Trade Deadline: February 6, 2025

The bummer is that the Suns/Mavs/Kings have all proven that there is, in fact, a worse situation with ownership.

 

But are they worse?

Suns went all in. Failed, but tried
Mavs will be better without Luka
Kings are indeed a clusterfuck

 

Going all in without a serious direction is not good. They flailed aimlessly. Nobody in the world thought Beal was a good idea. They nuked their team to get Durant. They massively overpaid for him, in hindsight.

The Mavs could have gotten so much more for Luka. It was a fleecing. If AD gets hurt again, which he will, they're sunk.

The Kings will always be a clusterfuck.

Who did better? Joe with the Dame trade or Nico with the Luka trade?

 

And Portland has not chose a lane yet.

 

The Blazers had a vision for the team, and we're watching it come to fruition.

 

They chose a lane of a balanced team. Youth and Vets. Size. Defense. Team basketball. This is a fun lane to be in

 

Joe deserves props.

 

This isn’t to be combative, but I don’t think this was their vision

 

Then I posit they opted for the wrong vets. Personally do not enjoy watching Simons or Grant going 1 v 5, doing ISO and barely defending. Thybulle was always a mistake to match, now he can't get on the court. Time Lord is a great guy and has a skill set that is always needed. He is just always injured. Ayton be Ayton. Mixed bag with him. He had runs like this in Phoenix. If he ever "gets it," he could be great. He might just be smart enough to turn it on now to get another contract.

 

Or they think they have picked a lane of an eclectic group of mostly young players and a few vets. For me Ant and to a lesser degree Jerami don't seem like good fits for what this team needs to continue to progress but maybe I am the one that doesn't get it and Joe does.

We'll either see that Joe hadn't picked a lane and will have in 24 hours and 40 minutes or we'll see if Joe is smarter than us about what a well built roster looks like. Hell we might just have to wait until around the draft to finally see what we can see as a definitive lane. It's really hard because we don't work in the front office so we don't know what the mentality is.

It is a fucking weird season to stop tanking though with Flagg and then both Bailey and Harper at the top of this draft.

 

Huh?

 

I might be wrong, but I think MM is saying that they didn't intend for the team to be this good this fast.

 

Lots of smaller moves being made. I think the writing is on the wall. Next year's starting 5:

Ant
Deni
Tou
Grant
DA

 

The lane I see is that scoot eventually becomes an All-Star point guard, 2-money is all NBA defense team consideration, and Avdija is a great glue guy.

what the Blazers really need now is an All-Star level if not All-Star two way player at shooting guard or small forward or power forward or center. Heck, it could be Ayton if he keeps eating his Wheaties.

 

I hope there's a lot more flexibility than that. To think a team with this much youth already has their mind set on a starting lineup 8 months from now should be incorrect.

 

I hope I am wrong.

 

If Scoot doesn't start next season, it's time to riot.

The starting lineup next year should be:

Scoot
Sharpe
Tou
Deni
Ayton

The clock is hitting zero this offseason. Simons and Grant need to 100% be gone this offseason. No more excuses.

 

I still think it could be Shaedon as well. Shaedon has all of the tools to be a two way all star and people might say that you're either born aggressive or not but I've seen way too many people who lacked focus in their first handful of years as an adult find that focus in their early to mid twenties to think Shaedon isn't capable of the same thing. If Shaedon is focused and aggressive all of the time on the court, he's the best player on this roster right now and even better in the future.