I have zero regrets. He never could have been offered, as when Miami made their offer he was ineligible to be traded and the teams never talked after. I doubt the Heat would've emptied anywhere close to all their assets anyways. They just wanted to steal the Blazers star for pennies on the dollar as they did with Butler/LeBron/etc. Fuck the Heat, their ownership, management, delusional media, and huge group of entitled fans.
two of those picks were 'i'm shorting the miami beach community' miami picks, one of them was a protected shitty tyler herro pick, and the 4th pick--let's face it, that 4th pick doesn't exist. and if you have to say 'a younger player' you're absolutely talking about the likes of nikola jovic. (unmoved at second rounders and pick swaps—that's like putting sriacha on week-old takeout).
Forget what? So you found some Miami media that says Miami was "working" on a package - whatever that means. This was confirmed to have never been offered. Miami made one lowball offer when Dame first demanded a trade and the teams never spoke afterwards.
Forget what was and was not explicitly offered. Jaquez was never even mentioned. I think, given how much chatter there was about him specifically, that we can be confident that Herro was. I'm kind of surprised that Miami didn't make more of an effort to land Jrue. Maybe relations between Cronin and Miami FO just soured beyond repair, or Cronin just liked Boston's offer better. In retrospect acquiring two injured vets for a rebuilding team doesn't seem so great. That's a package that should have appealed to a team that was trying to make the playoffs.
what I think happened but can't prove: Dame felt Conin had conned him with platitudes about building a contender around him, but never really tried. There may have been a couple of trade offers that Dame knew about and thought might helped, but the Blazers had no interest. So, Dame was disappointed and pissed-off by the time he asked to be traded. And he told his agent that Miami was a preferred destination. Meanwhile, his agent and Pat Riley capitalized on Dame's anger at Cronin to construct the 'Miami-or-Bust' position in an attempt to corner the Blazer F.O. And, believing he had a big leverage hammer, Riley made a low-ball offer....an insulting low-ball offer that was likely something like Herro and Lowry plus a couple of protected first round picks. It's not a coincidence that Riley signed Jaquez in the earliest minute of the off-season possible, taking him out of trade discussions for 30 days the Blazer F.O. was fully aware of the 'collusion' between Dame's agent and Pat Riley, even before the 'Miami-or-Bust' noise was heard by the masses. So, already kind of angry themselves, when Riley made his insulting low-ball offer, Cronin essentially told the Heat to pound sand, cut off communication, and let Dame and his agent know it would never be Miami. And they 'won' the stare-down, even though 'winning' in this case was Brogdon, Timelord, and a couple of picks 6 years away but mainly, I think it's pretty clear that Miami never made an honest attempt to land Dame; they only tried to steal him. meaning there is a lot of sand in Miami to pound
Yeah I agree it's something along these lines. Curious what the actual deals are that Dame wanted, Cronin/Blazers refused, and then Dame was furious. I've always suspected it was Jaylen Brown for #3+Ant. If that's the case I can totally sympathize with Dame scorched earth stance. He agrees to sit for the tank and improve the Blazers pick with an understanding it'll lead to a trade bringing in a vet. He is told to recruit stars and gets Brown to force his way to PDX like Grant. Then the Blazers refuse to trade away the pick, and actually use it on a 19year old 6'3 guy to basically eventually replace himself.
I'm skeptical that Brown was ever in play. Even if Brown & Dame hatched this plan, it was missing approval of one very important person.... Brad Stevens. This all presupposes that Celtics would be willing to trade Brown for #3+Ant. Given Brown signed a massive extension at the end of July '23 -> he could have very well just been using Dame as leverage to get a better extension. That doesn't mean that Dame didn't THINK everything was lined up for an easy transaction. Based on his view of the world, he could have still be 'justifiably' mad. Ultimately, we will likely never know for sure.
