Legit game changers to put Portland into contention

he's still coming into his own. Point #2 is like using the fact that Lillard's never "led" a team anywhere to belittle him.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea and would probably trade 3 valuable pieces. You just have to consider that a guy that beastly was part of teams that had a worse record than the Blazers may have next year. If he is that transcendent piece, then why didn't they win more. I'm willing to bet a lot of young talent on that--just not all of our young talent on that.

 

The Blazers can go sign free agents in the next two summers right now. They don't need to make any trade to do that. It odd how you talk about signing free agents if we have Boogie here as if its only possible with him here. If he's not on the roster with his max contract we'll have even more money to use in free agency.

If you had the power to implement your plan and it fails Boogie would have less value now than in 2 years. You've paid for a stock when it was high, gave up a bunch of interesting stock options to make the trade, and now have to scramble to sell it when its worth less. Thats a horrible plan. Although as you say your fine with your plan failing. If you think your plan works when it fails I'm not sure what to tell you. To a casual observe it appears to be delusional ramblings.

Yup. I'm all for bringing in Cousins or any allstar but it needs to be the move that makes us a solid playoff team. Trading all of our "could be" players for Cousins leaves us with a two man team of fringe allstars and that's not winning anything. Maybe if they were perennial MVP candidates its one thing. But neither Dame nor Cousins is at that level. Cousins is going to want to come to to a situation where he is winning immediately. If we remove most of the best players from a bottom tier western Blazer team even a huge upgrade at one position won't help.

 

No problem. Just don't let it happen again

 

There are several nonbasketball reasons to bring Boogie to PDX, not the least of which is that he's locked into a contract for several more years, and he would look forward to playing for us.

 

Here's what I would do to summarize. Trade CJ, Plumlee and fraizer. They can choose between Vonleh or Leonard as the 4th player (I would rather have Vonleh). No draft picks unless they are the 2nd rounders.

A trio of Dame, Boogie and Vonleh would be sick. I think that core could entice a legit free agent next summer.

 

That whole first paragraph is wrong
1.) We don't have the type of talent to attract good free agents right now. Getting a 2nd all star helps with that.
2.) He doesn't have a "max" contract. He's only making $15M next year, which is a bargain for someone of his talent
3.) I suggest trading Davis or Aminu with whatever package we send out. That $8M plus whoever leaves will be around what DMC is making. So no we wouldn't have more cap for free agents by keeping it the way it is, but keeping it the way it is makes cap space pointless.


As for your 2nd paragraph, we have no clue if DMCs stock will continue rise or not. But since he's 25 years old, I think that coupled with playing with Dame will make him even better.
In the event that doesn't pan out, you'd still be able to get a couple firsts for him, you'd have tons of cap space + extra assets in the way of picks, and you could also tank a year to get a top pick to trade for a star or pair with a 27 or 28 year old Dame, who played 4 years in college so should be a younger 28 year old than most.

The backup plan to the "farm system" plan is what exactly?

 

Vonleh actually plays like a lotto pick, Leonard performs like he has the last month of the season, CJ comes in at a Jason Terry 6th man, Plumlee plays defense and rebounds, Davis plays defense and rebounds, Dame becomes a stud, the team actually sniffs the playoffs with a salary that is 15 mil under cap.

 

You do realize Cousin has told Karl that he doesn't want to be a center don't you? He wants to play PF now and Karl disagreed with him. I don't think he's the best center in the NBA personally but he's a top level center on a crappy team that needs the ball all the time. I like Boogie's game. I just think he's a very selfish diva...I felt the same way about Shaq..BJ...you've milked this cow dry...give it a rest or just follow the Kings and enjoy the highlight reels. You don't gut the roster for superstars...the Lakers tried that and it doesn't work. Olshey knows more about the guys we have than you'll ever know. You've turned multiple threads into Boogie lobbying. To me, Marc Gasol is the best center in the NBA.

 

Actually, I agree Marc is better just because of his defense.

I do like Cousins better as a 4, it's a better fit for him when attacking offensively and defensively. This whole argument is honestly over an extra player and an extra pick in a trade for him and if you'd do it. I would do anything though to pair DMC with Leonard or Vonleh.
You wouldn't have to deem one a center or one a power forward, since all of them are hybrid bigs, and having a big man that can shoot and defend the rim (potentially) next to Cousins would be a match made in heaven.

As for "milking this cow dry", me and MAGS argued in one thread about it. He made this thread in relation to what we talked about. I'm but sure I was the one that even brought up Boogie in this thread, and if I did, so what? You don't have to read... if you don't care just stop reading when you see "Cousins", "DMC", or "Boogie" in the post. It's August, and I enjoy having a debate on a topic where everyone knows what they're talking about and have an articulate take on the matter. So what if I explore every angle of my own opinion?

 

No, going deep in the Playoffs helps with that. A lotto team with two all-stars and no depth isn't going to bring a star FA here. We have to make it to the WCF before a star FA will even consider signing with us, and the team you propose is further away from the WCF than our current team is.

 

Exactly this! Actually, I think making it to the second round is enough because of our age. One more piece could become what is needed to get over the hump. The free-agent could look at the team and see they have even more room to grow.

 

You really think this exact team is built to make the WCF down the road, let alone the 2nd round? Haha that says it all.

First off, having Cousins makes us better. You don't make the team worse immediately by trading prospects for an all star.

2nd, the WCF is not a requirement for a star free agent. A free agent would look at us with DMC and say, "they have two top 15 NBA players that are still improving and yet to hit their prime. With as a part of that core we'd be deadly."

 

you realize that with this group, if we ever made the 2nd round out wouldn't be for 3 or 4 years, when our average age would be 27 or 28. We wouldn't be considered young anymore...

 

being 27-28 is the perfect contending age.

 

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.
Regarding your first sentence, and in the parlance of S2: learn to read then post.

 

I did? Sounds like you didn't since you responded with this.

 

Yeah it is, but a free agent won't look at a bunch of players in their prime and say "I wanna join them because they have even more room to grow" ya know?

 

You said:

Now show me where I said I think our current team is built to make the WCF.