If we get our lotto pick and Chicago takes the Knicks pick we would have 4FRPs and 3 swaps and that's if we keep our lotto pick we could pick for another team and that would mean being able to send out 5FRPs and 3 swaps.
I’ll tell you right now though if we win the lottery and had 19 year olds sharpe/Wemby to build around I might do Dame a solid and ship him to a contender for 5 1s and a young potential star to team with Sharpe/Wemby.
Portland has way to many players under contract to keep any of the new Blazers and resign Grant without nudging towards luxury tax. Cronin will have to find a new home for somebody else to make room for Cam/Thybulle or Knox
If the goal is to destroy the fan base and put the franchise in a position where they need to relocate this is how you do it. Teams as bad as the Blazers are not supposed to go all in. It makes absolutely no sense and is completely out of touch with reality. When a franchise is looking to sell they cut costs and acquire young players with potential. What they don’t do is mortgage the next decade right before passing to new ownership.
Do people think: 1) The Blazers are going to let Grant walk for nothing? 2) Letting Grant walk for nothing sets the team up for success? This seems like another one of those talking points that is gaining traction despite having a very very very low probability of happening (for good reason).
But players will go anyway, because the team has to look like it’s doing something. What comes back will be no better than what goes out, however: Aminu, Harkless, Powell, Blake, Hood, Jones, Covington, Payton, Hart, Zeller, Nance, Elleby, and on and on. They’re all just interchangeable parts. None of them change anything.
Is it doing him a solid if that's not what Dame wants, though? I keep wanting to grab and shake people who think everyone's motivations are exactly the same. Like winning a ring is the be-all, end-all for everyone. How you win or chase the ring might be the important thing to some people. Building a legacy in one place might be the important thing to some people. Not moving around might be important to some people. Winning the ring might be important, but it might not be at the top of the pyramid of importance for Dame or someone else. If you want to say trade Dame for five 1s because that's best for the Blazers, I could get on board with it. But can we stop talking like we'd be doing it primarily because of how much we care for Damian Lillard? Because that's a lie. Because everything he's ever said is that's not what he wants.
The only way Chicago gets our pick is if it's outside the lottery. Conceivably, I think we could trade them the Knicks pick this year in place of that pick, but I don't know why the Blazers would do that. If the Blazers remain in the lottery long enough, that pick they owe the Bulls is downgraded to a second rounder, IIRC. If you're worried about not being able to trade our pick because the Bulls might have first claim on it, the smarter thing would just be to use the Knicks pick in a trade instead of the Blazers' non-lottery pick owed to the Bulls (they'd realistically be around the same spot in the draft ... late teens to early 20s). There's no benefit in trading away a 1 that might end up being a 2 in a couple of years when you have a spare 1 already in your pocket.
Sharpe has been our worst rotational player all year. Yes he's a rookie, yes he seems to have all the tools to be really good, but he has been objectively bad. Is it just youth; is it coaching; is it confidence; is it motor; is it BBIQ? I don't know, but I'm souring on him. All these comparisons everyone's making between him and the all-star wings people think he reminds them of... have any been as ineffective overall as rookies as he has been? If Sharpe is the piece that will get us a legit star to pair with Dame, I'd certainly listen.
part of the reason people are talking like that could be Portland's recent history of significantly overpaying the existing market for role players. Bidding against themselves. They did it with Turner, Crabbe, and Meyers. With CJ and Harkless. All got a lot more money than the market was at the time. And last summer the same thing happened with Ant, Nurk, and Payton. I don't think there was a single chance that any team was going to swoop in and offer Nurkic more than what his current-st-the-time salary of 12M was. But Portland paid him 5.5M more a year than 12M. And there were only about 3 teams that could have offered Simons even 20M/year. But I don't believe any of those teams would have had interest in Simons. For instance, one of the teams was Indiana and they already had Haliburton, Hield, Duarte, Nembhard, TJ McConnell, and had just drafted Mathurin. Detroit was stocked at guard as well and had just drafted Jaden Ivey that's why I was saying Portland overpaid. Not because of some comparison of league-wide salaries but because the market last summer for Ant + Nurk was nowhere near 43M/year. I'd say closer to 30M/year so that leads to Grant and his impending free agency vs the worry about Cronin & Blazer management's history with free agents. Right now Grant represents Cronin's biggest success. He essentially, at this point, traded CJ for Grant, Thybulle, Reddish & a 1st round pick. Knowing CJ's flaws and fit with Dame, that's a good trade for the Blazers. But taking Grant out of the equation seriously degrades the value. Cronin may be over-motivated to re-sign Grant and his recent history with Ant & Nurk make that a legitimate worry which leads to the market. If you assume there will be a 130M cap, then these are the teams that 'could' have that much cap-space: Orlando Magic $99,825,364 Oklahoma City Thunder $97,104,155 Detroit Pistons $95,492,991 Indiana Pacers $95,452,116 Utah Jazz $91,116,018 Charlotte Hornets $86,528,072 San Antonio Spurs $84,157,979 Houston Rockets $68,984,207 (that's from BBREF so there will be lots of flux in those numbers) there's no reason to go thru the teams. I've glanced at their rosters and cap situation and I have a really hard time seeing any of those teams setting their sights on Grant as a free agent prize. None would offer 30M and I'd really be amazed if any would even consider 20M the market for Grant is not 30M...not even close. That's not saying that the Blazers won't pay him that much if they are fearing he might walk. But for once I'd like to see the Blazers hardball their way into a decent contract. Grant at 20-23M year is a positive tradable contract. At 30-35M/year, he's an albatross contract
Which doesn't have anything to do with "doing him a solid" when he's said he wants to remain in Portland. Again, Lillard's said time and time again what he wants. He hasn't acted in any way that we know of that would contradict that and he's consistently shown to be a person whose actions have aligned with his words, so, if we're talking about trading him, let's stop hiding behind the idea that we're doing it for him. We don't have to save Dame Lillard from himself. He's a grown-@$$ man. Maybe he doesn't think like Kevin Durant. Maybe he likes the challenge. Let's take him at his word and be honest that if we want to trade him it's not because we're altruistic but because we think it's better for the Blazers franchise. That's all I am saying. We need to stop being mealy-mouthed.
Maybe the real question is…. Can we seriously compete for a ring with a non defense playing shoot first pg making 34% of the salary cap?
