Is it possible to use our first rounder and Lillard to trade up to number 1 in draft. Just curious if it’s even possible under trade guidlines.
No way is that worth the risk. If you trade Dame and our pick for Wemby and he gets injured, that would set this franchise back for a decade.
Sometimes you have to roll the dice. From what I have seen of this kid he is as significant as Kareem Jabar as a talent. I am old and this kid is very special
Some people here would rather see the pick get traded for an upgrade if it isn’t #1 (I am not one of those people) rather than roll the dice on a prospect. This is an even bigger roll of the dice and some people might have a brain aneurism with the thought of this lol. If you’re that old, you’ve probably had your time to be happy in ‘77. Simons + Sharpe + Wemby don’t guarantee anything in the short term.
Theoretically, yes. The trade would have to meet the salary matching requirements of the CBA unless the team receiving Dame had sufficient cap space to absorb his salary. Draft picks have no cash value in a trade, so players with aggregate contracts to meet the salary matching requirements would have to be coming back to Portland.
That’s a group of young players to build with for many years. No middle of the pack purgatory forever
Yes I am old I have seen many players come and go thru the decades. Once in a while there is a 10 karat diamond
Well there’s no sense debating something that will never happen or that the organization wouldn’t even consider. A better scenario could happen, like having Dame and winning the lotto so we can have both. The worst scenario could happen if we did this, like Wemby suddenly getting injured and now having to heavily rely on Ant and Sharpe. So let’s just wait and see what happens with the lottery.
I think there is far less of a chance the receipiant of the #1 pick would trade it. Plan B is to trade whatever pick we get for a more proven player.
Plan B should be to just pick the guy the Blazers are highest on to pair with Sharpe and ensure there’s a future after Dame. Dame has been loyal to a crap franchise that hasn’t put the pieces together to help him compete. I’ll always appreciate him for that. But let’s not pretend like he hasn’t be compensated heavily for his loyalty. I’m not interested in trading a high lotto pick for OG or guys like that. Even Mikal, 4+ 1sts + Ant is way too high of an asking price. We need more than one guy to put us over the top as it currently stands.
Agree that Dame has been loyal. Agree that Dame makes the supermax (as most all-NBA players should). If the goal is to build around Sharpe long term (which I find very risky), then obviously keeping Lillard makes no sense. Drafting someone with the #5 pick is unlikely to help us win with Dame nor is it likely to give us a contender with Sharpe.
Trading the #5 pick for another player is also unlikely to help Dame win now because we’re not a “one play away” kind of team right now, much like trading last year’s #7 pick would’ve been. Unless that player is Embiid, trading for anyone else remotely available will not help us compete right away. You are assuming that overpaying for someone in the trade market is not as risky as drafting a high potential talent in the draft, when it is just as risky if not more risky. I personally am not willing to trade our pick for a guy when I’m not even 100% certain Grant will re-sign this summer. Grant signing elsewhere wouldn’t hurt as much because it was a future MIL pick, although it still would hurt. Trading #5 for a guy that also decides to bolt would just SUCK.
