Regardless of where he is in the pecking order, he has to know that when he's coming to play with Dame he's no longer going to be the number one, so his shot attempts going from 15 to 13 shouldn't be a big surprise or cause toxicity. As far as his pay is concerned, he'd be getting paid quite a bit less than CJ to start that contract out and by the time that 112M/4 years extension hits around 30M, the new tv deal will have kicked in and that won't be too much in my opinion. So if we traded for him, extended him and his shots only went down by two per game, I don't think he'd be anything other than happy, if we are winning.
Not when considering contracts and flexibility... CJ and Norm have bad contracts. They are the contract you add as the final piece, not the contracts you still have to add to. They had to be traded and there just wasn't much demand for them. It is what it is.
It's obviously disingenuous of Cronin to point to the 4-game winning streak the team was on pre-All Star break (that ended abruptly when they sat Nurk), but it's equally stupid to point to the past month or so when we weren't playing anyone in our actual rotation at all. No Dame, Nurk, Ant, Hart, Winslow, Nas, and we even lost Watford just as he was looking vaguely useful.
Joe mentioned acquiring top level talent is tough, everyone covets their players. To me thats not a good sign. I'm predicting we make one trade involving one of the picks (if we have two) and we sign one FA starter. Adding three new players to the core of Dame, Hart, Ant, Winslow & Nurk.
I like the way you looked at this, your argument does make some valid points. However the main issue I see is timeline; Dame is going to regress every season while even if we draft a star, that rookie won't be playing at a star level next season. It wasn't until Devin Booker 6th season he was really ready to complement CP3 in a way to build a contender. By then Dame will be 38 years old. So to contend with Dame the team more likely needs to acquire another star in a trade and fill out rotational players. I suppose its still possible; it would've been more likely we could do such a trade if we hadn't traded our starters for scrubs.
You can compare a Dame package to what other superstars teams got in trades. SGA & 4 picks the Thunder got. Simmons Curry picks the Nets got for Harden. Ingram, Ball, Hart picks the Pelicans got for Davis. Now maybe it makes sense to wait until a few months into the season and the league sees Dame healthy and fully recovered first. Maybe its takes an entire year to hold out for the best offer, as the Pelicans did with Davis; and unlike Cronin did with the Clippers. If the best offers are underwhelming then fine just keep Dame. But if there is a massive haul available and I was running the Blazers I'd seriously consider it.
I didn't say a rebuild is a bad idea. Portland started a rebuild 2 months ago. The execution of the rebuild is certainly debatable, but the initial re-set of the roster was absolutely necessary I have said trading Dame and building around Simons is a stupid idea because I think it is. Part of that is I'm convinced the return Portland would get for trading Dame would not be anywhere close to what some people fantasize
No. I do not work for The Trail Blazers. I do work in Moda as a provider for the visiting teams, which puts me smack dab in the middle where I am able to interact with basically the entire NBA. I see things. I hear things. I know things. Fringe benefits.
well, that was 3 years ago and in the last 2 seasons OKC was 46-108. And three years after the trade, so far, their draft pick payoff has been #18 (Tre Mann). They might get a 15th pick this year, but that might also be the highest pick they get out of the deal, and those two picks, #18 & #15 will be the only draft payoff for the first 5 years after the deal they got a couple of swaps, next year and 2025, but chances are those swaps won't be exercised this is not a great return. It's actually very much like my coin swap analogy Simmons was the centerpiece of the return, and he hasn't played a minute yet this season, and very well may not. And he's a very unpredictable asset that had substantially reduced value at the trade deadline. Curry is a role player. The draft assets will be the 23rd pick this season and a 2027 pick 5 years from now. The ancillary assets fit the coin analogy. The centerpiece, Simmons, is a unique situation and shouldn't be gauged as a template. And unarguably he is a flawed player that can't fit many rosters the Pels & Davis trade is the best one of your 3 examples, in some ways. But it's worth keeping in mind that Davis was 26 at the time, 5 years younger than Dame. There is also the 6'11 vs 6'2 factor. Ingram is a nice player, all-star. But Ball and Hart are gone. Pells got next to nothing for Ball. They got something for Hart but it's hard to gauge how much. The Lakers 1st round pick is a good asset; and the future 1st and future swap might be nice assets. But again, the value of Davis at 26, coming off a season when he averaged 26-12-4 doesn't look like a good gauge for 31 year old Dame coming off his worst season while missing most of it there is a two-way component of this trade: one is that the draft pick is an example of a payoff for just rolling the dice. The other side of it is you really can't count on a team failing as spectacularly as the Lakers did this season. Maybe have to calculate where the kiss-of-death (westbrook) is going to land next as I have said: anybody expecting Dame to bring back a "massive haul" (kind of the mantra for the trade-dame crowd) now or this summer is delusional. He'll be 32 next season and he's a 6'2 guard coming off his worst season in the NBA who had surgery to correct a chronic injury and missed 2/3 of the season. His value is depressed, greatly, right now. It might be much better at the trade deadline but if Portland is in the running for a top-6 seed he won't be traded. I don't think he'll be traded regardless but considering doing it now isn't logical I've also noted that in another post you said that Dame will regress every season from here on out. Maybe the Blazers waited 4 years too long to trade Dame. Might as well ride him into the sunset
In all "fair"ness, there "hard"ly was any exit interviews, compared to the usual. (see what I did there?!)
Didn't say he'd think he'd be No. 1. Think he'd come in thinking he was the second option. If he looked at CJ's shots per game as the second guy to Dame, that's 18-19 shots per game even with Nurk. What he's making in the structure of team expenditures isn't what's important here. It's Grant's perception of his capabilities and role on the team.
I think that's something that would for sure be discussed before a potential move was made. Btw, if we traded a lottery pick for Grant, I'm pretty certain that they would try and sign him to a long term deal. No way they sacrifice that kind of asset for a rental.
You have more faith in our front office than I do, and if this organization is acting out of desperation, I don't think you can suppose they'd do that. It'd be more like "We need someone. Grant's the best option. Bring him in, whatever it takes. We'll figure it out when he gets here."
