Charania: Several NBA teams monitoring the future of Damian Lillard

I 100% agree, I think he is going to 100% want out as he should we wasted too many years with Stotts and the cj lillard backcourt experiment. I was shocked Stotts wasn't fired after the New Orlens sweep we had a few years ago. I love Damian he is my favorite player by far but he is wasting his talent and prime here. I think we should trade Dame for huge return of picks, fire Neil and rebuild as tough as it may be this team is just going to continue making it to the first round and out just losing out on draft picks for no reason. I would rather build for a chance of winning a championship that just making the playoffs.

 

I love Damian but it's hard for me to find a world where he wants to stay here. He needs an actual start player to help him and we don't have it, we all know at his point the CJ Lillard combo is not good enough.

 

I'm sorry, but I think that makes little sense

Portland's best chance of winning a championship is to add a 2nd elite player to pair with Dame. It's not to trade Dame for a collection of so-so draft picks, give CJ 30 shots a game, and hope Portland finds a player as good as Dame in the draft, and also hope he becomes as good instantly. Never going to work

Portland has had opportunities over the last 5 seasons to do just that, but they have been poorly served by the GM's ego. Because Olshey was such a shithead GM people are now talking about trading the best player the Blazers have ever had and giving the same fucking GM who wasted Dame's best years a chance to fuck up a rebuild

it's fucking lunacy

I'm starting to blame Seattle as much as I do Olshey because it should be obvious to Seattle what needs to happen...and for damn sure that's not to trade Dame away

 

Maybe we get Jordan Poole. He was pretty good after being called up from Santa Cruz!

 

Trade cj too, that's how I interpret a rebuild. I can't see how portland lands an elite player either by free agency or by trading cj.

 

I just think Damian wants to leave I don't think we will have much of a choice I would rather trade him when his value is at its highest rather than wait for him to request it where teams know our leverage isnt as good. For the record I think we should fire Neil also, CJ was never good enough or a good fit for our second option as we have clearly seen.

 

CJ should be gone but I think his value is pretty low, we won't be getting much back in return.

 

Wouldn't happen.

First, he only can play on one team. If you're another team, do you want to force him to move from a tough situation to win to somewhere like the Clippers? I mean, these teams aren't all going to band together against Portland to get Lillard to play in an even better situation which isn't them.

Second, these teams are motivated more by helping themselves. If they can trade with Portland to make themselves better, they'll do it.

 

Conspiracy time: I think Neil Olshey is Bert Kolde's puppet. The guy was a one time actor and is just playing the part while Seattle pulls the strings. I am getting that sinking feeling that "Portland" is not part of the franchise anymore.

 

Odds get better with Philly losing to Atlanta today...

 

Which is another way of saying "Portland has no chance of winning a championship".

Realistically, a small franchise like Portland, whose biggest EVER free agent signing was Brian Grant, can only acquire talent through trades or free agency.

TRADE: What do we have to trade? Suppose a miracle happens and we get a Kawhi-to-Toronto type scenario, we would have to give up at a minimum CJ and Nurk, and then you'd have a skeleton crew around your two players.
DRAFT: It's too late for that, for Dame.

So....

 

LOL...yeah right. Harden just got traded for 3 firsts and two 1st round swaps. And every one of those picks could easily be in the twenties

any team trading for Dame is trading to try and win a championship. Lottery teams won't trade for Dame. And if any team close to the lottery makes the trade, their draft picks will automatically drop down to the twenties

if it's not clear, I think your logic about the draft pick haul Portland could get for Dame kind of sucks ass. Furthermore, the current GM is NOT the guy you want making 1st round picks...he fucks those up way too often

so then, however remote the chances of building a contender with dame, they are better than building a contender after trading Dame....and the current fucking GM is not capable of building a contender in either case. So that's the first change that needs to be made

 

That's because the owner is an idiot AND hates Morey, who was offering a package that would be fair for Lillard, and will probably be offered for him sooner rather than later.

 

No, they're the same. 0 = 0. Agreed about Olshey - what are we going to do about it? Have you got Jody's phone number?

 

Keep CJ if we trade Dame, at least until he's had at least half a season to pump up his value. He can average high 20s if he's given nothing but the green light and played high 30s mpg.

 

Damian really doesn’t have much leverage in a trade demand at this point anyway.

He is under contract 4? more years.

 

I want to ask....and I'm not doing it as a gotcha question

Are there any examples of a small-market team trading their only star, their franchise player, for lesser player(s) and a collection of lower picks and ending up better than they were prior to the trade over the next 5 seasons?...7 seasons?

I'm trying to remember; it didn't with Melo or Deron Williams or Chris Bosh or KG or Westbrook or PG13 or Kawhi or Jimmy Butler. Who am I forgetting?