Who cares? Kawhi Leonard is EXACTLY the kind of elite talent the Blazers cannot attract in free agency. Since we can't get someone like him through free agency, the only way to get him is through trade. Adding him to Dame would give us two elite players, that also happen to be younger than all of GSW's Big 4, OKC's Big 3, HOU's Big 2 and CLE's Big 1. With the two of them, a 3rd elite player, looking for a place to win a ring, wouldn't be far behind. And once you have that, you can hold the door open for all the veteran role players and ring chasers you want. Seriously, you think Carmelo Anthony would have agreed to wave his no trade clause go to OKC if they didn't already have Russell Westbrook and Paul George? Do you think he would have wanted to go to HOU if they didn't already have James Harden and Chris Paul? Yeah, Melo is past his prime, but he was highly sought after and got to choose his destination. Dame and Kawhi would give us the first two pieces necessary to lure the third. BNM
Boston can't trade Gordon Hayward. Think of the repercussions Danny Ainge would receive from agents around the league. Not only did they trade IT after he gave them everything and then some but adding a Hayward trade, who was their prize free agent, to the mix would really destroy his reputation internally. No clients would send their clients Boston's way if he moved Hayward less than a year into his contract.
This. But one tale of caution. I bet NO was saying the exact same thing when they paired Boogie with AD. I don't have much faith in Neil's ability to find the right kinda ancillary pieces. Fearful of the thought of someone like Solomon Hill and E'Twaun Moore as my fourth and fifth best players.
The problem is: can we get him. Is a package built around C.J. enough. Maybe if you include Nurk and Collins. I hate to be the one to bring it up, but would you (or anyone else) be willing to consider a Dame for Kawhi swap if it let us keep Nurk and C.J.? A starting 5 of Shabazz, C.J., Kawhi, Collins, Nurk looks pretty promising going forward. Nurk and Collins should enter their primes before Kawhi, C.J. and Shabazz exit theirs. BNM
Absolutely, if you're extremely confident that Leonard will re-sign in Portland in summer 2019. Upgrading from Lillard (a star) to Leonard (a true superstar) is the type of difference that could make Portland a real contender to make the conference finals. Things would have to get very bad between San Antonio and Leonard for the Spurs to consider such a swap, though.
My buddy was talking about that (trading Dame and Keeping Shabazz). IMO it makes no sense to do that and bring in Kawhi. Kawhi IMO would rather play WITH Dame. I'm not on board in any way with regard to trading Dame.
Of course not. It's great fictional writing at it's best. I marked in bold the "For Reasons" for a reason. It's Shakespearean in it's magnitude.
I don't think it's even paraphrasing. I think it's just meant to be a funny made-up exchange, to introduce the possibility of a Portland/San Antonio trade. Pretty much all of that article seemed tongue-in-cheek.
I just looked up what Leonard's stats of this season are, dude has only played 9 games? This is a really weird situation, either the Spurs are über paranoid or he has something wrong with him of the Brandon Roy variety.
(First) 1. Dame meets with Paul (then) 2. Kawhi wants out of SA (next) 3. Portland trades for Kawhi It all makes perfect sense.
Yeah, it would be a pretty shitty thing to do to a guy who has been so loyal to this organization and this city. Trading him anywhere would be bad enough, but forcing him to "reunite" with Aldridge would be cruel. But ya gotta admit, it sure would make for some interesting POR vs. SAS playoff series. BNM
4. Blazer fans wake up from wet dream in disgust of what they did to their favorite pair of underwear.
Can you imagine how pissed (pouty) Aldridge would be if the Spurs traded for the very spotlight-thief he basically left Portland to get away from?
