The whole Dame trade thing has me thinking of past trades & departures of former Blazers greats: Geoff Petrie: A fantastic shooter who was the co-rookie of the year with Dave Cowens in the '70-'71 season, was traded at the end of the '75-76 season to the Atlanta Hawks along with Steve Hawes for the rights to the second pick in that year's dispersal draft for the defunct American Basketball Association. That No. 2 pick netted the Blazers Maurice Lucas. Bill Walton: Led the Blazers to their one and only championship in the '76-77 season, but suffered a foot injury that cut short his time in Portland. He believed his injury had been mismanaged by the Blazers training and medical staff and demanded a trade after the the '77-78 season. The Blazers didn't budge on that request so Walton sat out the entire '79 season and signed as an UFA with the Clippers. Clyde Drexler: Widely viewed as the second best SG in the league during the Jordan era, Clyde took the Blazers to the finals, but couldn't quite win the championship. The Blazers were clearly in decline and Clyde asked to be traded to the Rockets. His request was honored on Valentine's Day, 1995 when he and Tracy Murray were dealt to the Rockets for Otis Thorpe, Marcelo Nicola and a 1st round pick. The Blazers did some trades at the draft leading up to the draft and ended up taking Shawn Respert at No. 8. They dealt him to the Bucks for Gary Trent and a 1st round pick in the '97 draft that ended up basically being nothing. Rasheed Wallace: He was the leader of the Trail Blazers team that made it to the Western Conference Finals in 1999 and 2000, and he was an NBA All-Star in 2000 and 2001. An undeniably great player with a major temper problem, Rasheed was dealt along with Wesley Person to the Atlanta Hawks (for one game prior to being moved on to the Pistons) for Shareef Abdul Rahim, Dan Dickau & Theo Ratliff. SAR was pretty much a bust as a Blazer and Dickau & Ratliff were basically filler. Lamarcus Aldridge: Allowed to leave for the Spurs as an UFA in one of the great mismanagement moves in NBA history. Damian Lillard: To be determined. Outside of the Petrie deal, it's hard to see anything but crappy returns for Blazers greats. I hope Dame works out better.
Not sure how many franchise all time greats returned a good haul? I'd think thats pretty rare. LBJ left 3 teams for nothing. Durant left twice for nothing. Westbrook was traded for an older CP3. Wade left for nothing. Derrick Rose medically retired. Steve Nash was cut by the Mavs then traded for a pick by the Suns. Iverson was traded for Andre Miller. I guess James Harden got a big haul for the Rockets. He was also what 29 at the time? That's about the last 20 years of MVP's all but 1 returning very little to nothing in trades or walking. None of the Blazers are at that level except Walton who was damaged goods once he got traded.
At this point getting Lillard's money off the books should be looked at as an asset...a salary dump. That's a plus nobody mentions much regarding his trade value and is also why he's not getting a ton of attention in a bidding war.
Everyone thinks Cronin's intention is to tank and rebuild the Blazers. His intention was and is to ReTool and make the playoffs in 2023-24. If Dame thought Shaedon Sharpe wasn't a typical 19-year old, wait until he plays with Scoot Henderson. Sharpe played zero minutes the year before he joined the NBA. Scoot is the opposite of that. Scoot skipped his senior year of HIGH SCHOOL to join the G-League at age 17 and play against men. Scoot played two seasons in that league. Scoot was a professional basketball player when he would have been a senior in high school. He wasn't at IMG academy or Dream City Christian School.
