I don’t understand why each side of the Dame debate gets so upset at the others opinion? It’s basketball. I feel like I just opened a text thread with a bunch of my Lib and Conservative friends arguing about gender neutral bathrooms.
I get why this triggered some people, so thought I'd go over it line by line: • Dame will be 33 years old to start this season - True • He has played 29 and 58 games last 2 seasons - Sounds right • His age will be 33, 34, 35, 36 for the next 4 years of his contract - If point 1 is right, this would seem to follow • He will make $46, $49, $56, $63 million per the next 4 years of his contract - This is the part where I believe the cost is going up while the value will go down. • Getting a Top 3 pick in a draft is rare… and this draft is supposed to be the best in years, w/highly regarded top 3 players - Consensus • We hit the jackpot last year with potential superstar in Sharpe - True....and most Blazer fans seem very excited • We have Simons, who averaged 21 ppg at 23 years old who is similar to Dame but bigger, younger, and cheaper - Agree except how similar he is to Dame. Size/D/ball dominant - Yes. Leader/Clutch - No • Trading these young assets for win now player can set the rebuild back a decade - I believe that could easily be the case. • Unless we get a superstar like Giannis, Embiid, or a healthy Zion… I don’t see any possible acquisition that can take a team from 5th worst to title contender. - Agreed. Opinion of course, but makes a ton of sense. • For a potential new roster to even be competitive, it would take time for the players to gel… and would have to assume Dame stays healthy from age 33-36 - Not healthy for a while. Tougher as he gets older. Reality. • The west is extremely stacked… w/Suns trade and other teams likely to make moves… and the Nuggets will be near unbeatable with their talent, experience, and chemistry - Younger, better, and with room to improve. • This is probably the last chance we have to get any significant return for Dame in trade - Likely as he gets older and his contract gets bigger, that certainly seems logical, although not guaranteed. There is a lot there that makes sense. I get the emotional attachment to Dame. What I don't get is the abject belief by some that magically adding a player here or there while decimating the roster and Draft capital, suddenly turns the Blazer into this legit contender. I wish that would happen, but that is not how good decisions are made. And I still come back to the part where it's incredibly difficult to find a small, ball dominant PG of Dame's age that is leading a team to a title....or even to the Finals. Love Dame and what he has done, but am a Blazer fan first long before he got here and long after he will be gone, no matter when that is. It is my opinion that chasing something that has never worked, trying to get it to work as it gets more expensive and inevitably, less productive is not the best for the franchise. It goes against my emotion of wishing that it could happen and wanting to happen with Dame....just like I wanted it to happen with Drexler (close) Roy/Aldridge/Oden (damn injuries) and every other iteration of Blazer team that had a great player on it. It will end at some point. Just what shape is the franchise in when it does? It's what makes it a tough decision emotionally, but an easier one logically. Whatever happens, I wish for the best for this franchise, the team, the fans and the city.
... as everyone knows. But they shut him down to tank because even with him, we were not good. Haven't been for 4 years. I've yet to see how available talent changes that significantly unless it was Zion and he magically loses weight, keeps it off, and stops getting injured.
What is more likely: Getting a top 75 player of all-time on the roster, near their prime, again... or.... getting a top 3 pick again? We could do the math on this if you believe all things are equal (Spoiler, it's the top 3 pick). Or if you don't think it's equal, we could debate if a franchise, like the Blazers has a more advantages or disadvantages in obtaining/retaining a top 75 player. I factor this in when I think of what trades I would except for #3 and for Dame. Neither option is "right" in my opinion, it's about what direction will extract the most value.
If we take all feeling out of it, it is much smarter to pick BPA at pick 3 and 23. Trade Dame for the best package of extremely young prospects, picks and expiring contracts that we can. If BPA is Scoot then you trade Ant for the best package of picks, young prospects and expiring contracts. You do what you have to in order to get rid of Nurk. Everyone else on the roster Shae, Nas, Trendon, Keon, Knox and Jeenathan Williams is a young prospect, so we can keep them. Then we don't have to worry about expectations at all we just get to be wowed with the potential of our team regardless of if it is realized or not. It's not only cold and calculated it's cowardice. If we allow emotion to play into the equation then we invariably want to give Dame the best chance at winning a championship as a Blazer that we possibly can. So we definitely trade pick 3, we definitely trade Ant because he's obviously a terrible match with Dame and should have significant trade value. Nurk is a little trickier because his trade value may be a little negative due to his contract, his unwillingness to change things that would make him the most effective possible and his version of his position being a little outdated but if he can be included in a trade to match contracts we most definitely want to trade him. So we get the best players we can using everyone on the roster and every pick we have access to or can get access to besides Dame and Shaedon (they just happen to seem like a perfect back court). We re-sign Jerami and Matisse. We use the TPMLE to bolster our bench. If we have a pick that can leverage the most win now value possible in a rookie then we use it and keep the player. I personally think this course of action can yield a contending roster but it won't be easy to pull off. It's not for the faint of heart. Even if it does result in a contending roster it doesn't come close to guaranteeing a championship (I thought the Bucks did a great job of building a contending roster last season and they were knocked out in the first round by the upstart Heat). It's risky and to maximize our slim probability of winning a championship we'll have to take on the greatest immediate risks with the highest immediate rewards possible. The crazy thing is that I'm a human, not some AI so the decision is easy for me. We cannot try to play both sides and because of loyalty we have to go the route of surrounding Dame with the best roster possible for him to try and win a championship for himself and all of us as soon as possible. Too many teams have tried to go the route of building their hopes on promising prospects and future draft picks only to realize 5-10 years later that they went the wrong way. The best chance we have of winning a championship is to go all in around Dame... that doesn't mean Dame will be our best player in fact it almost has to mean that Dame will be our second best player but he will still lead the team and be our point guard and if we can win at least one championship, he'll still be unquestionably the greatest Trail Blazer of all time. Lets get this done but if there is any hesitation about going all in on winning a championship with Dame then let's opt for the easy way out and pin our hopes on an extremely unlikely 5-7 year plan that starts with us drafting BPA at pick 3 and building around that player and Shaedon with Dame most definitely being moved.
Sucks because there's a lot of cool people here but threads like these make me I'm happy I'm not as invested here as I used to be
https://nba.nbcsports.com/2022/08/2...ds-i-can-write-my-own-story-thats-everything/ Hmmmm indeed... STOMP
Totally agreed. I bet most people bitching about this being created would be fine if someone opened one saying they want Dame to stay and retire as a Blazer. So their issue is the opinion differing from their own, not a new thread. I can't stand all these huge threads on this site with hundreds of posts. I'd like to see more threads with new topics. But you don't see me spamming all these mega threads complaining people are posting there. I wish we had less of those and more smaller threads with narrower subjects but people can create or post whatever they want. This thread quickly got over 50 posts which shows OP created a good very worth subject to discuss.
How about you don't post in this thread? Some of us want to discuss these things. You can go spam other mega threads.
Because some of us don't want the site with only 5 mega threads with hundreds of posts? How about you stay out of this thread if you don't like it.
But keeping Dame is not getting us a top75 player going forward, that's what he did over the last decade, not what he'll do over the next decade. LBJ MJ Wilt and Kareem are only players to lead a team to a title older than Dame. Thinking Dame will join that group is an illogical way to build a contending team. Much more likely the Blazers hit on #3 pick eventually winning a title as many dozens of teams have done.
It’s a risk, but pairing Sharpe and Miller and surrounding them how Boston did with Tatum and Brown gives us the best chance going forward Defensive playmaking pg Rebounding, defensive 4 & 5
