I have a hard time believing Dame is gonna give his haters that much ammo. Going from “I hate super teams” to “I will only play on a super team that made the finals last year” is some Jekyll and Hyde kinda shit.
If they're willing to give us a few picks to take that contract, I do it. Look at how OKC has been rebuilding. They took bloat contracts with picks. Now they have a talented young core and they're on the precipice of contending again.
Well aware. After next season that contract becomes a massive expiring contract. Maybe that means value in a trade, maybe not. But if the worst outcome is us swallowing 2 high paying years for no value from him... in years where we're clearly rebuilding... on a franchise that simply is not a free agency draw... If we're getting value to take him, I think that's well worth the maybe 1% risk of not being able to throw stupid FA money at someone. Because we've seen how that plays out over and over again.
You take Simmons if they include a sweetener, like a draft pick, to take him. I certainly wouldn't then pay another team to take him from us.
understood. Great, I'll take the 2 picks for taking him. What are we getting for Dame? A pick and 2 bench players with "potential"?
Yet plenty on this board shit all over what OKC was doing. They are in the drivers seat of some pretty powerful leverage with that haul of picks and Chet, SGA and Giddey.
I don't see any downside to taking Simmons. If he is able to come back and be a decent player, great. He can help the rebuild, OR we can flip him. If he sucks... he's gone in two years and we got a pick or two for him.
I imagine it will be a part of the Miami package, so that will include the 2 far out picks and a pick swap from them in addition to the pick(s) and Simmons from the Nets. (BTW, almost wrote New Jersey before I correct it to "the Nets")
ok...by the way, what the rest of you have been saying is what I've been saying the only difference is I've been saying OKC has to cooperate with the fantasy. My hunch is that they'd prefer that unprotected 2026 pick over the lottery protected 2025, so it might be easier to gain their cooperation on releasing 2025. OKC won't just say "sure, we like you guys so we give it back, good luck with Dame". They'll use their leverage and force Miami to pay something; a 2nd round pick, maybe two of them. Of course, that's complicated because they owe all their 2nd round picks thru 2030 after the Oladipo trade so, we've gone thru all this so the Blazers can get Miami's 2024 first, which will probably be in the 25-30 range in what seems to be, according to analysts, a weak draft. It squeezes Miami, which is what we want, but in the scheme of a Dame trade it's not a significant consideration I suppose, if Miami offered their 2025 unprotected, getting back their 2026, OKC might accept that. I doubt it because they'd probably want to bet on Dame/Butler being more diminished in 2026 than 2025, but who knows. That would move their available 1st's ahead one year allowing the Blazers to get Miami's 2027 & 2029 picks. And it would also allow Portland to get swaps in 2026, 2028, & 2030. Of course, the monkey wrench there is Olshey's stupid fucking deal with Chicago and the Bulls holding the 2026 & 2028 swaps hostage. Blazers would probably have to un-protect or top-4 protect their 2025 first to convince the Bulls to release 2026-2028. And that's only 2 years away; it would be a really stupid and risky move just to gain some swaps
It would seem a lot of questionable picks and young players... If the rumor of Miami basically saying "take anything and everything but Bam and Jimmy" is true (I'm skeptical), I'd expect Jaime, Jovic, Martin, every possibly traded pick, and whatever other salaries to match. Sounds like there's a few teams interested in Herro, hopefully we're able to flip him for a pick and another young piece. If it's BKN, Simmons gets pulled in as some of that "whatever other salaries to match" and we leverage taking that to get more assets as well.
It was Fentress and he was riffing. There is no reason (as of now) to believe that Dame would do that.
Dame just needs to come out pubically, even cryptically (like his MO), either denying the forced move to Miami, or not. It's doing nothing but sowing more doubt and frustration.
