Notice 2023 Blazers Free Agency

Misquoted - she was flying back and forth from east coast to PDX because Hart didn't have a long term commitment to stay here and setup a home. Hart just wanted a long term commitment so he could setup a permanent home. We chose instead to pay 2x-3x for non defenders like Ant and Grant.

 

2 play in teams made it to the conference finals.

 

We were certainly beyond due. Charlotte is due to NOT pick the wrong player though as well.

 

Any cheap scrub players we can get to help Dame?

 

Yep.

I can understand if you don't think Josh Hart is worth 18M per year. I disagree, but I understand.

But don't hold on to the false narrative that he "never would have re-signed".

 

I get why people don't like Joe.

I have hated his trades and his free agent signings. But the guy convinced the team to tank two years in a row, and the fruits of that effort was Scoot and Sharpe.

I don't like saying "he lucked into it." I don't think that's fair. Tanking that hard relied on convincing our key players to sit out. I don't think Ant or Nurk do that if they didn't have assurances. I don't think Grant does that if he doesn't assurances.

The main issue is that Dame and some people feel lied to. Maybe he did lie. Regardless, it was a strategy to bring in more talent to the team, and that would not have been possible if Dame/Grant/etc had played out the season.

 

Part of it, for sure. It was easier to tank without him. That meant more ping-pong balls. It's really not that hard to do. You can't play the "You should have known he would opt in" game if you are not willing to acknowledge what happened because he was traded as well. They took a calculated risk, and they scored. Good for Portland.

 

It just happened with Porzingis in WAS.

 

He shot lights out in PDX the year prior. Yeah he had a three months bad shooting streak to start the season, even Dame has had those. He brought defense and rebounding unlike any other player or even starter on the Blazers roster.

 

Yes, and both of them had multiple seasoned all-star talents on the roster. Portland did not.

 

We need size. Mo Bamba getting waived moves him to the top of my list of realistic targets.

 

To equate us getting Scoot by making an unequivocally bad trade while potentislly alienating Dame for good, and framing this as intelligent....is just something I can't get around.

 

The Hart trade was not unequivocally bad. Get off your high horse.

 

He played 13 games after the trade. That's an extremely small sample size. He returned to the mean the next season.

 

Only real assets we got in 2 years of Joe taking over are the two players we tanked two seasons for, and Dame. Nice.

 

I like the idea of getting Mo with or without Dame. Using part of the MLE to do so.

 

No it is not. It was a calculated risk and one they believed they did the right thing. Hart did not want to be here (wanted east coast), it was believed that he would cost more to retain. Whooptido, only one of these assumptions came through, we still don't know that Hart would have opted in - in Portland, for that amount. You make assumptions as if it was obvious and it was not. Portland made a choice and it looks like long term, it was the right one. They created more opportunities to be lucky. That's all you can do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. It worked for Portland and that's great.

 

I have no problem with trading Hart if we rebuild. But then why two days ago are we still releasing statements of primarily building a winning team here with Dame?

If we are rebuilding why trade the Duren assets for Grant? None of the moves make sense sense together. It's like we literally had 5 different GM's and they take turns running the team.

 

Trading Hart helped the tank immensely.

 

Lol

Is Murray's ceiling close to what Hart is now?