Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by greenyellow »

Season is now mercifully over. Now they've got to figure out how to build a winner.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by Boom »

Hopefully they get lucky in the lottery. Regardless though I think they need to trade Dame or Simmons. Pick a direction.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by pezsez1 »

I'd rather they keep Dame and trade Simons. His salary is massive, but he's a generational talent who could be paired with Sharpe as his size-appropriate wingman. Sharpe looks like a star in the making and I think he'd thrive in a starting role.

I've never been convinced of Ant being a franchise pillar. He's a nice player, but I think he is what he is. Great three-point shooter, but lousy defender and can't make his own shot. Very inconsistent, not the best facilitator. We kind of play him as this weird SG/backup PG, but he's not a great PG and he's an extreme liability alongside Dame. Another team could get far more use from him.

Keep Dame, keep Sharpe, and trade/deal anything else. The only way I'd consider trading Sharpe might be if the other team was willing to take Nurk to make salaries match. Otherwise, I'd have to think Ant + our lottery pick (assuming it's not Wemby) would anchor whatever big trade we make. Ant's value will never be higher than it is right now.

Hopefully Cronin has the stones to make this happen.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by Phalanx »

Get rid of Dame yesterday. The dude has been a millstone around the team's neck in terms of the salary cap for a long time, but for the last several years, he has also been poison to the team's future. How many first-round picks have been wasted now to trade for player rentals? He gets so much of the team's money, but takes zero responsibility for the losing. Sheesh, two years in a row of tanking, and before that, years of getting bounced in the first round. Now he is implying that he again wants to trade the future of the team so that they can continue their 'build around Dame' strategy that has been an abject failure. When will the madness end?

It's time to use those draft picks and build for the future. If Lillard doesn't want to earn his ridiculous contract and build the team up, then jettison him. If that is even possible with that contract. I'm tired of losing, and I'm tired of the lack of fire. Start over with Sharpe and Simons. Two first-rounders and whatever they can get for Lillard would go a long way to returning some kind of enthusiasm for the team.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by Duck07 »

Until they sell the team and a new Owner is willing to make these decisions any moves will be made with an eye towards maximizing the $ return to Vulcan/PGA Trust and nothing more. They aren't making moves to go into the Tax and they won't be trading Dame so nothing will actually improve.

It's a wonderful place for Jody Allen to put the fans in.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by pezsez1 »

Phalanx and Duck07, why do you think we can't improve with Dame?

The team's mediocrity isn't his fault. That's on Neil Olshey for getting comfy with playoff berths and not wanting to take any risks (with his job). The Olshey era dragged on a couple years longer than it should have because of Paul Allen's health and eventual death. The new admin is still digging out from his bad contracts (and we might end up stuck with Nurk's).

Dame's max deal is one of the few contracts on the team that actually makes sense. The whole goal is to get players like him on the roster. He's still in his prime and is perfectly capable of being the best player on a championship roster. But he can't be the *only* player, and he also can't be lined up with a bunch of other short dudes. Dame's size is his only real limiting factor.

I see the Blazers in the same position as the Lakers this season. Pretty much everyone declared the Lakers dead because of Westbrook's terrible contract/performance and lack of trade assets to draw additional big-name talent. But, rather than go after another big name, the Lakers intelligently found pieces that were simply better roster fits. Now, to my complete lack of surprise, they're play-in bound and a darkhorse Western Conference contender.

Blazers need a little more help than that (we only have a "big one" to build from) but we now have the assets to make things happen. We have the assets to get a big-name player to really complete our starting lineup, and we could unlock future picks (thanks to our 1st round pick from NY) to add another scorer to the bench.

The Western Conference will likely be wide open again next season. The Warriors are aging, the Lakers are aging, the Suns and Clippers are increasingly injury prone, the Wolves and Mavs are dumpster fires. The Nuggets are good but seem maxed out on transactions, so they are what they are. EDIT: I completely forgot about New Orleans, but Zion will never play enough games for the Pels to reach their potential.

Portland might be the only WC team with a prime superstar, some good roster pieces (assuming we keep Grant), and the trade assets to make big things happen right now.

The Blazers likely would have been a playoff team this year if not for a staggered barrage of injuries to key contributors throughout the season. Give this roster an upgrade (and pieces that actually FIT with more players above 6'5") and there's no reason to think we couldn't contend for a finals berth right now.

To me, the real question is this:

Would we rather have a title window right now or sometime in the future?

Dame is here now. We have assets now. The West is wide-open now.

Go for it now.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by Boom »

I would prefer to keep Dame as well. I'm just not confident that they can trade Ant & picks for another top 20 guy.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by Duck07 »

pezsez1 wrote:To me, the real question is this:

Would we rather have a title window right now or sometime in the future?

Dame is here now. We have assets now. The West is wide-open now.

Go for it now.
I just don't see a plausible scenario where the players under contract on this team can be traded to make a complete team that is ready to compete for a title with Dame right now and Chauncey as the HC. It's also my understanding that in order to trade a 1st round pick, the team will need to renounce protection to the '24 pick in order to send out a '26 1st round pick as part of any trades. A 2026 1st isn't that valuable in a trade right now.

