Dame for Simmons? (last poll, promise)

Dame for Lamello & Hayward. I’d do it in a heartbeat.

 

It was never there to begin with. You must have dreamed it.

 

Thanks for your contribution to it.

 

Interesting that so far 9 people are okay with trading Dame, just not for Simmons. Where do we trade him, then? It's got to be to a team that thinks they're about to contend, because he's about to be PAID just as he starts deteriorating (and a lot of teams will be very scared off by how he looks so far this season).
I'm sure New York would like him, but what do we get out of it? RJ Barrett plus dead weight salary? And then I'd feel sorry for Dame, because that's not a contender.

 

OK NBA historians, here is a challenge for you.

What teams have traded a player of Dame's status and received equal talent in return? Not cap relief or whatever - just in terms of talent.

 

Probably few. I wouldn’t expect to get equal value for someone who is 31 years old and injured.

 

Why do we keep rehashing the same things over and over again. I'm sick of these polls. Dame ain't going anywhere, and Simmons is an entitled cancer that should never sniff a Blazer jersey, let alone wear one.

 

Bingo. When/if he wants to leave you take the best deal you can get. Nobody wants to be Philly. In the unlikely event you get a "godfather" offer, OK. Otherwise, it seems to me we are better off keeping him.

 

Why is that the question?
Of course you're not going to get equal talent (or even if you do, you're very unlikely to get a candidate for all-time-greatest-Blazer), unless you mean that you get draft picks and you strike lucky with them. But player for player? No. But (AS I've said REPEATEDLY) the real question is: what's best for the franchise? (And, ideally, also good for Dame - i.e., don't trade him to a shitty team.) What's best for the franchise can involve setting us up to be better in the short-to-mid-term. And a "worse" player can be better for the team, and better suited for all the other players we have.

 

Suppose you knew that, if we didn't trade Dame, the team would remain mediocre, and his giant salary would prevent any rebuild until he eventually gives up and retires. Would you still be opposed to trading him ever?

 

Do you think there's any Laker fan who would have traded Kobe during his cancerous, bloated contract when they were atrocious the latter part of his career? The answer is no (sure he won some rings there but he was their franchise). We all knew what would happen when we signed our 2 best Blazers to a super max and near max contract extensions. Had we let either of those 2 players walk then there would have been crowds with torches and pitchforks outside the Rose Garden. We're now beginning to feel the effects of what 50%+ of your available cap space goes to only 2 players. We're not bursting with young talent on rookie scale contracts because we've dealt our firsts away or swung and missed with the ones we did have.

And trading away a generation player who's loyal to Portland (that's in short supply) is downright silly to me. If we were to trade Dame for Simmons, there better be a shitload of young, talented prospects and picks coming to Portland since Simmons' stock has plummeted as bad as crypto has these past few days. I don't think Morrey sees it like I do though. We may have to throw in CJ to make the trade equitable in his eyes...

 

Lakers trade for a HOF MVP Westbrick. They gave up way to much for him, imo.

 

Uh, that ship has sailed.

 

A perfectly reasonable argument.

 

It’s also important to note that no amount of picks or sweetener from Morey would make this deal palatable.

It’s also unwise to assume that Philly, just because they have Embiid, is an attractive market to play in like New York, Miami, or LA. It’s Philadelphia—not a glamour market by any means.

 

I see what you're saying about Kobe, but the Lakers are a different case. They will always be able to start from scratch and recruit stars. You'd be better off going with Tim Duncan.

I would not advocate doing so against his will. But we know that he's been thinking about greener pastures, and I think a solid franchise works with players like that to achieve mutual satisfaction. I think Clyde is a good example: he took us to two finals, sandwiched around the best record in the NBA (and has greater claim than Dame to the title of "greatest Blazer ever") but was already getting called "Clyde the Slide" when we traded him. But we traded him, as per his request, home.

But imagine saying to him: "Sorry buddy, it'd look bad for the franchise if we traded you, so you're going to be loyal right up to the end of your contract."

I don't give a shit about his "stock". He's still a 6'9" super-athletic PG who Dame just cited as a top 3 perimeter defender in the league.

 

That would be a good poll question: what's the worst place you would be willing to live for 8 months in exchange for $30 Mil?

 

with my inlaws...but it will take more than a measly 30M