Looking at the box score from the Pelicans game is disgusting. All of a sudden the team became a collection of third stringers just like the ends of the last two seasons. It's like we're tanking on top of tanking. There's no way all these little injuries and illnesses every other game are legit. It's like someone gets a hangnail they are out. I don't remember it being this way, even when we sucked. The players and staff need to step up. This is an aweful product their putting out.
Hey, if we tank successfully we might get top three in a draft where nobody in it would've gone top five last year! Yay!
I am being completely unironic when I say YES. For one thing, that range of players is where you take the "safe" picks... you know like Jaime Jaquez Jr. The top players in a bad draft are NEVER the best players in the draft, because that's where you convince yourself that this great athlete can BECOME a good player...
I understand what you're saying, and while I have a general disagreement with some of it, are we really a franchise that is at a point of taking "safe" players versus swinging for upside and hoping we find a diamond out there? Basically, Jaquez doesn't look the same, IMO, playing here versus alongside Butler and Bam, and for Spo. If you don't trust your scouts to select the right guy earlier, then they're obviously not the right scouts. And if 4 or 5 is too high to draft a guy, then you trade down to 10 and get him and extra stuff.
What you're saying might make sense if Jaime Jaquez Jr looked like the best player in this draft. He doesn't tho... Victor and Miller both look much better and look to have much higher upside. Or in 2022... the top 4 were Banchero, Chet, Smith Jr. and Keegan Murray. Who are the later picks that look better than them?
I feel like people think that's what happened in 2013 because it was so terrible at the top, and giannis was amazing, but he was far from the safe pick
as far as i can tell the only one who this might be would be ayton and maybe brogdon everyone else has had some actual injuries. do people forget that string of games when we were relatively healthy and we were competitive damn near every night? someone posted in another thread about how chauncey has had like 10 new players if not more since being here, so it's not like we have had this solid core forever where they are completely dialed in. Peoples expectations this year is fuckin wild to me.
The GM is happy. The radio guys are never disappointed, even after 60 point drubbings. Therefore Blazers fans should be estatic about their team? DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD... go Blazers
The last Cronin press conference was a disaster. "I don't want to take a step back, I want to be like the Rockets" Portland beat the Rockets, that team stinks!! Everyone thought Portland was supposed to to blow it up and rebuild like OKC. Who's putting pressure on Cronin to win? Hopefully it's just GM flabbel-florf, and a buncha moves will get made to secure multiple picks in 2025-26-27
Please, share what folks expected and why. It should be interesting. Please filter with injury realities... Personally, I feel this teams plays with more grit on D than I have seen many years. Fuck the record.
Is there some part of “rebuilding” that some folks didn’t understand? Young, less talented teams suck. Young, less talented teams that suffer injuries to key players suck even more.
Blazer fans aren't built for it. They understand tanking. They can wrap their heads around that. They don't understand rebuilding.
