Because the Bulls are in contention, but currently have traded their 2023 pick to Orlando. Because our pick is not guaranteed to them, they can not trade a pick to improve themselves. They also owe their 2025 to S.A. So if we guarantee our pick to them, they can then look to trade our pick or their pick to try to contend this season with a move.
It would be a gamble on our part and a stupid one too. If we had injuries that happened and we still ended up in the lottery after whatever deal we made..... It isn't petty. It is about leverage. They owe us no favors. Maybe we pay them money, maybe we give them a future 2nd. I don't see them just saying yes, lets do it out of the goodness of our hearts.
They can trade our protected pick to someone else and upgrade if they wanted to try to do that. They still have their own pick for 2022 which is looking like it will be in the mid 20's anyways. They might find a taker that thinks we sneak into the playoffs making our pick more valuable to them than their own.
This is the thing about trading Dame for picks right now, especially to a team already contending. If it was draft day and you had a target in the draft along with a young proven talent and then some future draft considerations then we could pull the old screw job on Dame. For real, there just isn't going to be a trade out there that gets Dame where he would want to go and gets us anything close to what Dame is going to give us for the next few years. The trade isn't going to be out there. So what makes sense is to let the greatest Blazer of all time be here as long as he wants and if he decides he doesn't want to anymore (which I think is very unlikely) then you sit him down and tell him you're going to trade him but do what's best for the team at that point... unless it's at a point in his career where his trade value is low and then we can trade him to a team of his choice.
Just allowing him to be here just because isn't going to get us any closer to a championship. If they can put an actual team together that can compete with the Warriors, then I am all for letting Dame ride out the next 5+ years of his career with us. I don't see many ways for us to do that. If we aren't going to be even close to contending, it is foolish to pay him 50+ million at 35 or whatever just out of feelings.
I would never do anything just out of feelings. I'm saying that I wouldn't give some other team a championship or three with Dame unless we are getting back players we know will make an impact on our future efforts to win a championship. Giving Dame to the Sixers for a player they don't play at all (regardless of how talented he is), Maxey who is good but not great and three picks that will all be glorified second rounders because we just gave them Dame to go with Embiid, Harris and the six really good role players they have around those guys, is a bad idea. You don't think we can make moves to contend with Dame. I do. I think it's that simple. The fact is we've never had a GM willing to take big swings in order to really give Dame a chance. Hopefully now we do or if Joe is risk averse like his predecessor then he won't be our GM in the summer and we'll get someone with a vision for building a contender around Dame then. I hope Joe is a swing for the fences guy with vision because he seems like a smart high character individual and I'd love to get things going before the trade deadline as opposed to before and during the draft.
If I owned the Blazers I would never trade Dame for any package unless he told me he wanted to be traded. It's called loyalty and Dame deserves that.
And fans deserve more than mediocrity. If a team isn't trying to win a championship what is the point?
