Losing respect for Dame by the day with the way he is allowing his agent to handle this. I understand why he asked for a trade. How he is going about it is making him look like a petulant rich kid. Nearly $450,000,000 in contracts the Blazers agreed to pay him, never a dime under the max. Exactly what loyalty is he referring to?
...did he post more or just the stuff about the meeting and them essentially trying to fact check potential trades etc?
Simply posturing strategy. Joe is a slow mover he will take this up to fall camp or beyond. Which is fine if acceptable deals aren't presented. This time off year its about vacation and summer league for players and team personnel.
I think it's pretty obvious he feels like Cronin (and/or the Vulcans), at the minimum, deliberately mislead him, maybe for months. Whether or not Dame is justified in feeling that way, I don't know, but it's pretty clear there is some real bad blood between Dame and the Blazer FO right now; that the situation was teetering on an edge and fell into a bad place I know there is a powerful rush around here into reaching really harsh judgements against Dame; and the Miami or Bust stance certainly justifies some harsh judgement. But I don't think Dame arrived at this scorched earth point in time because he had benign or ambivalent feelings about the Blazers and just wants out. There is some strong appearance of grudge going right now, and it would be a real stretch to believe the Blazers were totally innocent...although I suppose incompetence could shelter a lot if innocence.
I don't think anyone is completely innocent. But there is a classy way to handle things and then there is not by hamstringing the team you had so much loyalty to, wants to retire here, be the greatest Blazer, live here after he retires.....you don't pull this crap. I don't recall picture of anyone holding a gun to Dame's head to make him sign the SuperMax extension. Dame knew it would be difficult to get people here and he should know Portland isn't going to gave and give up Scoot, Sharpe, Ant and Nurk for 1 player who won't make much of a difference and will cost a fortune. Ask for a trade, demand a trade.....fine. But this is making KD, Kawhi and even Harden look a lot classier....and that is quite a fall from grace.
How is it that on Jun 26 while he was at his meeting with the FO, an article came out stating that MIA and BKN were his preferences due to his friendships with Bam and Mikal Bridges (I thought he also had one with Jerami, but I digress), and yet it became MIA-or-scorched-earth?
We also find out he was probably recruited by Green and not the other way around. Let's just say speculation and the fact he is from there.
Wasn't everything around then with brooklyn and miami based on the interview he did where the host specifically asked him about those teams, though? Then it immediately got spun to, he has a list(ultimately he had a 1 team list apparently).
I think it's in a bad place. I haven't seen where the Blazer FO is reciprocating the bad blood Team Dame feels. I really don't think asking for more than scraps in trade is being done out of spite. And, let's be honest, what Dame is asking is pretty out of line for what players like him have fetched in the past. If you have a guy working for your insurance company and you make him a middle manager and he decides to leave for the competition, you might not like it, but you usually accept it. You don't let him keep the company car and agree to pay for his new firm's ad campaign that he's now working for them. And, again, on top of that, I don't know how Team Dame can claim he was loyal as if he was putting up with stuff that was unreasonable. He had it better than any player in the league. He got max contracts. He got portrayed as the ideal team player and leader. No one, NO ONE gets their cousin who can't play put on the roster for a couple of months let alone two years. The Blazers gave away a lot of their future for average players Dame wanted. Dame was informed about everything. Perhaps where the Blazers went wrong was treating Dame more like a special member of the family than just a great player. It seems to me like that went to his head and the moment he didn't get exactly what he wanted, he took it as a affront and immediately went into scorched earth mode. Anyway, someone's going to have to show me what the Blazers are doing now that indicates a grudge, because I don't see it.
The calm one in an argument is always perceived as more reasonable even if they aren’t being more reasonable. The FO is playing the public game better than Dame but is sure doesn’t mean they’re right. What a Pyrrhic victory for people who wanted to trade Dame, if the only way we got that is because Cronin fucked him over to make him demand a trade. What a shitty way to find out Cronin is competent at his job.
