No. Dude signed a massive fucking contract to play basketball for the Blazers. The only obligation we have to is do what’s best for the team.
Agreed that Joe is a ball-less hack who is going to cave and settle for pennies on the dollar, which means Dame is most likely going to get his wish of Miami. But that doesn’t change my stance that we owe Dame nothing other than the financial obligations of his contract while he is a Blazer.
I don't understand what you're saying about Hayward. 2016-17: all star with Utah 2017: signed with Boston as a free agent, broke tibia 2020: traded to Charlotte as a sign and trade... 4 years, $120m Charlotte hasn't been able to move off of his contract... which is exactly the point I was making about Zion if he got hurt again as a Blazer in the middle of his big deal... and that's with Hayward playing about 50 games a year, which is far more than Zion in my worst-case hypothetical.
yeah, after all of the chatter about 4-6 unprotected picks and 2-3 swaps, I'm depressingly expecting 2, possibly 3 protected picks and maybe a swap, and maybe one young prospect who might not be much of a prospect I don't know why it depresses me because I predicted that kind of return months ago. Maybe I'm self-protecting by setting expectations low, so getting more than that will be a pleasant surprise
You’ve outed yourself, Joe. Come on, brah. His moves have been shit. Pretty much all of them. He’s come up with pennies on the dollar on pretty much every move.
I think there is a chance he will be on the team when season starts. I would hope for Dames sake & ours that something sooner happens, but with 4 years left and a guy that just had his best year ever, top 75 all timer, the org needs to maximize their return for him. I think they will come up with an amicable agreement that will send Dame to Miami once a respectable deal is offered. Riley is going to play a low ball, game make him go to work for a compelling offer. If Dame only had a year left, then get something done quickly.
agreed on all fronts, tho I won’t be surprised to see Joe move quickly to do something with Dame (but also won’t be shocked if he’s here in training camp). He probably feels like he can’t do anything else until this is resolved. I mean, what happened to the FA center we were signing? Crickets. Only thing involving Portland right now involves Dame.
There's "not being major players in free agency" and then whatever the hell we're doing... Washington would've been a nice youngish piece to add to a rebuilding roster. Given the lack of rumors connecting us to any player of any significance, I wonder if we're not basically sitting FA out and/or wanting to keep the MLE for trade flexibility... Very odd.
you can’t spell Jhoe without the “ho”. this guy is literally the worst GM, other than the guy he replaced/trained under.
yeah...it's actually possible that a trade is part of a larger strategy. A GM, even a GM like Cronin, might be able to plan ahead further than the current move on the board.
It's a little hard to say that so definitively without knowing the overall plan. I think that's what most of us are hoping to see -- signs of an overall plan, of confident leadership, of competent management of the franchise. He's been hit/miss in trades but has been pretty stellar with the draft and he built a crazy great personnel staff, so it hasn't all been bad. All of that (and free agency) is small potatoes compared to how he handles this Dame situation, and I've seen nothing to suggest that he's failing it so far. Long way of saying, if we're being fair and reasonable, I think it's more like the jury's still out (but currently leaning towards guilty)...
He (or his people) recognize talent in the draft. Solid there. His trades have been questionable at best. You have to maximize value in trades and I question what he’s accomplished there thus far, though he was given a weak hand.
It seems like it's been an overheated rhetoric around your history of if you think Cronin's a legit hire or not, but just in looking at the trades/trade demands I don't know that I get the hype or lack thereof... If there had been a trade completed, it seems like (from national accounts, not just Cronin and POR) that it would've massively sucked. Not to rehash, but even the "all our picks and Simons and filler for Zion", if it had gone through, would've not made me a stoked fan. And the other pieces (yes, Masai, please send us your good players so we can get better) didn't seem to work out. They were able to get Grant last year, and if for some reason we still had RoCo and Powell we would've received waaaay less than last year's return. GP2 didn't want to be here. Hart's the one miss I'd like to have back (I would've loved it to be Ant instead of Hart going to NYC) , but even then I could see the trade as removing risk from him opting out and losing him for nothing. We got a Murray Twin instead. I admit that I haven't been tied in as much in the last year or two, but were there deals we know were left on the table and unconsummated because Cronin got scared to pull the trigger? It seems as if he's been pretty prescient on value of players around the league and getting out early to preserve his plan, which I can't really fault.
