Unless you're going to push Collins out of the rotation Look, There willing to take big risks. Something the Blazers are not.
The Raptors are a team trying to make a strong push to the NBA finals, something the Blazers are not in a position to pretend to have ambitions for. If the Raptors don't make moves like this, Kawhi is gone next summer. He may be gone anyway.
Collins is already on the edge of the rotation, along with Meyers. Stotts wouldn’t be rotating them otherwise.
Side note: Monroe is repped by David Falk, who’s in tight with Olshey. Shouldn’t mean much but with Olshey it seemingly does.
And I bet Leonard leaves after the season is over. Then they are in great shape for the next 3 years!
Say they make the ECF or the Finals and lose, then Kawhi leaves. That would still be an exciting season for their fans. Look at us we still talk about the Early 90's teams who got there, we still talk about the 2000 WCF's. They had already done the treading water stage for a few years w/ Derozan and Lowry. If the Blazers made the WCF a couple times even if it was followed by some down years that would still be really fun for us.
If we traded Dame before the deadline for say Davis or even Durant and they left after the playoffs for greener pastures, you be good with that? You'r not going get a a Marquee player even on a rental for anything less than Dame, imo.
Never said to trade Dame, but if they did and it equaled a couple runs at an actual championship, then yeah I would be ok with that. I'd rather they find a way to get another star to go with Dame. I want to see them look like a real contender before the end of Dame's time here though. Right now they seem pretty content to not be a contender, now maybe they just don't have anything other teams want, maybe they are trying everything in their power to bring guys in to go with Dame and they just can't do it, but it doesn't "feel" that way.
IMO, I don't think we have a guy or means to get us another all star to go along with Dame. However, if you are willing to include Dame and some I think you could swing a trade. But even then there is no guarantee that guy would be happy here. If Dames happy here now and willing to see what this next offseason brings to address certain areas, Id go with that too.
You may be right, but it seems like to me we've seen many stars traded lately for much less than we could've given even if we didn't include Dame. Paul George, Kawhi, Jimmy Butler (I get the dudes a jerk), Marc Gasol, etc. Not saying that all those guys are players we should've gone after just saying those type of moves are available, I'm not going to say I "know" why the Blazers aren't making them, because there is a lot of politics and stuff involved and a lot of reasons why a deal may or may not happen.
Yeah agree there's a lot of stuff involved. No way in heck Prichard trades George to Portland (political) and POPs SA wanted Leonard out of conference, same with Wolves and Butler. IF everyone can be a bit more patient Neils performance weighting is going up immensely starting with this year and if he doesn't get us out of first round both he a Terry could be gone. If we advance then who know's what potential they have with trades and/or FA's.
