This Douglas is waaaaay sicker. Someone needs to go digging in the closet and find it. (There’s a joke to be said here…..)
I'm sick of the Blazers scraping together mediocre veterans to build a roster of being first round fodder in the playoffs. Yes there were years the team was winning, but since Wes achilies we never had a chance to contend. I'd rather have the team collect assets to build for a longer term future. The Lakers added a ton of young talent even with an old Kobe Bryant, so the Blazers can follow some of that blueprint and build even with a veteran Dame if they want. The biggest problem is I question the competency of the current GM as well as ownership. So even if they follow a great strategy I have doubts they can successfully execute it. Personally I don't care about the Blazers profit or lack of profit unless it could lead to the franchise relocating. But I accept ownership might care about profit and have to make some adjustments for that. As a fan I care about contending and this franchise hasn't been close in a long time. Even the Aldridge Wes team was more of a longshot unlikely contender, so you have to really go back to 2000 to see a roster that was a legit contender. If the Blazers spend 5 years in the lottery, then have 5 years of contending it'll be well worth it. Could it fail? Certainly. But having 5 years of lottery vs 5 years of first round exits just doesn't matter much to me. Perhaps your argument is the 5 years of losing doesn't make contending any more likely, or it may make it less likely. With our poor current management you might be right. It's a valid argument. I guess if they are so poor, it probably doesn't matter what strategy they pick because they will fail at any and all of them. If a team was manager well they could use losing to build draft assets, acquire young players with upside, and take on other teams overpaid players for assets. That would lead to short term losses and long term wins. That's what I'd prefer the current Blazers franchise do, successfully.
