Notice Joe Cronin Press Conference

He did insinuate the possibility of other landing spots for Dame

 

Ed, regarding free agency, I think the minute Dame asked for a trade, our free agency was doomed. How can we make any kind of long-term investment? (other than Grant, which I am convinced was agreed upon before we traded for him). Thybulle was an easy call. Not much money (and money we were going to have to spend anyway due to the CBA) and no more than a three-year deal with a desperately needed skill set.

I'm giving Cronin a pass on this year's free agency. It's a time to keep your powder dry, see what you get back for Dame, see what you can send out (Nurk, Grant, Ant, etc.), and take a look at the trade deadline or after the season to see where we stand.

The 2023-24 Blazers are going to be about imagining the future rather than building a competitive team.

 

Because that's the primary takeaway from the press conference.

 

I'd take it a step further and say an outcome doesn't always prove if a decision was right or not. All these transactions and paths have certain degrees of probabilty that are out of anyones control.

Will Dame/Sharpe/Scoot suffer a career altering injury? How quickly will Dame decline? What is Scott/Sharpe's ceiling? How likely are they to get near that ceiling?

 

You need to consider their 24 1st as trash

 

Yup, You got to play the percentages and when something is obvious (as apparently was the case with Sharpe and likely be with Scoot) - you are either going to blamed if it fails against the odds or ignore giving it credit because it was "obvious", so I am not surprised that Cronin is getting the flack he is getting - because people always want everything now, now, now.

I think that we have seen before that the moves on the margins (See Roco, via NeO) are easy to make and are not that likely to work but can have long-term ramifications (see pick owed to Chicago and it's influence on Portland's ability to trade).

From everything we know so far, it seems like Cronin is following the logical path.

 

He wasn't trying to be a millionaie from zero net worth. He started with significant debt.

 

Joe is a compulsive liar just like Neil Olshey was.

 

Hopefully by accepting the blame and not being critical of Lillard, this will soften Lillard's position on insisting on Miami....

 

You didn't have to mention Blevins. I knew who you meant.

 

Yeesh, and I thought your verbosity was limited to your own thoughts.

JK, this is great, Nate, thanks for compiling it.

 

Taking responsibility is a good move; it's a zero-cost move on his part (because the situation cannot be changed) and means that if Dame or his agent are still shitty after this they look that much worse.

 

Just more Cronin lies.

 

It doesn't benefit Joe's situation in any way to show it, so he's being smart. Playing nice publically with the season approaching seems a subtle way of putting the screws to Dame's camp to be open to more options. Father Time is not on Dame Time's side. I very much doubt he wants to sit out this season and it may dawn on them that Portland isn't going to do a deal that lands them nothing in return just to appease him.

STOMP

 

This reminded me of Obi-Wan Kenobi speaking to Anakin just before cutting his arms and legs off.

 

Did he actually say that?

 

I think the Blazers are going full speed ahead with building through the draft at least initially. It's a strength of our front office right now and going to be where our resources reside. We'll be able to shoulder a couple of bad contracts because we're going to have a lot of low-cost contributors developing, and, honestly, those bad contracts will serve as player-coaches if the Blazers are smart. I don't think having a team of all young guys usually works; you need a mentor or two practicing with the young guys.

 

Word for word.