But here's the problem... because Dame said "only Miami" and his agent was calling teams and telling them he wouldn't be happy, that removes the possibility of any of these teams trying to work out multi-team trades to acquire Dame. Also... why wouldn't New Orleans have a punchers chance?
Pretty sure hoops jock meant Cronin was not fielding call on Dame trades, not refusing calls from Dame. Slight oversight.
That would make a lot more sense. So there's a lot to unpack when we guess on what Joe did and did not know. I agree that Dame was very clear about what he did and did not want. He was less clear about what would happen if the Blazers did not adhere to his request, but we could all imply what would happen. There's definitely a case to be made about Joe wanting to rebuild and driving Dame towards asking out. There's also a case to be made about Dame putting the Blazers in a corner so that he COULD ask out with a clear conscience. But there's no way the Blazers would trade Dame without Dame asking out. They didn't want that PR hit. That is obvious. That's why both sides have been dancing around who's fault it is, and who is the bad guy. If both sides would have just come together two years ago and said that it was in everyone's best interest to part ways amicably, this could have all been avoided.
They still have a pretty damn good roster, even without Zion. But Zion's health is practically the very definition of a punchers chance
their record over the last 2 seasons was 78-86; over the last 3 seasons was 109-127 if they are exchanging CJ, Murphy, Daniels, & Valunciunas for Dame and Nurkic, I'm not sure they would be throwing a lot better punches; but they'd definitely have a glass jaw
Certainly in the best interest of the league. Will still be plenty of ways for players/agents to get this messaging out without it being tied to them.
The league I’m sure basically said, you can’t put that out to the media. Keep your demands behind closed doors!
All it takes is for the stars to align. How good was Denver while Murray was out? They have their own versions of Zion and BI. The last few years MPJ and Murray have been consistently injured, but this year things clicked, they were healthy, and they rolled the field to take home the hardware.
