Assuming Dame was in Miami when that IG video was posted, anyone besides me think that the South Beach “hotties” are a bit overrated?
one thing missing from the "things Joe said don't mean anything" defensive front, is trading Josh Hart for the late 1st round pick. I'm not saying fans shouldn't be excited about Kris Murray, he seems like a fine young player. So don't take this the wrong way. - Blazer fans heard from the Front Office, their embedded reporters, and their vast supply of zombie sports writers, that trading the Knicks 1st round pick would "unlock" future 1sts. I guess Olshey messed up the trade for Larry Nance, and the Blazers could not use future 1sts to trade for amazing basketball players. When the Blazers kept the #23 and didn't trade it to unlock future firsts, no swing for the fences radical improvements were on the way, I would bet Lillard knew what was up and already had a foot out the door. Trading future 1sts for better players is an Olshey type move. Cearly Cronin isn't a dumbass during this rebuild. The fact is using language that would boost season ticket sales while pretending to keep Lillard is splattered all over last season. Blazer fans have a shady used car salesman for a GM, a Coaching staff that isn't good at basketball, and an ownership group that stops and pivots when it's time to hit the super duper win button. Fans that don't feel optimistic about the current Blazers owner(s) should be allowed to vent. Burning Lillard jerseys is the tough and rugged fan approach to deal with this rebuild, but whatever suits your fancy I suppose.
Even Ant and Scoot for Mikal is overpay (and Brooklyn, along with Charlotte is about to realize soon if not already what a blunder they have made. I already have since I was a Brandon Miller > Scoot before the draft) The Dame "another conversation interview" made trades difficult for Joe. Sometimes you have to dance around press questions like Joe does. I am sure Joe has been well aware of the "let's go for it" message. If Dame wants to remind him, he should've done it privately.
Fire up any podcast from last season, especially the heavily team sponsored ones, what was ground into Blazer fans brains over and over in rapid succession? > The Lillard/Grant/Simons combo is working beautifully, and the Blazers need more defensive players to propel the Blazers into contention. Wait for Gary Payton to join the team, wait until the trade deadline when Cronin trades Nurkic for Myles Turner. Be patient Blazer faithful, you'll see how much better Portland is !! When the front office was telling fans they will swing for the fences and build a title contending team, what they really meant was they were about to swing for lottery balls, and they needed Lillard off the court so those ping pong balls will land in the best spots possible. It's a drastic shift going from a lauded future championship team to a ping pong happy lottery team. I suppose it's my fault for following the Blazers too closely?
It all depends on whether you think Hart would have stayed here. Joe converted Hart into Thybulle and the 23rd pick. That’s a decent return for someone that might not have stayed.
I had been thinking all along that the Blazers couldn't reach enough to grab players like Bridges or Brown or Siakam. And the cost to Portland to add players like that, especially ones who were going to be expiring contracts was going to be way too high that's why I was pushing for something like DDR. I didn't think the cost was going to be high but I thought the addition of a player like him would satisfy Dame. And it might have. But maybe Cronin tried and the Bulls said no to Ant. Or maybe Cronin didn't try because he secretly wanted Dame to ask for a trade. If that was his strategy I doubt he anticipated this Miami-or-bust situation that puts him in a pretty tight box but I think it's safe to say that Dame has been pushing for a different and better roster with more quality veterans since Portland lost to Denver in the playoffs 2 years ago. And probably before that. then I look at the players Portland has had and added, just in the last year: Keon Johnson - 20 Shaedon Sharpe - 19 Jabari Walker - 20 Greg Brown - 20 Nassir Little - 22 Cam Reddish - 23 Trendon Watford - 21 John Butler - 20 Kevin Knox - 23 Scoot Henderson - 19 Kris Murray - 22 Rayan Rupert - 19 teams will cycle thru young players steadily. But in one season + draft, the Blazers have had 12 players 23 or younger (13 if you count Ant), and 10 players 22 or younger. That seems kind of excessive for a team supposedly in win-now mode meanwhile, Portland added Grant but lost Hart in the quality veteran category. I don't think Thybulle makes up for that if Cronin REALLY wanted to keep Dame invested, that's a damn poor way of doing so knowing what Dame wanted to see. On the other hand, If Cronin (and the Vulcans) wanted to coerce Dame into initiating his own trade, that looks exactly like what Cronin should have done. the problem is there was a big risk to that strategy, and the risk was that Dame was close enough to the situation, and astute enough about operations, he could see that for what it is. And view it so negatively he'd want to make things ugly on his way out.
the bold print was the point I was trying to make, not whether Cronin made out like a bandit at the trade deadline. Also, the Thybulle trade came from the 2nd round picks for Payton. The Hart trade was Cam Reddish (woohoo!), some rando Knicks, and the idea that Cronin would trade #23 to Chicago and unlock future 1sts to get Damian help.
How the hell are so many of you wrong about Thybulle. We got Knox as part of the Payton trade. It’s super easy to look this up. I’m tired of refuting it. This is elementary shit.
At this point can we just sticky this because I’m tired of people telling me that Thybulle was part of that Payton trade lol
Truck question, they're both ours to Dame. Unless they're invaluable pieces going forward and too much to give up to aquire his talents
nobody is on the beach and it's July. It's cloudy and it has been cloudy in Miami but I can't recall any summer day I've seen reported that doesn't have mobs on south Beach
