I said Smart was a good defender. My point is you can have a small backcourt if one or both a decent defenders. I wouldnt swap Dame & CJ now for Mitchell & Conley. Thats was the question without changing the mix. So would you rather have Dame & CJ than Mitchell and Conley. Its ok to answer yes or no. Come on step out answer the question.
if I want to stop giving CJ the cover Dame provides and decouple him from Dame instead, I will did you say where you think Dame/CJ rank among NBA tandems?
I'd say that it was worse, but probably only because the backup PG minutes went to Ant instead of CJ. I think my overall take is that the Blazers would likely be significantly better if they could re-sign GT Jr. for around $12M, sign a reasonably priced backup PG, move Ant to backup SG, and trade CJ for a stud SF or PF.
that at least makes more sense as a course alteration than staying locked on the path of Olshey's stubborn desire to weld Dame and CJ together come hell or high water I'm not sure it can be a one-step process of trading CJ for an immediate upgrade at one of the forward positions. Maybe, but the first step is to step off the chugging train where CJ is co-conductor. There are plenty of ideas out there for CJ trades but I don't know how much real interest there is in CJ from other teams no realistic trade idea will go without intense challend here....I mean, 7 people apparently believe Dame/CJ are better than Lebron/AD and Harden/Durant
I think you are correct that Dame has been the one covering for CJ. Helped him get that huge contract put their mothers in business (they are tight) and are marketeers in in PTown. And Damn good round ball players. There is a reason their contracts expire near the same time.
Dame and Gary represent a back court that would be comprised of a number 1 player and number 4 or 5 player on a roster. CJ is worth 30M in wins to a lot of teams in this league but he isn't to this team. Gary didn't work any better with Dame than CJ but did he work worse enough to justify CJ getting paid what he's paid? The answer to that is no and we don't even know how good Gary would have looked with Dame and Nurk along with the other guys. Would we have even seen a drop off at all if Nurk would have been in? I honestly don't know and that is scary. I don't know if we are noticeably better off with a guy playing, that's making 30M. I completely agree that the 30M should go to another position... I'm thinking more of a 4 or 5 but I have been stuck in Stoffense for nine seasons so I think I see things through some kind of Terry filter.
