Giannis should be the Blazers #1 off season trade target. Favorite idea so far: Zion Timelord and 5 years of picks to the Bucks Ant Ayton #10 2030 Blazers unprotected pick to the Pelicans Blazers rotation next year: Giannis Clingan Camara Deni Grant Sharpe Thybulle Scoot CJ
I think other teams have more assets to trade for him. If it takes Scoot to go past the finish line, do you agree?
I was just thinking of a stupid trade idea… mostly to ask the question: would you trade back Milwaukee’s 2028 pick to get Giannis now?
The only team that can realistically outbid us is maybe New Orleans because we can offer something that almost no other team can offer..... their future back to them. The Pels own their immediate future and we own their late future. We can offer young players (Sharpe/Scoot) we can offer their own draft capital back to them, we can offer expiring contracts in Ayton and Rob and we can offer our own picks. The haul is pretty significant. Sharpe Scoot Ayton Rob 2025 FRP 2030 FRP 2032 FRP Buck 2028 swap Buck 2029 pick Buck 2030 swap That's not a bad haul at all. With that said, I'm not sure I'd do it.
Is this team a championship contender: Simons/Deni Tou/Tisse Deni/Murray Giannis/Grant Clingan/??? We'd have a lot of holes in our bench. The starting lineup is pretty potent. I'd want to add a backup point guard and a bench scorer. I also don't think Grant would love coming off the bench. We could try to move him for some other pieces.
It's good looking on paper but I don't think it works in practice. That starting lineup is worse on defense than our current best lineup, and we aren't going to get better on defense again without more trades. I think the juice isn't worth the squeeze for Giannis, personally. He's too expensive to turn us into a contender, and when he goes, we're in Milwaukee's shoes and they're in ours. I don't like that.
Pelicans only own the Bucks; -2026 swap, which from the 27th ranked Pelicans might not be worth much, even if the Bucks rebuild -2027 pick if top 4 (if the 2027 Bucks pick is #5-30 the Hawks own it)
I wouldn't give up all of those. We need to hold onto Sharpe/Scoot and some of the picks. If we gave up all of that we wouldn't be a top contender and would lack picks to improve to that.
Exactly. Even if he just fell in our laps for free, he's not enough to beat OKC in the WCF with the team we have now. Our window is 3-5 years out, not 1 year out.
No I don't think Giannis makes us a favorite. Theres a very big difference between being a contender and being a favorite though. Yes OKC will be a much bigger favorite next year regardless of our moves. Spurs might be a dominant favorite in the 4 years from now period you mention regardless. But it also only take one injury for any of these teams to fall short in a given season - then another team can end up in the finals with a real shot at the title. Denver, Bucks, Dallas, Toronto, Phoenix, Heat, and a number of teams have snuck in and made the finals or flat out won a title while it didn't look like they were close to favorites. Giannis would make us a contender. Maybe only a longshot or darkhorse contender, but still thats something this franchise hasn't had in about 25 years. We were just on the edge the year Wes Achillies snapped. Other than that we've never been close. But if we get Giannis - then have another player exceed expectations similar to Deni or Camara - who knows we could be right there.
I disagree Ant, Scoot, Banton Shae, Tisse, Rupert Deni, Tou, Murray Freak, Grant, Walker Ayton, Clingan, Williams Can win a championship in 2026 Obviously this is purely hypothetical
Yeah I don’t think I would do it but I’m just showing that the blazers COULD put together a package that could beat most teams.
I don't consider dark horse or longshot to be in the contender range. I consider top 4 seed to be contender range. I think we top out at 5th seed in the west even in the fantasy scenario, and in the trade scenario we're maybe 6th or 7th seed. Giannis brings a lot, but I don't think he's enough, even for free in fantasy world.
3-5 years out from now fans will still be saying our window is 3-5 years out because we never went for the big swing trade. We will probably still be building out of the draft.
Yeah I wonder what are packages other teams would be able to give up? Some of these trades for an MVP level player are more difficult that it would seem at first as the team trading for Giannis has to have enough left after the trade to contend. The Thunder and Spurs are probably the teams most able to do that. We're probably on the border of being able to, only in the Giannis example since its the actual Bucks picks we own.
