I guess you missed my part about using it in trades I did reply to that in talking about trades and being able to absorb salary ... all I was saying is he could have easily not taken the super max and given the team so more flexibility in the past and future but that wasn't his priority.
I don't blame him for anything ... as we've seen time and time again he's great enough to drag a horribly constructed roster to a 6-8 seed and maybe get a first round win but nothing more (aside from the one outlier). It's remarkable how hard he plays night in and night out when so many of his contemporaries are out for 'load management' all the time. I will never waiver though from my desire to see this TEAM win a championship, the individual stuff means a lot less to me than it does others on here. I realize my want is most likely a pipe dream and maybe I should accept the status quo like so many others on here, but it's just not my mindset at this time.
again...please explain exactly how the flexibility of Dame taking 5 or 6 million less would make any difference. Unless that is you wanedt him to play/have-played for the MLE there's not enough flexibility to do anything the flexibility that would have mattered would be not paying Crabbe or Turner anything at all; paying CJ 20M instead of 30M and not holding him untouchable in trades. Not making max offers to Hibbert, Kanter, Greg Monroe, or Chandler Parsons when Portland had max-salary cap-space. Not wasting 7 first round draft picks. Not cheap-screwing scrubs like Hezonja and Tolliver considering all that, casting any kind of blame at Dame's salary for Portland not being a contender makes no sense at all to me
You nailed it. The amount of over-market contracts we've given out to Dame's teammates during this time has been upsetting. Could save that $6m/year in a lot of other places. Teams would gladly trade for Dame and his contract today. Can't say the same about Nurk. Couldn't have said that about Turner, Powell, Meyers, Crabbe, etc. in the past.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/sports/basketball/damian-lillard-portland-trail-blazers.html Has anyone posted this? In Comments section a man said he wants his son to be like Dame
Why is Chris Haynes wearing a graduation gown for this interview? good interview though. Always dig listening to a CJ convo
Tweet leaves out that Steph Curry’s loyalty has won him 4 rings and a Finals MVP award. Kobe and Dirk were loyal too.
Minor league team for what others? LA and New York? Nobody else cares. People show up in person/on TV to watch the players like Ja Morant, whose team is in a metro area about half the size of Portland's. I guess that would be a micro league team then.
Since the hopes of a playoff push are starting to fade, it's at least nice to fall back on some impressive numbers we're seeing out of Dame - Dame is currently #66 in the NBA/ABA Career Scoring ranks. He's only 89 points behind Gail Goodrich (will that be 2 more games?), and only 19,358 points behind LeBron (Hard to imagine that James has more than twice as many career points as Dame, wow.). Lillard is #6 in the NBA/ABA Career 3 Pointers made ranks. And, of course, I have to post this chart again - Geoff Petrie held the scoring record from 2/23/1971 to 4/8/2017. 12,401 days (33 yrs, 348 days) Damon Stoudamire held the scoring record from 1/14/2005 to 4/8/2017. 4,480 days (12 yrs, 97 days) Damion Lillard has held the scoring record since 4/8/2017. So far - 2,161 days (5 years, 335 days) Will Lillard's scoring record hold up for as long as Petrie's did?
