To your point, Scoot is solid. Ideally, we want Sharpe guarding SGs, but Scoot does weigh 14 pounds more than Ant. (Both have a solid 6'9" wing span) So weight-wise he is almost the same as Sharpe and Thybulle....and he might be stronger. Not that it is the only thing that matters when playing defense.
Interesting question. I have season tickets. Watching Dame makes it worth the price of admission. Everyone says they like to watch the new talent develop, but not many people want to pay money to watch a team tank. I'm not in support of additional tanking. A team full of new kids is too risky for me. Balance. We have some solid pieces in place. Grant is a solid starter. Simons is a solid starter. Nurk, not bad. Thybulle looks like a solid 6th man. After that we have Sharpe and Scoot that will hopefully be blossoming in solid starters (if not more) over the next couple of years. If the only return on a Dame trade is salary filler and young unproven players and late 1st round picks - pass. If the Blazers can get at least 1 solid starter from the Dame trade, and 1 nice young talent (along with a few picks), I think that team is in win mode now, with upside in the future. That makes the price of the tickets more valuable.
In his summer league game, 6'7" Amen Thompson drove into Scoot's chest and bounced right off him. Scoot's body stayed where it was. Scoot is much wider than any guard on the team. You know when we meet most NBA players who are guards, we notice how slim they are. Not Scoot. He's much wider than Shaedon Sharpe. He's the Cam Whitmore of point guards.
I would love to see what Scoot and Dame can do together. Some people said CJ was redundant with Dame. Some people said the same thing about Anfernee Simons. Ball movement was never ideal. Nobody is going to say Scoot is a redundant player with Dame on the floor. Then there's the defense thing. Scoot is super athletic and built like a tank. People need to stop looking at height and give Scoot a chance. He certainly has the ability to be as good on defense as someone like Brandon Roy, whom nobody would complain about, because, well, he's taller!
That's not what I meant. It's not about Dame being or not being on the team. I'm using season tickets as an example of a resource that only has value for a limited amount of time.
For me it's important that Dame is now playing the best basketball of his career. He didn't plateau at 28 and stay there. I believe Cronin may have lucked into adding more talent than Dame has ever played with. Unless the Blazers could acquire someone like Mikal Bridges in a trade, I would really like to see what all this talent can do together. People talk about redundancies and roster imbalance, but those same people never mention DEPTH. Depth was the big killer last season. Dame had no superstar teammates on his most successful roster in 2019, but it had Depth. The 2023-24 team should at least have good depth. If Scoot and Sharpe play like they are capable of, we're talking about a better roster than the one in 2019. Some people are stuck on last season's record, which as a measuring stick of where the team fits in the conference, is nonsense.
As it stands I'll bet Chauncey uses Jabari Walker as his small ball 3rd string center or if we're in garbage time he might call up Badji.
Depth at center could be a problem, or might not be a problem. Depends on Nurkic's health and what additions are made before the season starts.
Dame's True Shooting % , comparing 2018-19 and last season. Dame's True Shooting percentages in the playoffs:
The fact that we didn't use our MLE yet and probably won't and the fact that our only signing of a big was Moses Brown tells you that Joe isn't thinking along the same lines as you are. We aren't trying to put together a competitive roster. We're gathering assets (picks and prospects). I would imagine that once Dame is traded we will see Jerami and probably Nurk featured a lot until the trade deadline when we will likely try to acquire more assets for them.
Nah, can’t be officially team organized. It’s just always been cool the leader of the team has always done it. Used to be B-Roy.
Not sure what’s worse, you are arguing 5 TENTHS of an inch on a nerd forum, or you got 2 potato-heads to agree with you. HA!
What is worse is complaining about arguing about 5 tenths of an inch on what YOU call a NERD FORUM. Is that something you're not accustomed to on the Laker Forum?
the playoffs suck. Watching all those teams playing hard and trying to win is totally laim. It's more fun watching Portland get completely wailed on during the regular season, then actively lose games on purpose to draft the best possible rookie.
Can we fairly presume that these or something in line with these is the offer, though, since that's what the Heat have to work with and it's what most media sources have been citing/speculating as what the Heat are offering?
The stealth tank needs a key to start the engine. Not having big defenders to stop the onslaught of chippies, getting outmuscled in rebound battles, is a sneaky way to lose a bunch of games.
