Merged: Who would you give up for Paul George?

Also, I think the gamble is not on who we'd have to trade because I think the Knicks would take our 2nd level players and even our high-priced role-players for him, I think they really want him out.
The question is what his impact on the team would be because if he wants to still be the man and doesn't become more of a team player and conform to a team concept his impact could be negative

 

Boom! Exactly right!

To go on a tangent to some of what you wrote, trading either Harkless or Vonleh puts us in a very tricky situation, unless they are being traded for their replacement. Shipping either out without receiving a corresponding starting SF/PF puts us in the position of having to play Aminu, which will negate much of what we gained in the trade.

Any trades utilizing our draft picks need to be built around Turner/Crabbe/Aminu/Davis, which means we either need to find a stupid GM with a good player, or we're just not going to get a very good player back in the trade. Which means we should just use our draft picks, or trade some for future draft picks.

 

No way.

It means CJ wants to join PG in LA

Duh.

 

Damian Lillard

 

How much would we have to send out to get them to take him? I don't think we have the assets.

 

So true.

 

Well if that's what CJ wants, there is no doubt PG will demand that it happens.

Shorts creamed!

 

I'll propose Crabbe, Harkless, Vonleh and Napier, all really young except for Crabbe and he's not that old. Back comes PG, Jefferson and Ellis. Jefferson and Ellis are 31 and 32 with two years left on their contracts. We give them out 3 picks or else 2 this year and one next year.

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=lhnral8

 

I don't like Carmelo, and for sure George would be a gamble that he'd want to re-sign here, but this idea that this team can't (or shouldn't) take big risks to dramatically improve is an illusion. What are they risking? Right now they are about 2 tiers below the conference elite Warriors (even with Nurkic). All they risk is going from a middling treadmill team with a bloated salary, to a lottery team (with a bloated salary) if George decided to bolt; the Blazers would certainly be worse off in the wins-losses column, but at least they'd shed 20 million a year in guaranteed money (assuming CJ is the player being swapped) that threatens to put them into the repeat offender category of teams over the cap.

George is a talent worth pursuing because he has the talent to make a difference -- a player who can actually defend on the wing and be legit number 1 or 2 scoring threat. Without that kind of trade, the Blazers are no threat to the Warriors.

 

You can't afford to pay PG, CJ, Damian and Nurkic. Pick three. Also, nevermind the fact, that Indy is going to have richer trade offers than we can give them if we refuse to consider CJ, or Damian in the package.

 

I'd be willing to take back one bad contract of an old player but not two especially if we are including Draft picks and you have no idea if PG will re-sign. Crabbe, Harkless and Aminu plus a pick gives them a SG, SF and SF/PF, all young, and all signed for a while. Indy has a similar problem as Portland......FA's aren't flocking to go there. Since PG is going to leave anyhow, that gives them a young core under control for a while. I'd include up to one pick but no more as Portland is going to need those picks to fill in their roster as on top of Crabbe, Aminu and Harkless leaving, Ezeli is also gone. That's 4 out with just two coming back. Cheap Draft picks will be needed.

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=lndmkq2

 

The one thing I've learned after watching Larry Bird's moves up close for a few years-- he doesn't tank. This ownership doesn't want that. They also don't like being strong armed into moves.

 

I don't see how that works out either. In 2018/19, Dame will make almost $28,000,000. CJ will be near $26, 000,000 and Nurkic would be in the first year of a contract you would imagine would be around at least $20,000,000. Add what George would be in line for in that season and it's probably more than Dame at around $30,000,000.

That's $104,000,000 on 4 players. They would need almost the entire rest of the roster to be on Rookie scale or Veteran minimum contracts if that were the case. Now you might be able to finally get some of those veterans to come to Portland to play with that lineup with the idea of having a real shot to win.

 

Exactly. Dame/CJ/PG/Nurk is one of the best cores to build around. That team competes for WCF yearly if healthy and PA will have no issue going over luxury tax for that team.

 

Yeah I don't see how we're in a win-now node. 2-3 years from now, Dame will be 29, CJ 28, and Nurk 25. That's PRIME TIME right there. During the 1989-90 finals, Clyde and Jerome were days from being 28, and Terry was 27.

 

Right, but we might have to throw in our draft picks through 2050 and 17 billion in cash as sweetener.

 

Yeh, Jefferson has a PER of 19. He could fill in until we developed a younger guy. Could those two play together on defense though? If TBpup thinks we shouldn't give so much draft picks, maybe give them the picks but keep Vonleh.

 

He might be thinking what he has been doing has not been working that well.