After a strong preseason, what should the Blazer's goal be this year?

Luckily we have billups so us having to trade players away to lose won't be an issue.

 

if Portland's goal is to win enough games to sink their draft pick but not enough to make the play-in I think they might achieve that

 

There are 13 teams ahead of us all of whom are aiming for playoffs. Our best case scenario is Houston last year and they didn’t make the play-in.

 

Win. That should always be the goal of a professionally paid team.

 

Yes. And tanking along with good drafting when you do need to rebuild is how you win more for a longer time.

You do that by offloading vets who aren't good enough to win big, but are good enough to win against bad teams.

 

Fuck the draft. Play to win, period.

 

Ideally, we replicate Atlanta from last year.

 

36 wins and the #1 pick?

Sign me up

 

Yes, try to win. But get rid of players who are too old to help you win big. Trade them for assets that have a chance to help you win big.

 

Do we even want the #1 pick? Isn't it a cursed chalice for Portland?

 

A few random thoughts on this topic:

1. Give it a month. See what the Blazers really have.

2. We crushed the Kings and Jazz when they were playing their top guys and we were missing two starters. The Kings game was on the road. If the Kings don't score 20 points on runouts, mostly early in the game, it's an even bigger blowout -- that's a really good team.

3. People downplay Ulm. I don't. Ulm's the defending German champion and has a winning Euro Cup record the last two years. It possesses NBA length and size and has a potential lottery pick in the 2025 draft in its rotation.

4. If we can force 20 turnovers and block 10 shots per game like we've done in the preseason, then we're trending the right way and I'd be less likely to change.

5. IMO, the "championship window" thing isn't a thing. Very, very few good teams have the vast majority of the rotation between 4 years of each other. It's not like Grant is going to be too old to contribute in 2-3 years; he's playing some of his best basketball now. But also don't just be looking to push them out the door because they're on the older end of the roster. Ant's a 3-level scorer and can create his own shot against good defense; despite his limitations defensively, there aren't a lot of scorers his caliber in the league and we shouldn't forget that. Ayton averages a double-double, can switch on high screens and defend guards and shoots close to 60%. Grant's got so much versatility and the new composition of our roster makes him an even bigger matchup problem. Look at quality and fit before age.

6. That said, if some team comes along and wants to trade the farm to the Blazers for Grant, Ant or Ayton, take it. Don't fall in love with your own players at this point in the rebuild. Be open to trades if they definitely make you better, but be smart about it.

7. We aren't a team of tiny guards anymore. The roster is comprised much differently. That might have a lot to do with improvement on the court. Ant and Scoot aren't as problematic defensively when you have the length that exists on the rest of the roster. I think one even could argue that forward isn't the need anymore, but the Blazers might actually be looking for a really good guard next draft, or, at least open to it.

8. The Forever Tank isn't a way to become a longterm winner. And the draft's a bit of a crapshoot. The last two drafts should tell you everything you need to know about that. Right now, the two players we got out of what was considered a very weak draft (Clingan and Avdija) are far, far ahead of the generational PG we got with the second pick in what was considered a fantastic draft the prior year. People are salivating about Flagg and Bailey and I think they'll be great players in the NBA, but I don't know that they're immediate difference-makers and then you keep trading away your good young talent to be bad and hit lightning in a bottle and you end up on an awful treadmill. Essengue from Ulm is going to be in this draft -- he's 6-10 and showed me he can play as a good wing forward in the NBA right now as a 17-year-old and he's considered borderline lottery. You don't know where you'll land in the draft and what you might get, either way. But say you land just outside the play-in with all this young talent and you wind up being able to draft someone like Essengue who might be as good or better than Flagg or Bailey and is a very similar talent, rather than ripping away some of the talent you have to be bad enough to add Flagg or Bailey; I think the former makes you better both in the long run and better faster. It's hard to get better when you're always trying to be bad.

 

One other thing. I think we need to understand that there's a bigger NBA that we're just a part of.

What I mean by that is that the Blazers could be much, much better this year and it still not make a big dent in the win column just because there are a lot of really good teams in the West right now.

And not all those teams are going to stay that good. OKC's going to have to make decisions on which of its players to keep. The Lakers keep getting older, etc.

There also are several teams that are almost certain to be worse than the Blazers even if the Blazers trade Grant and/or Ayton. Are you willing to trade some of the under-25 players that we think right now can be part of a winning rotation on the chance that we get lucky in the lottery for Flagg?

We're at the stage where tanking starts to become the law of diminishing returns and to be bad enough to get a shot at a transcendent talent you have to eject some of the players that you need to reach your objective.

 

I hate to be that guy FAMS…

… To not get injured

 

We're going to need Stars to win big. We shouldn't be worrying about balancing the roster until we get stars. Once we have some stars we can balance the roster by trading duplicative talent for vets who will help.

If we end up with an anything outside of a 7-ish pick this season that will be a horrible wasted opportunity. Everyone expects us to be bad this year. Everyone.

We have this opportunity to add more talent and we should take it.

Unless you think we already have two legitimate stars... I don't see anybody on this team as having a good chance of being better than Dame.

Sharpe has a chance. But I wouldn't count on it. Nobody else is really even close...

 

This draft is good and deep, so a 6 pick may not be much different than a 10/11, now maybe there becomes a top 3 or 4 that set themselves apart, we simply don't know yet

 

We don't know. That's exactly my point. And exactly why we should have already traded Simons and Grant.

We're trying to do this rebuild too fast. We're going to end up doing a half ass job of it.

We might be able to get a good player at 7. But that player would be on the board at 3 or 4 as well.

The only way to give yourself the best chance is to get rid of the mediocre players who can't help us win big but who can help us beat bad teams.

That also allows us to determine if the young guys we are drafting are actually good enough and have enough potential to keep long-term.

These are all healthy decisions that a young rebuilding team can make. But if they're worried about actually winning every single game because they have some middling vets who are not winning players but are too good to lose to really bad teams that short circuits the process.

It'll just be an absolute shame if we spend the next decade trying to win a first round series... Or maybe winning a first-round series but never making it out of the second round.