sorry, but if they're able to play together cohesively, and healthy Dame is what we perceive healthy Dame might be, that's a dangerous roster. We just have to see what happens. Cronin's basically got 50 days to try to pull this off and prove his GM chops. I don't truly believe he can do it, but it's premature to claim that there's no way it can be done.
I think we are going to miss out on getting maximum value for Lillard in a trade. Because it’s clear to me we aren’t putting a championship caliber team around him anytime soon.
I don't think we could get max value out of Dame right now anyway... If he shows that he's back and better than ever we should get max value after this coming season or by the deadline the following season.
Why not this next season's trade deadline? If the team is meh again as expected but Dame is back to his full superpowers, I would hope that options are explored. STOMP
Could be... I would just expect them to take a swing at improving the team around Dame at the deadline. But maybe of they aren't getting the offers to build around Dame they'll pivot. So yeah, it could happen at this coming deadline. But really, I just think the value of the team with Dame is going to be higher than it will without Dame. So I don't expect ownership to do anything to upset him. They'll do whatever they can to keep him around until the team sells.
The difference is one can be 20 and the other is likely 28+. Every team at every level wants long athletic wings. That’s like wanting good starting pitching. But are you going with the minor league call-up and letting him flourish or going out and buying Clayton Kershaw.
It's a team game and there are many variables to the PTB besides just Dame. They have no defensive stoppers... teams lick their chops deciding who they're going after. As of right now, their forwards are maybe the worst collection of talent in the league. Even if everything goes right for them, short of fleecing team(s) in trades, I don't see them as contenders next year which is what I meant with the meh comment. Certainly if Dame is 100 there will be some exciting moments, but I'm talking about being legitimate contenders. STOMP
ISO ball is okay in small doses (short clock situations) but as a staple of the attack it sucks. STOMP
The big swing they could take (of course) is moving Ant for talent that is a better fit beside Dame. Other then future draft assets (please god no), thats about the only real desirable commodity they've got. With how far this team seems from competing for a championship, he seems to be the much better choice to build around but very possibly there are factors I'm not considering. Hopefully this offseason brings magical upgrades that change the analysts. STOMP