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

I mean, if Sean Buttcannon says there's smoke...

 

How would we know if it's potential top 12 pick until the deal happens?

They were almost certainly having talks and the Blazers were clear that they wanted two first round picks.

 

He was certainly right on the Ayton deal. He was pretty damned accurate on all the Miami BS, which has even been confirmed by Bill Simmons.

I think trying to pretend that the Lakers weren't interested for a pick is kind of silly. But I also get that losing is hard. And we want to believe that we might be able to shortcut this thing and stop the suck.

Again, it's going to be really disappointing when we can barely crack the second round and get knocked out of the play-in nearly every season.

 

What team are you talking about, Im not aware of any possible deal for Grant. I heard that lakers could be a team interested but haven't heard anything serious?

 

Zach Lowe thought it was pretty serious...

 

can you make a list of all the NBA players (or even 4 or 5) who failed because they played on bad teams as youngsters and developed "losing" attitudes, and not because of flaws in their talent.

you guys are just pumping out this theory as as a justification for your POV without offering a shred of evidence that the theory has any merit at all. I don't believe it does, obviously

I don't even know what you guys are arguing in favor of. Looks like it's that Portland should just run with Simons-Grant-Ayton as the featured players on the team, hogging a lion's share of shots and usage; maybe win 35-40 games a year forcing the Blazers to the back end of lotteries; then resign those players to 40M/year deals when their contracts are up. Yeah, my theory of what your advocating for

what about these young guys watching Simons never play defense? or Simons and Grant being ball-hogs? or Ayton being a poor rim protector and passer. Maybe watching that kind of shit year after year has a bigger long term impact than a few years in the lottery

 

Yeah, there's a lot of this to this.

In the current environment, the Blazers need to build primarily through the draft. That means having a great scouting department (I think we have that covered), some luck with the picks we get and a couple of really good developmental coaches on our staff.

But, to really make that pay off, you need to build a culture. You need to acquire good players who want to be here and you need to be smart in how you refresh the role players on your roster as they come and go. But you need to be a place where good players want to stay.

The Blazers template should be the Spurs, not the Pistons.

 

Didn't Miles fail because his knee blew up? He was on the rise here in Portland until he got injured... He was an idiot though...

 

And we also have not just the salary cap but the salary floor to navigate. You're invariably going to have some older guys or bad contracts on the roster. And if you keep cycling out young players because you aren't "bad enough" yet, I think you end up treading water.

What happens if you finally get that generational talent but you kept selling off assets to try to get him that he ends up playing with a bunch of players like Greg Brown?

 

I don't think we'd be able to tank for another 3 to 5 years. DC has been good enough that I think he might be a very good starter for a championship caliber team.

We'll see how the rest of the season goes.

I think we've got this year and possibly one more. After that all of our young guys will be two developed and they will win their way to the playoffs. If we get two more guys with the kind of potential that our last three picks have will be able to win in the playoffs.

 

You obviously posted something you didn't actually read. First sentence is what tells the story. "Blazers are trying to get". Not offered.

 

Nobody is suggesting we cycle out young players... I'm not sure where that is coming from.

 

I'm sure the Blazers were just knocking the Lakers door down trying to extract two picks out of them. Because that's how you get good value.

I posted multiple links on this by now. There were dozens of links posted before. Feel free to read back a few months and figure it out.

*Added green font*

 

This rebuild is going to take at least five years on its current pace. If that's too fast for you, I don't know what to say. You're going to be at the point where the first players you brought in are going to be too old for your competitive window by the time you feel it's complete.

 

But the question is what quality of talent do you add during that 5 years? If we get an 11 and 12 pick the next two seasons instead of maybe a top 5 that's a significant loss of potential value.

That could be the difference between having Simons and Grant on the team or not.

 

Exactly! You gotta make the decision to compete at some point. I'm not saying it's this year because by all appearances it's not. Tank this year but they got to try to win eventually.

 

Nobody is suggesting that we shouldn't try to win eventually.

 

I honestly don't think many disagree with you on getting rid of Simons or Grant or even both at some point. I actually think this trade deadline is the ticket. I also think after those trades you see full on tank again.