Exclusive Ayton is agreeing to buyout

Yes they should be, either of those players would be a win imo.

 

100%

 

That’s where they stand. But that’s not a plan. Or are you saying the plan is “not tanking” within a budget? I mean, that sounds like a dynasty in the making.

 

The plan is doing what ownership wants: Stay in budget. Add young assets. Don't tank for too many years.

If you think the Vulcans have set up the front office to build a "dynasty in the making", then you think much higher of them than I do. No ownership group serious about building a dynasty would've hired Cronin on the cheap in the first place.

 

I'd say the plan is to field a team that can play at a quicker pace, share the ball, and play top 10 defense. Removing Ayton and Simons goes a long way towards that vision. Drafting Clingan and trading for Deni and Camara does as well.

 

Are they trying to win games next year and make the playoffs?

 

As a GM you take many swings on players & of course some won't work out, which clearly Ayton didn't. Cut bait, next swing, thats the job. Obviously you've got to have more pop then you cut bait on to have a career. I'm just glad they found a way to cut bait as he wasn't very good in PDX & clearly with the last two drafts they're going a different direction. I think he struggled here because being option #1 made for too much D attention for him. For much of his struggles here, Portland has really lacked in good guard play and he certainly doesn't have a great ability to free himself... he needs others. At least to my eye his hot streak at the end corresponded to Deni ascending to Portland's lead which gave them offensive direction for the first time in a while. If DA is smart he'll look for his next situation to feature some better guards and guys he can play off of.

STOMP

 

I am figuring Ant was unwilling to give up any money in a buy out.

 

1. More playing time pour Clingan and Hansen.
2. Flexibility ahead of the free agency for trades or signing
3. No money back from a trade for Ayto

Of course Joe was probably hoping for a 1st round pick and probably would have taken it if available. But as my man Jake Fischer said:

 

I wish Nate Jones would fuck off. We don’t want or need his opinion anymore. He can go annoy Bucks fans now, thanks.

 

This forum can be such a joke sometimes LOL every move gets critiqued on its own like these people entire careers isn't planning out and mocking how each team is potentially going to play things.

Cronin goes to my gym and I've talked to him quite a few times from which I can say he is clearly not an idiot.

They value their flexibility of their books, right now and my guess is that they shopped DA and only got offers for players with contracts past this year. Rather than taking back big money for more than a year, they waive him, save potentially on the buyout allowing them to use full MLE if they want to/find a good fit and open a roster spot.

We have a Camara extension coming, and new potential deal for Shaedon. We have Deni on an absolute steal of a contract that allows us some room to build out this roster as we grow.

We've all wanted Simons, Grant and Ayton gone. 2/3 are done before FA. Let's see what we else is on the agenda and evaluate the offseason as whole.

 

The depressing thing is how little-to-zero value they have/had.

Simons was dealt with picks to get an aging Jrue with a lot of money still on his contract.

Ayton was bought out.

Grant...... I'll be shocked if we're able to deal him without giving up a pick.

Simons was a little bit of a shocker. I figured he had SOME value. It's hard to say if Jrue has much value around the league. Ayton isn't surprising. I figured he'd walk after the season. I was surprised they cut him early but with so many centers on the team, it's not shocking. Grant never should have been re-signed. Or at least Cronin should have dealt him last summer when it appeared he had some value. They held the bag too long on Grant.

 

By tanking and bringing in 5 players with All Star potential while getting rid of the vets in their way when they were ready. I like the team now much better than the team Joe started with.

 

I was more quoting Jake's answer.

 

But it is! Dude, if we had won 4 more games last year, we would have gotten Flagg. Trying to win last year wasn’t a problem. We didn’t win enough. Take the season more seriously and we could’ve gotten into the play-in and won the #1 pick

 

You were wrong last year. We should’ve won more.

 

I don't disagree on Grant...that has not worked out for sure. I will withhold complete judgement until we see what the return ends up being.

Simons I would argue (and others have) we got the better player--just on a worse contract. However, if the plan all along was to buyout Ayton and trade Grant in today's CBA you always need a $30M to make potential big moves happen. Factor in his vet leadership, defensive abilities and I don't think in the end it was bad value--just shocking to all of us.

If in today's NBA a normal starter salary is ~$30M and the Blazers have Deni at $14 (ending at $11 in 2028), Camara around $22M, Shaedon with potentially a Jabari Smith contract, we would have 3 long term positions under market value with Scott and the centers remaining, and a multitude of draft capital. If the lotto had gone our way and we got a star we would be set. However it didn't so right now we sit on the roster that features a young player at every position, and hope one or two pop and we can use some of our talent and capital to land a star if we don't get a home-grown one.

Has it been perfect, absolutely not but I can see the vision.

 

The other thing to think about when it comes to extracting value and these trades is that things are fluid with the CBA and how teams are approaching things. When Simons signed his deal, $25M looked like a pretty solid value, now with it expiring and a team potentially facing resigning him at that number or more--tying up those kind of funds on a Simon type player is seen as an absolute negative.

Did we trade him 1-2 years too late, yeah I would say so. But I would need to see or hear what kind of offers he was receiving before I absolute bashed him for it.

I get we're all fans in our own ways but man it feels like everyone just hates this team sometime LOL.

 

Tanking? Since when? This week?