Gah it's such a weird time to be a Blazers fan. I'm one of the biggest Dame lovers out there but I'm wholly intrigued by the unprecedented nature of what he could bring back... but we have Neil fucking olshey and he has fucked everything up here so here we are.
Nah, I'll stick with Dame. I'm sure any team that traded a generational talent would get unprecedented talent in return, except Houston's GM, who got a cheese sandwich & a bag of chips to be named later. And picks you say. Unless the team you trade said player to is complete garbage, and in a city where it's hard to get talent, those picks will be glorified 2nd rounders when it's all said, and done, due to that team getting real, to amazingly good.
If you're a city who can't get talent to come here... why would getting draft picks be a bad thing? I wanna keep Dame too, but you gotta be realistic with the assets we have... will we be able to trade enough to get a team Dame says "this is a contender"? And again... we have no trust olshey.
It really is weird that Damian (or anyone) thinks a title contender can be built with this team. Like the NBA talent fairy is going to drop a stud out of the sky. Our B+/B- talent is going to bring back an A player and then what, they have two great players?
The lack of faith that I have in Olshey to do anything that can make Lillard happy long term makes me think that he basically has one foot out the door. With the comments he made putting pressure on the blazers to get him a roster that can compete sooner rather than later kind of hamstrings the team to not get fleeced on any deal that doesn’t have Dame in it going forward. I could and hope to be wrong but there hasn’t been a consistent track record in the past for me to see a positive solution no matter how much I want there to be one.
Especially now that the league knows Olshey is desperate. You don’t get great deals when they can smell the desperation in the air. It’s poker game being a GM and it’s obvious to everyone now that Olshey has a shitty hand
Unprotected Draft picks from an awful team, great. Lotto Baby. Draft picks from a very good to great team, meh. Borderline second round picks, and a serious crapshoot in the One and Done Era.
I'm sure there are Brooklyn net like gms circa 2011 still running around. Sucks that one of them is our gm but maybe there's another one dumb enough. Point still stands. We're fucked. Lol.
Do you believe that Philly would take CJ and every draft asset we could send in return for Simmons? Simmons can be an absolute stud. Buying low on a guy who has just struggled and trusting in his talent, skill and our coaching is the kind of move that turns the team into a contender.
I don’t know if they would. Portland should try. I wish I felt more confident in him that’s for sure. At this point they have to take risks so I guess go for it.
As long as Dame is *potentially* available, I don't think they would. It illustrates the most unfortunate circumstance for the Blazers: the Blazers most tradeable player (and best trade asset in terms of on-court production) is like a lesser replica of the discontented star player. The teams that might want CJ would much rather have Dame, even for the significant extra cost. I honestly don't believe that Morey would take CJ and four first round picks for Simmons right now (even if you added swaps in the intervening years). I think the Blazers will need to get really creative now if they want to continue to build around Dame.
That extends to contemplating him building a post-Dame team too. Rather see him fuck up trying to bring talent around Dame than making a cluster fuck out of assembling a young core for the future.
The more I think about it after seeing what Giannis just did at 26 years old the only 2 Dame trades I’d do are… Murray/MPJ/1st for Dame Brown/Smart/Williams for Dame The idea of pushing back the clock a bit is intriguing, I just don’t think we have the assets or creativity to build a true contender now. Murray Powell/Simons MPJ/Nas Simmons(CJ/1st trade)/RoCo Nurk That team is still most likely the same seed we were this season, I’d also expect if you pulled off the Dame and CJ trades that you would ship RoCo out for a younger piece and possibly even S&T Powell somewhere for players in that 22-27 age range. Our best chance might be playing the lottery on MPJ/Simmons type players. It might be the only way we ever truly get a “Big 3”
The problem with doing a win now trade, is first it's hard to pull one off that works well. But even if we do succed now, in 3 years we will likely be back in the spot we are in now, where the team is not a contender, has lost their draft picks, has Lillard on a contract worth much less in a trade as its an expiring. About the only way this can work well is the Blazers win a title which seems very unlikely. Sure if we can get a Paul Gasol trade go for it. I'm thinking the best option will be to trade Lillard now even though it sucks to do.
