Next couple of drafts are supposed to be special. Should the Blazers work even harder at being as bad as possible?
They should trade Ant, Grant, Thybulle and Ayton now that they have his replacement unless he is the new four. Let the players they get in return join the youngins and play to win as many games as they can. Obviously it won’t be a lot but we can root for wins without thinking of tanking. It’s a rebuild. Portland needs decent journeyman vets on good contracts and low years left on them to help the kids.
wasn't their a thread last year, "Cronin messed up and built a playoff team". the GM told us yesterday, the best part of his job is drafting a lottery rookie. I would say the Portland Ping Pong era is alive and well.
The Blazers had 41 different starting lineups last year. That almost seems like an impossible feat to pull off. The one that appeared the 2nd most times together, they played 6 games and went 3-3 (the one that played the most was a tanking lineup where we started Murray and Rupert) But the 3-3 lineup was Ayton, Brogdon, Grant, Simons and Walker. I still think this team is more talented than their record indicates, and should be even better next year.
don't "need" to meet minimum payroll until the season begins. Even then, the only in-season impact is that any cap-space between the actual payroll and 90% of the salary cap is lost. Now, there is another penalty that Jody & the Vulcans would be unwilling to pay: that being that any team that doesn't meet minimum will not be able to collect any luxury tax payments but for Portland, this isn't a concern. They are more than 40M over the team minimum and they are unlikely to trade any substantial contract without taking back salary
Don't have to it will happen naturally. We need a superstar prospect to build around and I believe we don't have that yet.
