Forum Game How do you build a contender around Dame in the next couple years?

I'm curious to hear what ideas people have. How do you build a contender around Dame in a short period of time?

And I'm not talking about another also-ran playoff team. I'm talking a legit contender. A team that could make a play for the title if the chips fall the right way.

 

just out of curiosity, if random posters on the internet can't come up with sure-fire ideas does that mean "trade Dame"?

 

A contender needs one of the league's best defenders that also contributes on offense. The more the better of that type. I don't know the last Trail Blazer All Star that was also on the All Defensive team. If you don't have even one of those guys it's impossible to win a championship.

 

Free agents. Winning lottery picks. And develop the Billups-friendly hustle guys already on the roster.

Shaken. Not stirred.

 

DSJ

 

Truly don’t know how you would. Even hitting a couple draft picks out of the park doesn’t do anything for a few years. And it’s not just about the Blazers getting better but surpassing everyone else. Just don’t see it with Dame. Should trade him.

 

You'd need to be able to trade either Nurk or Nas/Keon/Hart for someone like Randle, Siakam, or Simmons using picks and cap space in a lop-sided trade. Obviously, you'd want to keep Nurk and Little if you could. We are gonna have to get lucky that out of our stable of SF sized guys Nas/Keon/Hart one of them develops into a good defender who can hit the 3 and who is healthy enough to stay on the floor (I'm looking at you Little). We need a PF who can defend at an elite level and for one of our myriad undersized SF's to show the fuck out.

I'm extremely concerned at this point that we can get it done. I still contend that IF that trade for CJ + 3 picks and 3 swaps for Simmons was actually real then that was most definitely the trade to make. Our CJ "haul" was at best mediocre (how the FUCK did we not get 2 1st round picks or Herb Jones for CJ PLUS Nance?!?!?!)

We need to see a really homerun play here by Cronin and I'm thinking the only real possibility is Randle. I dunno if we could swing Nurk plus one of the young SF's I mentioned plus a pick for Jaylen Brown maybe? Then somehow ALSO get Randle? Fuck man I dunno, it doesn't look good anymore the cupboard is crazy bare. Worse, at this point, we kinda HAVE to assume Ant is going to be a star, or else we fucked up big time. So, therefore, trading Ant for anything short of Giannis-level talent would be a mistake because then we are back down to 2 players and a bare cupboard. MAYBE we could rebuild from that point somehow, but I dunno.

 

Randle and Lillard duo are light years from being a contending team duo. In fact to get Randle, giving that up whatever it is, leaves them a much worse team than it was a week ago.

 

Luck out and land Smith/Chet with our pick.

Luck out with the Pelicans pick and land Johnny Davis in the mid-lotto.

Frontload a max offer to Ayton — I haven’t done the math if it’s even possible from our end but Phoenix royally screwed up by not locking him up last summer. He wasn’t worth the max extension in Sarver’s eyes.

 

Randle + Lillard and Simons becomes a star absolutely elite offensive thread and average or better on Defense. Yes I know he has a long way to go especially with the latter. I think he has it in him though. Randle brings defense when engaged and then in this wild-ass scenario I'm seeing Little as a consummate 3 and D slasher type SF who also is good to great on defense.

These are all WILD speculations of absolute best-case scenarios. I think Cronin didn't get enough for our guys and we're boned.

 

I agree but if you got two guys that impacted our team the way Evan Mobley has impacted the Cavs and we got one truly high impact player with all of this fucking cap space we're clearing and a few good role players that play the right roles, we could be contenders next year. With what Cronin has done it's truly unknowable what this team will be capable of over the next few seasons after this one.

I think the chances that it's significantly better than what we've been doing the past six seasons before this are very low. So yeah, I wish we would have traded all of the guys we did to try and consolidate talent and bring back consolidated talent that fit better around Dame. I could still see that being the plan if we would have cut all of that salary and brought back a lot more draft capitol to make unbalanced trades that brought back the kind of players we need to win possible but that's not what happened. So now we wait and see what Cronin will do with this strange situation he's created.

