What if we trade nobody?

What's worse if this team stays healthy, shows tons of improvement next season, hovers around .500, then Cronin benches everyone to get another ping pong ball. Will it ever stop? Losing on purpose drove Lillard nuts. It's not fun for everyone. And all the empty seats we see at the Moda Center are the loudest statement anyone can make.

 

wait does this thread want to go for the play-in soon, or contend later—which is it?

or is the sentiment that the rebuild should be over by now?

 

We're not making the play in this season but I fully expect the team to go into training camp looking to make the playoffs without needing the play in part. Tanking for a fourth year they'll lose a ton of fans. I firmly believe you develop a contender with a team that has playoff experience and Sharpe and Scoot need that more than ping pong ball competition in practice. Having a G league team so close changes the way you can acquire young talent.

 

My original stance was the trading-Dame rebuild was unlikely to succeed. Now that the choice has been made to do rebuild, I think we have to stick with it until we draft a player with legit 1st Team All-NBA prospects. I don't believe we have drafted that level player yet, so it could be a LONG rebuild.

 

".500 in 24-25"

 

Here's the prototype:

 

Seems incredibly optimistic and would require crazy improvement.

 

Honest question because that looks like autocorrect, where is Hyounaving?

 

All Cronin need to do is draft Bronny James, that will get us Lebron. We let Lebron recruit star players to play for Portland. That’s the plan

 

Blazers are 11.5 games out of the play-in and 22 games under .500 with 30 games left. By the end of the season, they will probably be 30-33 games under .500 and 16-17 games out of the play-in

they would probably need a 16-20 win improvement next season to just make it to 10th seed, and a 23-25 win improvement to make 6th seed. The latter seems like a pipe-dream and even the play-in seems pretty unrealistic. I don't expect Cronin to make any changes but if he does, I seriously doubt they will make for a better team

I think it's going be be a few more years of the lottery

 

we tried Cam Reddish, didn't pan out. Then the Lakers snatched up Skylar Mays. Any more Blazers on the cut list LeBron can recruit?

 

fixed...auto correct spells like a N Korean bot!

 

Yeah this is my thinking. It sucks but I think you draft until you get another impact player and the best chance of getting that is high lottery.

 

agreed

I thought those saying it could be a 2-3 year rebuild were being wildly unrealistic, especially after the mediocre return Portland got for trading Dame/Nurkic with almost all of the rebuilding assets (picks & swaps) not being available for 5 years.

before trading Dame, Portland was in the demolition phase, not really the rebuild phase. So effectively, they have only been rebuilding for 6 months. Yeah, they have added Sharpe & Scoot, plus Walker & Camara, but it's possible there won't be an all-star level player in that group, let alone an elite talent

I don't agree with those calling for the rebuild to be over and an end to tanking. That makes no sense to me. I guess it might not make sense to Cronin either. Portland really needed to lean into the rebuild; no more half measures and fence-straddling. But the last off-season and the trade deadline may have signaled that the Olshey era of fence-straddling and bet-hedging is still with us

 

Demers is likely just giving the canned response, but I think they'll be tanking—erm, injured—this year, sell some of the vets in the offseason, and then organically bad but competitive next year with more youth in key roles. That should be bad enough for Flagg, IMO.

 

I disagree that we got a mediocre return for Dame. He was an aging star on a ridiculously expensive max contract. We got a top 15 first round draft choice in the next draft, two unprotected first round draft choices in 2029, and two unprotected pick swaps in 2028 and 2030 from the team that might be terrible during those years. We got Tomani Camara, and Brogdon, which may give us another draft choice before next year. I’m not even counting Aton because he has a huge contract, and isn’t the best person behind the scenes. So you can call it mediocre, but Dame could’ve just retired and we would’ve gotten nothing. Or teams could’ve just not offered us anything like they did at the trade deadline. I think they did great getting Holiday, then another haul from Boston. I’m not even counting Robert Williams, because as soon as they got him I knew he would be hurt (on the Boston boards, they all admit they over paid).
Cronin’s timing was excellent, he was very patient then Milwaukee panicked because they had to show they were all in so they offered a lot, then Boston was in a win now mode, and they offered a lot. Timing is everything, that is not a mediocre return for a player of Dame’s age and the future contract he was tied to.
Dame isn’t The same player today as he was five years ago. Ask Milwaukee fan, they don’t seem to be that much better than they were before the trade. I know 2028 through 2030 seems like a long way off, but Dame will be retired by then and we might get some amazing players out of this deal. Patience is everything.

 

I think there's some exaggeration about the size of Dame's contract relative to the rest of the league

keep in mind the context when I said it was a mediocre return: that being how fast the rebuild could be accomplished with the bulk of actual rebuilding assets not beginning to arrive till 2028. Portland's right-now payoff for trading Dame was weak, IMO. The Blazers didn't get an SGA like OKC got for PG13. They didn't get a Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, and FOUR unprotected 1st round picks strategically spaced 2 years apart like the Nets got for the older-than-Dame Kevin Durant. They didn't get a Lauri Markkanen, Colin Sexton, 3 unprotected first's and two unprotected swaps like Utah got for Mitchell. What Portland got was a 2024 first that is getting worse (Golden State has won 5 in a row and 7 of their last 8) and those back-loaded 2028-2030 picks and swaps.

Camara is a younger prospect with some role-player potential. Ayton is younger than Nurkic but all-in-all he's arguably a lateral trade. A better shooter than Nurkic, slightly less as a rebounder, not quite as good a defender, and much weaker at setting screens. Besides, I don't consider Ayton to be part of the return for Dame. He was traded for Nurkic and Little. Camara? OK, count him...he was probably leveraged away from Phoenix by the Bucks adding Grayson Allen to the trade

so, for Dame:

* a 31 year old, frequently injured Brogdon (who is currently out with injury)
* an always injured Robert Williams, apparently with Brandon Roy Knees
* Camara, who may very well be an off-the-bench role player for his career
* a 2024 first likely to be in the 16-20 range in what most are saying is a weak draft
* a possibly encumbered/lost swap in 2028
* two 2029 first's...and a 2030 swap; 5 and 6 years away

yeah, that's mediocre compared to what other teams have got for their 'franchise' players

 

I didnt know we were talking about us! (I was just teasing)

 

Notice my green font? I was just poking fun as well. I was serious about your Banton comparison though. Mario recently said he prefers the Euro game to the NBA due to the lack of ball movement in general in the NBA. The kid Banton has played two really good games without a practice so far and as a pt guard...I was impressed with him.