The Blazers have no obligation to send him to a winner. He asked for a trade. Gave preferred destinations. The Blazers will look to trade him. That is their only obligation. He is under contract with the Blazers. The Blazers will decide where he goes. They have to do what is best for the team at this point, not Dame. This is not a charity. This is a business. The Blazers cannot be in the business of giving away players just to appease them a final time.
Even if he ends up in Miami, if it’s like a four team trade you’ve moved beyond one team fleecing another into that “let’s make a deal” area where the winner and losers won’t be so clear cut.
I wish someone would ask Dame why he's so fixated on joining a team that barely survived the play-in tournament and lost Vincent and Strus this summer. Ok, they had a good run, but it doesn't ACTUALLY look that good on paper.
We didn't have the obligation to send Norm to LA or CJ to New Orleans but we did anyways. And we took back a shit package to accommodate. We should be sending him to Boston. Would be best for all parties involved.
Probably. But we'll see. I think the odds are the Heat will cave because they've put themselves in a position where they need to get this done now. They're stuck in a holding pattern while the complementary pieces they need are signing with other teams. If the Blazers can get what they want/need by sending Dame to Miami, then they win both in the trade and in the PR battle. I think it's being pretty effectively put out there now, though, that the Blazers don't owe Dame a ticket to Miami, and, ironically, Dame might have been the Blazers' best advocate in making that happen.
We’re playing a different game than the media. They’ve been trying to get Dame out of Portland for years so *any* team who gets him will be their big winner. We can be the weirdos up north with all the picks. I don’t need the media to call me a winner to feel good.
I get the bargaining part of the grieving process, but running down Dame's game and his impact on this team is silly. "No D, hasn't won anything, etc." Jeez. We're going to be absolutely gutted on the floor and off. Dame still has years of his prime, and probably longer since we've sat him so much to tank these past few years. He's going to be massively successful and venerated wherever he goes. Portland's going to get trashed in the media and our young players are going to struggle. It's going to suck for us. That being said, it's inevitable and we're going to have to deal with it. Just stop with the Dame's game is trash nonsense. It just looks pathetic. Acknowledge the blow it's going to be and deal with it.
The package for CJ wasn’t that bad. We got Hart and the pieces we needed to go get Grant. The Norm trade sucked. The GP2 signing sucked but at least we got out of it.
Joe has been the patron of giving away players yes. But, I really think he's trying to hold out on this one and get the best offer. Even he knows he can't screw the pooch on this one.
Who gives a fuck about the media? They always looked at us like we were pathetic. Anyone paying attention to us was only paying attention to Dame anyway.
The CJ trade only turned out okay because Dame tee'd up Grant. It was an awful deal when it happened back then. It turned out good though.
He also didn't cave and sell our picks for low value. So there is history of a discerning eye as well. People ignore that and tend to focus solely on the trades that were made, whilst ignoring the trades that were NOT made.
There's not much to hold out for with Miami. We're getting back role players and late 1st round talent. I'm sure they'll be good but I'd much rather be looking at a lotto team for bringing back talent.