I will say that if he wants to build around Dame and Ant he is destined for failure because they have the same unbearable weaknesses that have plagued us with the Dame/CJ back court. I also don't like the idea of continuing to depend on Nurk who can disappear because of mood, ruin way too many good possessions just because he starts rushing everything when he has an open layup or what I'd rather he sees as a dunk, foul so much he can't play or has to alter his efficacy and is seemingly prone to serious injury.

So at the beginning of the season and for years now I would not have traded Dame, I would have tried to build a team around him with one teammate that is better than anyone else he's played with and does a lot of things that he can't and then put a bunch of guys around them that complement the two of them. Just defensive guys that can either make open shots or create easy scoring opportunities with defensive disruption and transition offense. That's what I've wanted to see for a while now but even though this uncertainty that Cronin has caused is very real, I doubt I'll get to see it.

Joe isn't going to trade Dame though, I don't think, not yet. I really don't know what else Joe will do next, he's a real wild card. The rest of this season will just be us waiting to see what unfolds in the off season... unless he shocks us in the next 12 hours even more than he already has. Right now trading players for less salary obligations and some draft assets that aren't quite what you'd hope for wouldn't be shocking. So we'll see. If I had to predict the unknowable near future that our team will have, I would say Joe's plan will fall flat this summer. I think he'll see that getting free agents to come here isn't all that easy, if at all possible. I think that he'll find that other GMs aren't so keen on giving up talent for nothing more than cap space and a sprinkling of picks. Then he'll spend the money at hand on whatever he sees as a good enough fit. Dame will get really sick of losing really quickly and request a trade well before the deadline and then will be moved near the deadline... possibly by a different GM or everything will be fantastic and we'll start winning like we haven't seen in decades... who the fuck knows?

 

Long athletes who can defend.

Little
Brown
Winslow
Smith Jr.

 

So true. That is why Brooklyn is a fake contender.

 

Because Nance is not available to play.

 

3 and D means you ARE good at defense. That's what the D stands for.

 

But Dame/CJ wasn't exactly the problem. It was our forward rotation. When above average defenders Aminu and Harkless were on the team, we got #3 seed twice and made the WCF even though they couldn't shoot. Then we let Mo and Chief go and committed to Hood/Collins who could shoot and had size and we probably would've made another deep run but both Hood and Collins got hurt. The "solutions" since then have been awful- Derrick Jones Jr, Robert Covington, Melo, Bazemore, Tolliver, Snell, and Nance (because he was hurt). So the thinking was always use CJ to get one of those forwards and let Crabbe or Powell or Ant slide in at SG. Well, CJ's gone now and we have Hart who is better than all of the above forwards. The hope is now that Joe will be able to find an All Star level forward to round out the roster. Jaylen Brown, Ben Simmons, Pascal Siakam, or Julius Randle (or LeBron). OR we get the guy in the draft. Yes, he might take 3 years to reach All Star level but if Chris Paul can contend at age 37 then Dame can contend at age 35. Dame/Ant/Hart/All Star/Nurk will contend.

 

Hoping Kawhi has a falling out with Lue and Chauncey swoops in!

 

You really need stars, and with Dame you need stars that are lock down wing defenders as well.

Fun fact, this FA group…..EVEN IF they ALL wanted to come to Portland, doesn’t offer those types of players. To add the stars you’ll need, you’ll need to trade for them, but all we have is Ant and two lottery picks

The smart move now is to trade Dame

 

Doubt they get it via the FA route. The weather, the taxes, the small market, the night life....there are a number of factors that all combined, make it tough.

• Use the cap space to create unbalanced trades and take advantage of certain situations
• Get a Top-3 pick and get the 2nd Lottery pick. Hit on one and use the other in a trade
• Embrace the tougher, hustle approach that seems to be Billups' ilk
• Get over-performing value out of the MLE
• Use the $21M TPE to good advantage

There are a lot of variables, but it is possible. No guarantees, but at least there feels like a direction.