The team has 112M in its Active Roster for these 9 players. I'm excluding Jeenathan Williams as he, Walker and Watford are Non-Guaranteed but keeping him is negligible at 1.7M. The Luxury Tax Threshold is 162M so the team has roughly 50M in Cap Space. They might start the season over the luxury line, but they sure as hell won't pass the trade deadline over the luxury cap.

Dame / PG2
Ant / Keon Johnson
Sharpe / Little / Kevin Knox
PF1 / Watford / Walker
Nurk / C2

You have a few players that you can resign. Bird Rights for Jerami Grant put a 31M Cap Hold and he's likely not taking a team-friendly deal if he comes back. Call it 31M if you want Grant back, giving you 19M in space and 5 players to sign. Thybulle has a 6.25M Cap Hold, Reddish has a 7.7M Cap Hold and due to the log-jam at SF, let's not re-sign Reddish in this hypothetical.

Now you have ~13M for 4 players including #5 and #23 in the draft.

Last years #5 Jade Ivey was contracted at 7.6M
Last years #23 David Roddy was contract at 2.7M

Now you have 3M in Cap with 2 players to add in FA and 2 players to draft
(Or you have ~34M in Cap, with 3 player to add in FA, 2 players to draft and remove Jerami Grant)

Dame / PG2 / PG3
Ant / Thybulle / Johnson
Sharpe / Little / Knox
Grant or PF1 / Watford / Walker
Nurk / C2 / C3
#5, #23

Dame-Ant-Nurk eat up 44% of the Cap Space next season but the season after Dame goes from 23% to 37% and those 3 cost 71% of the Cap. (Now go back to Jerami Grant or the Free Agent you sign and add up 31M/min. and you'd be at ~93% of the Cap in those 4 players before you'd be in the Luxury Tax the following year)

This next season is likely the ONE season left where you can trade Dame's contract and actually get a great haul back. You do it next year and you're taking on a bad contract or worse, sending picks out; which means you'd be trading Dame just to trade him and we know the team isn't going to do that.

So ultimately with this broadly laid out situation I do tend to agree that moving Damian is the best move. The real question now is if its better to move him this off-season/draft or if you can extract more value in a trade at the deadline when a team might be more desperate than calculated.

Yet the team won't do that, they'll enter the year a hair under the Luxury Cap with a roster that looks like if everything goes right, they might just be able to win a favorable 1st round matchup.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by pezsez1 »

Something else to keep in mind... they could still make moves this offseason to attempt to build a winner around Dame -- which is definitely possible -- and then trade Dame midseason if it really looks like it still isn't working. He'd still command a haul, more than enough to make sure the Blazers have a future. I think he'll still command a pretty good haul at the end of next year, barring some kind of massive injury. He's still playing at an All-NBA level (dare I say MVP level) and he will be for at least another few years.

He is expensive, but he's a superstar. He's better than Ant will ever be, and odds are he's also better than Sharpe will ever be. (That's not a knock on Sharpe, Dame is just that good.) If we trade him, we can load up on cheaper talent but we still may never get THAT GUY who's good enough to lead a championship team -- so it's still a huge gamble.

I think we'll always have long odds of winning a title. We're a small market team. We don't attract FAs. We either have to score big in the draft or swing big on trades -- and when we get superstars, they'll almost always be rentals. I don't ever see us having huge, years-long windows to contend. There is an opportunity right now for the stars to align and make it happen.

Should be an interesting offseason, and NBA drama really is the best drama.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by Duck07 »

pezsez1 wrote:Something else to keep in mind... they could still make moves this offseason to attempt to build a winner around Dame -- which is definitely possible -- and then trade Dame midseason if it really looks like it still isn't working. He'd still command a haul, more than enough to make sure the Blazers have a future. I think he'll still command a pretty good haul at the end of next year, barring some kind of massive injury. He's still playing at an All-NBA level (dare I say MVP level) and he will be for at least another few years.

He is expensive, but he's a superstar. He's better than Ant will ever be, and odds are he's also better than Sharpe will ever be. (That's not a knock on Sharpe, Dame is just that good.) If we trade him, we can load up on cheaper talent but we still may never get THAT GUY who's good enough to lead a championship team -- so it's still a huge gamble.

I think we'll always have long odds of winning a title. We're a small market team. We don't attract FAs. We either have to score big in the draft or swing big on trades -- and when we get superstars, they'll almost always be rentals. I don't ever see us having huge, years-long windows to contend. There is an opportunity right now for the stars to align and make it happen.

Should be an interesting offseason, and NBA drama really is the best drama.
If the Blazers were sold to Phil Knight (or someone else) this past season, sure, I'd entertain the notion that a willing Owner would go into the Tax this year to build a competitor around Dame and make aggressive moves on a 2-year timeline with a Veteran HC.

