Can the Blazers effectively keep Dame Jrue Scoot Shae next 2 years?

I should add one other thing to my post above. As someone else pointed out in another thread, to the current stewards of the Blazers with the team for sale, maybe they view being interesting is better (and easier) than competing in the West. A team with two established stars probably brings a better price than a team that might be winning a playoff series or two two or three years from now. Can't really overlook that. But there isn't really a right answer to do you want to be interesting or good. It's in the eye of the beholder.

 

Yes. Roles shift as careers run their course.

 

brown not healthy

 

Dame and Jrue are old. They get injured and need time off.

 

I see no problem

Scoot and Shae are young

Dame and Jrue are 35 (36 in 26-27)

They can all share 96 minutes together

How those minutes are allocated will be based on their play.

If year 4 Scoot outplays 70% Dame, he gets more, and vice versa

If year 5 Shae outplays past prime Jrue, he hets more, and vice versa

These guys can work with 96

Dame and Jrue don't need to be playing 36 / game

Injuries happen and load management is a thing

Dame and Jrue are smart, they will not complain playing less if Scoot and Shae are better than them at this point in their career.

And that's the best case scenario, for Scoot and Shae to be better than Dame and Jrue. Because if they are, we are contenders!

 

yeah, it could be that the Dame signing was a 'feel-good' transaction that might make the team sale more attractive. There's also little doubt that Dame can be a great mentor and teammate. Same for Jrue

(a little too much chortling about having both Dame and Jrue when the franchise failure was not have them paired (or somebody similar) when they were 27 or 28 rather than 36)

but like Nate said, it does make you wonder about how the front office actually views Scoot. Jrue is a PG who can slide to SG because of his length; but his primary position is PG. Dame is a PG. And Portland is paying 50M/year for those two vets. That doesn't inspire confidence that the front office has confidence in Scoot.

Obviously, Scoot sure doesn't seem to be the transformational PG he was hyped to be during his draft. I'd be pretty sure Cronin/Schmitz expected more from Scoot than they have seen. His shooting might be a little better than expected; but his PG skills have been iffy. Too many turnovers. Still it's a tough position to learn and he's young with no college experience. Maybe the Blazers are viewing him as a project that will need a little more seasoning than usual

but if Dame returns to say 80-85% of his game (possible) and Jrue stays effective (likely?) one of Scoot/Sharpe will be getting squeezed for minutes in 2026/27 and I don't believe it will be Sharpe

 

And point guard seems to be the easiest position to replace in the draft. I still wouldn’t be shocked if we trade Scoot at some point, depending on how everyone does this year.

 

I think it will ultimately come down to how well Scoot performs this year, and not how well anyone else performs. With Dame and Jrue both being 14 years older, I can't see how either will affect Scoot long term with this team. If he takes another jump, then he will be the Blazers' starting PG for another 7-10 years. If he does not take a jump, then yeah, they will probably move him next summer.

Obviously, they did not know Dame was going to get bought out when they traded for Jrue. So I don't think they have lost faith in Scoot, they just took the opportunity to bring back a player that is beloved by the community.

Jrue and Grant are the wild cards next summer IMO based on age and contracts.

They will probably try to keep only one of Thybulle or Rupert, but not both.

Williams will probably not be resigned either unless something happens to Clingan.

As long as the youngsters keep working hard and continue to get better, I am keeping Scoot, Shae, Tou, Deni, Clingan,
and Hansen. (Hopefully Rupert as well)

 

All I'll say about Scoot... They Sleep.

 

Short answer: yes, but you gotta trade Grant to make it happen.

Long answer: If I were running lineups, I'd insist no player on our team play more than 32 minutes in a game. Billups did this last year, and I think he'll continue to do that going forward. A good team doesn't over-work their players.

Even in 2026-27, neither Dame nor Jrue should be getting more than 24 minutes in the regular season, for their continued effectiveness in the playoffs if nothing else. Neither are iron men in 2026. Between the both of them only one season of 70+ games since 2019, and Jrue's minutes even as a starter have dropped to 30 last season.

Also, I see a lot of 3-guard lineups in our future, with defensive wings and centers to absorb their defensive liabilities. That could give the two starters 32 minutes each while keeping the two backups at 24 minutes.

I think this means you have to trade Grant for an old SF/PF vet willing to play 16 minutes and mentor the kids.
You play center by committee, riding hot hands and taking advantage of matchups.

Something like:
Guard Minutes (96): Scoot (32) / Dame (24) / Jrue (24) / Sharpe (16)
Forward Minutes (96): Toumani (32) / Deni (32) / Sharpe (16) / Murray?? (16)
Center Minutes (48): Clingan (20) / Yang (16) / Reath (12)

I think this lineup, well coached and hungry, can win 50 if they get a little lucky on Dame's recovery.
If they get really lucky, 60 wins is possible.

 

I think what people are overlooking is that we're going to be an offensive-challenged team this season playing in a brutal Western Conference.

We'll be a better team this season but not win as many games. There'll be a lot of competitive losses and opponents are going to hate facing us.

However, the result will be a high lottery pick. We'll then find a way to unload Grant, replace him with Dybantsa when we win the lottery, and we'll be good to go ....

 

Scoot and Sharpe will extend the careers of Holiday and Lillard by playing big minutes and learning on the fly how to navigate double teams or be a pt of attack defender. When Dame and Jrue move to the bench they can learn the coaching game while retiring as Blazers. What’s not to like? Also I don’t think superstar contracts will be as cap sucking in the future. The days for overpaying an Alan Crabbe level talent are over!

 

Reminds me of the Spurs teams of the past, Pop always had the most stellar bench's and would run them as long as possible.

 

Keep? Sure.

But would it make more sense to keep three?

At the end of the day, this is only an issue for one season, which is the season after this season. The season after that, both Dame and Jrue are able to opt out, even if it’s likely that only Dame would be inclined to opt out that season. This season, Dame is really more an extension of the coaching staff than a player, so we’re still effectively expecting one good-great season out of Holiday while Dame rehabs.

I still definitely think we need to trade Jrue if he plays up his value again. Jrue is a player you can get an unprotected 1st from if he is the same player he was two years ago, and you need to capitalize on that value. I think this is a serious talk with Dame at the end of this season once we assess the growth the team has made and see if Jrue has played up his value. If Dame feels like he would want to be the backup PG here until he retires because he thinks he can win a chip here, capitalize on Jrue’s trade value.

 

Here’s the rub…. I don’t think Dame signed up to come off the bench. I would wager he expects to start in 2026. So what happens if Scoot shows massive improvement? Who comes off the bench? It’s a nice problem to have but it would be a problem. I’m less worried about Jrue.

 

I think we know what happens then - we had a decade of two starting level PG in the Dame era. Which one came off the bench?

 

Games played last two years
Dame 73 58 = 131, 65.5avg
Jrue 69 62 = 131, 65.5avg
Scoot 62 66 = 128, 64avg
Sharpe 32 72 =104, 52avg

So that average 81 games missed per season. So if they got injured always at different times we'd have ONE SINGLE game the 4 of them play together during the season.

Now you might say unlikely they are always out at different times. But in that case those would all be games that two or more of them are out and we have no backup guard.

 

Seems like a problem we should worry about next summer, but of course we won't wait.

 

It's not like there's a heck of a lot else to talk about right now.