Not necessarily. It is not all that uncommon for small market teams that elect to tank to miss the playoffs that may years in as row before actually climbing to the mediocrity of becoming a 1st round exit "treadmill" team. Besides, those were the only two choices I offered. Which would you prefer? BNM
If the choice is between being first round cannon fodder and an *incompetent* rebuild - I'll take the play-offs.
Playoffs. However, I'd also rather miss the playoffs 13 times out of 14 and win one championship in the other year than make the playoffs 14 times in a row with no title.
Missing some facts here, but assuming you mean 14 years of playoffs, but first round exits or 14 years of losing seasons, but also acquiring young developing talent that after 14 years could make it past the second round. I would take the latter. First round exits do nothing for me. Watching young players develop and gambling on the draft is something I enjoy, as long as it leads to hope down the road. Probably would have been a better question set at seven years each.
Fans want to feel like their team is either good, or on an upward trajectory. "Upward trajectories" often top off at mediocrity,as we've seen with several generations of blazer teams. But platuauing at mediocre for several years is indeed boring.
Too many guards and not enough small forwards. We can't expect Turner to be more than what he already is. He knows how to milk the Blazers.
Exactly, so fire Stotts, hire Messina, and trade for an Otto Porter Jr type. How is our backcourts defense something that caps us? We were in the top 10 last year defensively with a limited defensive scheme. With a good scheme we would've been borderline top 5. So I don't see how our success is capped by our backcourts lack of defense when our defense can be in the Top 5. If you use recent defensive results, that's recency bias on a much smaller sample size than a whole season. Not saying you'd use that argument, but others would.
Fans act like this is a Blazer thing. It's not. It's common, and the most likely outcome of any approach, including rebuilding. People act like simply blowing everything up is guaranteed to make us better in the long run, but it's most certainly not. Either that or they're that bored that they'd enjoy losing 50 games a season and having Darius Garland as our PG instead of Damian Lillard. If we did rebuild, all the people who are calling for it to happen would then complain about every draft pick that wasn't a star. They're the same people who don't know prospects before the draft but then afterwards, complain if we missed on a diamond in the rough that they didn't even know of, and that no GM saw coming (ex. Kuzma)... Even if we drafted a good player, it's be a ton of "We drafted Collins instead of Mitchell fire Olshey" type of crap.
Last year appears to be an anomaly over a larger 3-4 year span. Add in how the game is being reffed right now, and I see how they are limited...
Neither is 14 straight years without a playoff appearance. The longest active NBA playoff drought is 12, by Sacramento. And Portland's longest is 6, which ironically was immediately followed by their lone NBA championship.
No one said blowing it up is guaranteed to work... but you can’t definitively say it won’t... in fact it’s probably the highest probability way of putting together a contender at some point. What is garaunteed tho is that this team centered around McLillard will never win a title... or probably even a playoff series... and fans are sick of watching the same movie every year and hearing the same excuses
The one thing I can guarantee is trading Dame would be a stupid move. Trading Dame is literally a we want the city to encourage us to move to seattle type of strategy. Im ok with moving CJ (IF) if the return is good. I think a coaching change is a much better place to start. Theres 0 guarantee either one makes them better though. Thats just where Id start.
Indiana fans probably said the same thing before trading PG... I’m a fan of the front of the jersey not the back... this team’s not getting it done and has had more opportunities than most... time to move on... all options should be on the table
To a man, almost everyone thought that Indy initially lost the PG13 trade. Warriors fans felt the same about trading Ellis.
The comparison doesnt work when the star literally told them he was leaving the next year. Has Dame said that? Also for as good as Indy was last year and Victor played lights out its not like they turned into the warriors, they still got knocked out in the 1st round. I also bet theyd all rather have this years version of PG13 vs this years version of VO.
That’s my point... any trade for Dame probably won’t look good initially but you will get lots of young talent with opportunity to develop