Instead Cronin will sign Draymond Green for 30M+ and we'll get:
Dame/#5
Ant/Thybulle
Sharpe/Little
Green/Watford
Nurk/#23
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by pezsez1 »

If we roll out another three-guard lineup I just might hunt down Cronin and strangle him.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by Phalanx »

I feel like we've seen Lillard enough times against Steph Curry to be able to tell the difference between a point guard who can lead a team to a championship, and an also-ran. If that doesn't convince people, that series against Jrue Holiday where he got his clock cleaned should have been a clue. Lillard is kind of the victim of circumstance. After Aldridge left, Olshey was never the same GM - he went into the fetal position and just started overpaying everyone so that they wouldn't leave, and that has been the standard for the Blazers ever since. So Lillard was allowed to shoot and shoot and shoot instead of learning how to be a complete point guard. He never learned defense, and his salary just got larger and larger. If that wasn't enough. they also traded away any potential for home-grown draft picks to rise up and take the reins. So it's been a steady diet of Lillard shooting night after night, and no real strategy for competing in the Western Conference ever developed. Olshey and Lillard used to pat themselves on the back for always making the playoffs (along with over half the league), despite almost always getting drilled in the first round, and now they can't even get to the play-in. Lillard is now past his prime, injury-prone, and with a contract that is guaranteed to put a cannonball through the hull every year until it's over. The only possible way to win a championship would be to spend WAY over the tax to get several really good players. I don't blame ownership for not wanting to do this, since there is no evidence that it would even work, or that there are even players that good who even want to join a team led by Lillard. His best chance to win a championship is to join a team led by someone else where he can finally be the contributor he was always meant to be. But that would require a team willing to take on his contract while still paying other good players, and the chances of that happening seem slim to me. If i had to bet, I would say Lillard will never sniff a championship until he takes a massive cut in pay.

The Blazers need rookie contracts to pan out if they are ever going to get out of this mess, and Lillard keeps saying in the media he doesn't want rookies. It really is long past time for him to go.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by pezsez1 »

I couldn't disagree more about your assessment of Lillard. He's clearly still on top of his game, and if he does too much it's because nobody else on our team (except Sharpe over the past few weeks) has shown any ability to score consistently. Lillard is definitely not a stat-first, score-first point guard, as evidenced by his career triple double total. (I think it's maybe three?) He excels at getting others involved while getting his points within the flow of the game.

That series you mentioned against Holiday was YEARS ago and he changed up his game in response. In fact, that the Blazers even made the playoffs that year was evidence of Lillard's greatness. Since then, nobody has bothered Lillard as much as Holiday did that year. Even Michael Jordan had to change his body and his game to cope with physicality.

Also, switch Curry and Lillard to each other's teams and see how many times Curry makes the playoffs or gets out of the first round. I mean, in 2020 we saw Curry miss the playoffs when he wasn't surrounded by All-Stars. To call Lillard an "also ran" when he's played on comparably awful rosters (and usually manages to drag those rosters to the playoffs) just doesn't make much sense.

All of that said... I'm not one of those fans who thinks the sky will fall if Lillard goes. I have no fear of "down years" while we rebuild, and I fully believe we're due for some down years whether he stays or goes. But to trade Lillard for a slew of picks is a massive gamble that we might stumble upon a diamond of his value. It's flat-out unlikely.

The good news for all of us is I really don't think this will drag on indefinitely. Either we'll trade for a roster this offseason that's fit to contend, or management will low-key work out a Lillard trade as it did for CJ McCollum. Dame made it crystal clear in his presser yesterday that he's only interested in winning right now. Either it will happen or it won't, and his trade value will still be sky high next offseason. There are ALWAYS a handful of teams out there looking to unload assets for someone who could put them over the top.
His best chance to win a championship is to join a team led by someone else where he can finally be the contributor he was always meant to be.
Again, strongly disagree that Lillard was meant to be a "contributor," but I will say that he desperately needs a capable wingman. Lillard is one of the few superstars who doesn't have one, and solo acts never get far in the playoffs. He needs someone who is at least close to his caliber. Steph has Klay and Dre, Lebron has AD, Booker has CP3, Ayton and KD, Jokic has Murray, Leonard has PG3, etc. Dame has... Anfernee Simons. (Love seeing Ant's growth, but he's been a downgrade from CJ.)

If our management can't fix our roster then I hope Dame eventually does ask for a trade. He deserves a real shot.
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by Phalanx »

Mavericks fined $750k for doing in one game what the Blazers did for the last two seasons.

https://sports.yahoo.com/mavericks-fine ... 13855.html
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Re: Blazers 2022-2023 Thread

Post by squintsdd »

Phalanx wrote:Mavericks fined $750k for doing in one game what the Blazers did for the last two seasons.

https://sports.yahoo.com/mavericks-fine ... 13855.html
Yup, the tanking fine is a joke. Players, especially star players that fans pay to see, shouldn't be healthy scratches. I get the logic behind tanking, but it still pisses me off to no end
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