How's everyone feel about Smokin' Joe Cronin now?

Dave Mason said it best in the 70s

 

You're really struggling with this...I'm trying to help you realize how poor your logic is, but you appear to be so blinded by who you want to blame, that you continue to blame the whistleblower.

If your (bad) analogy is correct and Dame broke a rule, then Dame should get punished as well. See, I'm consistent with my logic: The person/entity that broke a rule is the one who should be blamed. I know that's a unimaginable concept to you! The NBA will be able to decide IF the Blazers or Dame broke a rule and if Dame or the Blazers deserve to be punished. If the outcome is that Portland broke no rules and Dame did, then I won't put the blame on the Blazers either. I'm going to guess regardless of the outcome, you'll want to blindly blame Dame.

 

Just spitballin' here......but Riley is, and always has been an arrogant prick. He was an original Trail Blazer (scrub level) who didn't want to play on an expansion team so he demanded a trade (if I recall correctly, it was a demand rather than a request). Portland didn't want some disgruntled scrubeenie tainting a new team so they traded him to the Lakers (one more time Portland did a malcontent a favor). Maybe Riley felt that since he had "leverage" as benchwarmer all those years ago, a stud like Dame was a lock to get what he wanted. We'll likely never know for sure. But fuck Pat Riley, his arrogant attitude and his greasy looking hair......he blew it big time and no amount of white wash from the national pundits is gonna make it look any prettier.

 

Well I think YOU are struggling with it, so there!

If you want to keep using the term "whistle blower" why not just apply it where it is usually used? Dame is basically the VERY highly paid employee who has benefitted from breaking the rules, but once he decided that the rule breaking no longer benefitted him, he decided to blow the whistle on his way out the door as he goes to a better situation. And it's a better situation that his current employer helped him switch to. And let's not act like this is a rule that hurts a bunch of people. It's a rule that's widely broken and has been widely broken for my entire life. It's a complete sham for anyone to feign outrage about tanking. Give me an example of a team that hasn't tanked at some point.

 

I will believe all these things about the Blazers when it is confirmed by a source that's not CLEARLY from one side or the other.

 

All I'll say is when there's two sides to a story, the truth usually falls somewhere in the middle. We've publicly heard about Dame's side and haven't heard the Blazers/Joe's side.

 

Thank you for noting the root reason I hate Riley. It's not that he was a F'L*aker, it's that he spurned us from the get-go. F*** that guy. I'm glad he whiffed on Dame. I pray it's Milwaukee that eliminates Miami in the playoffs and Dame goes for 50.

 

m

It’s also been reported Miami never reengaged

 

Miami making the playoffs this year? They need a pg.

 

Man... I'm listening to Bones and Hoopsjock and I'm thinking about GMs around the league.

Someone point me towards a GM who isn't an egotistical asshole. Someone point me to a GM who isn't cutthroat.

Danny Ainge?

Masai Ujiri?

Pat Riley?

Neil Olshey?

In Moneyball, Billy Bean says he doesn't have relationships with his players so it's easier to trade or cut them. If Joe learned anything, I hope he learned that you can't say shit to the media. Just be bland and vague and then nobody can throw anything in your face.

 

Written in the best light possible for Dame.

Sham's report indicated that he was willing to start the season as a Blazer, but still wanted to be traded to Miami.

Truth is probably in the middle there.

If I'm Portland, you are either 100% with us or you're not. Even if Portland was #2 option, that indicates Dame was not 100% with us.

 

Pretty good point. I wonder if he was thinking “Damn I been working my butt of the get people here to play with this guy and now he wants to do this to us?”.

 

When you have a strong suspicion that Miami has been illegally tampering (ie- cheating) before all this blows up - it is not petty to refuse to do business with them.

 

In the end, it's over. Why.....must we assess blame? What does it accomplish? Does a clear target to point a finger at actually heal anything?

Really?

Here's the grief model.....

1) shock-numbness
2) yearning-searching
3) disorganization-despair
4) reorganization (apparently sports fans have replaced this one with blame)

 

I gotta blow a whistle and throw a yellow flag on this post. You don't give enough fucks!

 

exactly...does anybody really doubt that the Blazer F.O. didn't believe Riley had major influence over how Dame's agent acted?

 

Nice part about trading Jrue is we don’t have same loyalty standing in the way of making the player happy. While we will probably trade him to a contender we can choose which team without guilt.

still can’t believe we got Jrue in trade always wanted him just a few years to late. We can literally flip him to Miami for the exact or close to same deal we were offered for Dame (worst case scenario as I think they’ll be better offers)