I know everyone will bring up MJ or Durant, but lets just go a few years back to when we had Plumlee. We traded him to Denver for Nurk and a 1st. Denver knew they preferred Joker, but did they really know what they had yet? Could we have traded Plumlee and a first for Jokic? Would we have won by now? What do you think it would have taken to get Denver to swap Nurk for Joker and how good would we have been with Dame and Joker?
They knew they had a special player. Maybe not multiple MVPs good, but everyone on their end was raving about the guy. So no way would a first have gotten him.
Nah, they LOVED Jokic at that point. It would have taken something as similar (maybe even more) than trying to pull Sharpe from us now. Edit: Just went back to look at where Jokic was at that point... yeah, there was no way we could gotten Jokic... maybe for Dame?
Hard to know for sure. Depends on how smart their front office was at the time. I know they loved the guy, but only they can say for sure how much. The real what-if is that every team passed on drafting him as he went 41st. Gordon went 4th. That draft was crazy. The 2nd round arguably had better players than the lottery (except Embiid who was coming off an injury)
Yeah, again. No way they would have done it. Jokic was 22-year-old putting up a highly efficient 19-11-6 the year Nurkic was traded. He was their unicorn. Agreed that the fact that he lasted to #41 is the bigger mystery. I imagine people looked at his physique and really question how he'd hold physically and on defense in the NBA. As it turns out... very well.
No, we could not have got him. He was already showing signs of greatness. They were building round him, which is why they were willing to take a fairly lopsided trade in getting rid of Nurk. Just be happy that a small-market franchise got to have a generational player. They drafted him, they deserve him.
Well I don't believe the Nuggets knew he was going to be anywhere close to this good, so I think if the Blazers had put together like 3 firsts and take on a bad contract or something yes Denver would have done that trade. But why would the Blazers have done it? We knew less than Denver about how good he was back then. There's probably 30 young players in the league today like this - but how would we know who is the next possible MVP vs the majority of them who will likely be a career backup/mediocre starter? Its a bit like the draft, yes we have a much better idea how to project a player this is currently in the NBA, but projecting their future improvements is still a very inexact estimate. The team that has the player normally has a much better projection than any other franchise, so it is extremely unlikely the Blazers can acquire one of these players at a buy low price that ends up being a steal of a trade.
Yeah i dont think we had many tools in the shed to work with. And even if we did…Olshey… Cj, plumlee and two firsts? I think they look at that and we still woulda won i think.
And Plumlee was our starter. Dont ruin the fun Stren! Or go back to that Dame bashing thread of this one is not to your liking. Lol
no...Denver wasn't going to trade Jokic. And no, Portland would not have had a time machine to glimpse Jokic's greatness and trade accordingly. besides that, get real...Olshey was the GM and at the time was only interested in dumpster diving. He was never going to pony up a bunch of valuable assets in any trade. At least not until he was desperate enough to start flinging 1st's at guys like Zach, RoCo, and Nance the what if's that sting are those that were just missed opportunities for Portland because there was no cooperation required from another team. That's why MJ and Durant are notable whiff's; why Martell instead of CP3 stung so bad; Why it's hard to overlook taking CJ at #10 when Giannis was available; Why holding CJ untouchable in PG13 and Butler trades was so WTF; why taking Zach and Swanigan instead of Adebayo/Mitchell/J.Collins/J.Allen/OG/Kuzma is so frustrating; why it's so irritating that Portland could have taken Markkanen but instead chose Nance. Self inflicted wounds Portland has had some absolutely legendary whiffs, and they had a GM for a decade who was the King-of-Whiffs...but Jokic was never in the strike zone
I was living in Denver at the time, and Denver was through Nurk's pouting and inconsistencies. I felt Malone should be playing him more, and my Nugget's friend Dave agreed. In playing more, i mean next to Jokic. Malone never gave it much time. But they knew by then, as already stated by others, that Jokic was special. I used to say, i wish the Blazers could get Nurk. Wish granted. And up until the devastating injury, Nurk was on an incredible path. Since then, not the same player. Sad.
Yes, Denver knew Nurkic was depressed, out of shape, struggling with the mindset of being a bench guy, a backup NBA Center. Nurk traded to Blazers, woohoo !! Portland badly needed a better center then Mason Plumlee. Jusuf quickly lost a few pounds, got in game shape, tremendously helped the Blazers win a whole bunch of games. FF >>> Bad leg injury, seemingly untradable new contract, and the oversized belly unfortunately returned. A 300lb Nurkic on gimpy legs was more noticeable as the rigorous long season fatigue began to arrive. It is what it is, having a starting Center that looks forward to Cronin's early vacation midseason tank, drastically helps to acquire highly talented rookies. GO BLAZERS!
