NBA/Blazers 2025-26 Thread

[Boom]

Good series Blazers fan, I’m surprised it ended in 5, I fully expected it to go 6-7 games.

Thanks for being gracious, but I'm pleasantly surprised we weren't swept. (Really should have been.)

This series exposed the **** out of the Blazers and I'm thankful for that. Having a young, scrappy core that plays defense is great, but at some point in basketball you've got to get the ball in the bucket. The Blazers are one of the most aggressive teams at getting to the rim, and they shoot more threes than most squads, but they're near the bottom of the league for finishing at the rim and 3s made. Definitely not a great recipe for long-term success.

We''ll see what the Blazers do this summer. I agree they could potentially be a top four seed next season, but not with the roster as it stands.

They were exposed in the regular season. They only had 16 wins against teams with a .500 record. They had a similar amount of 20 point losses. They even had a 54 point loss! This team was not good. They squeaked out wins against teams actively trying to lose. Tanking was so bad this year that the NBA is changing their lottery rules. The Blazers weren't half as good as their record indicated.

The only way they could potentially enter the top 4 in the west is if they land a healthy Giannis or Leonard and even that probably isn't enough.

[Boom]

Trading out of their lottery pick last season and losing their lottery pick this year has destroyed any potential momentum moving forward.

[alxtw]

Good series Blazers fan, I’m surprised it ended in 5, I fully expected it to go 6-7 games.

Thanks for being gracious, but I'm pleasantly surprised we weren't swept. (Really should have been.)

This series exposed the **** out of the Blazers and I'm thankful for that. Having a young, scrappy core that plays defense is great, but at some point in basketball you've got to get the ball in the bucket. The Blazers are one of the most aggressive teams at getting to the rim, and they shoot more threes than most squads, but they're near the bottom of the league for finishing at the rim and 3s made. Definitely not a great recipe for long-term success.

We''ll see what the Blazers do this summer. I agree they could potentially be a top four seed next season, but not with the roster as it stands.

They were exposed in the regular season. They only had 16 wins against teams with a .500 record. They had a similar amount of 20 point losses. They even had a 54 point loss! This team was not good. They squeaked out wins against teams actively trying to lose. Tanking was so bad this year that the NBA is changing their lottery rules. The Blazers weren't half as good as their record indicated.

The only way they could potentially enter the top 4 in the west is if they land a healthy Giannis or Leonard and even that probably isn't enough.

The newly proposed lottery format sounds interesting. Now middle feeding teams (us) will be tanking just enough to try and make it into the group of teams with the highest odds of getting a top 3 pick. We’re actually not perennial bottom feeders like the spurs, detroit, and okc were and our fans can’t accept full tanking seasons like cities with multiple pro sport teams to watch, while one is in a full rebuild. So i think this proposed draft format helps us out alot!

[pezsez1]

Cool quote from Jru that I wanted to share here:

Jrue: ‘I don’t like being traded and moved. I like being part of something, seeing it grow and build. I hope [i’m back next season]’

[Phalanx]

Cool quote from Jru that I wanted to share here:

Jrue: ‘I don’t like being traded and moved. I like being part of something, seeing it grow and build. I hope [i’m back next season]’

Yeah, that is a good quote, thanks for posting it. In watching some of the exit interviews, it seems like the general tenor of the locker room has improved significantly over the years before Lillard got traded. Thybulle and Williams both seemed like they want to come back as well. Not sure how much they should pay to guys who are always injured, but maybe some kind of incentive contract for games played would work. We'll see what the market is for those guys.

[alxtw]

Cool quote from Jru that I wanted to share here:

Jrue: ‘I don’t like being traded and moved. I like being part of something, seeing it grow and build. I hope [i’m back next season]’

Yeah, that is a good quote, thanks for posting it. In watching some of the exit interviews, it seems like the general tenor of the locker room has improved significantly over the years before Lillard got traded. Thybulle and Williams both seemed like they want to come back as well. Not sure how much they should pay to guys who are always injured, but maybe some kind of incentive contract for games played would work. We'll see what the market is for those guys.

Jrue still has alot in the tank, as we saw in this series, and he is a great influence on the young guys, locker room, and team chemistry. He offers alot of intangibles, that no one possesses on the team, and players feed off of his fight to play the game the right way. It sucks that his contract is pricey and goes for another few more years. At the end of his contract he will be close to 40 and likely be a few steps slower. He still has some good trade value now but will likely not have much at then end of his contract. This is a tough one but i’d like to see him around next year and hoping he stays healthy.

[Phalanx]

Like I said above, only trade Jrue if somebody is offering a significant prospect or draft pick.

I totally agree about intangibles. There are some players that just raise the level of the team in the playoffs beyond their stat lines. You can see it if you really pay close attention to what they do in games, but also, you see the improvement of the overall product in terms of wins and losses. Jrue is one of those guys, as was Dennis Rodman. Robert Horry and Rasheed Wallace might also fit this category and even Dillon Brooks. I might put Scottie Pippen here too, but he was just a big star, so not really a 'sneaky-good' type of player. These are guys who play both ends of the floor and even if they don't get big defensive stats (e.g. blocks, rebounds, steals) they are heavily influencing the game with their smart play. Everywhere these guys have gone, playoff improvement follows, and when they leave, the team regresses. The Celtics have had some really good teams in recent years, but the only year they won it all was the year Jrue got there. Milwaukee also won the year Jrue got there and has never done it before or since. I don't think it is a coincidence that the first year Jrue gets here, the Blazers make the playoffs for the first time in years. I suspect other teams know this as well and may want to add him for a playoff run. We'll see; his contract is a problem for sure.

I would almost say Lillard is the opposite, making most teams he was on worse in the playoffs by playing like it was all about him (e.g. 'Dame Time') but his main problem aside from his game dropping in the playoffs instead of rising is that he sucked up a huge chunk of the salary cap that should have gone to signing more talent. Like Carmelo Anthony, 'his help was in his pocket'. If he had been a #2 guy for his career and been paid accordingly, he would likely have had better results in his career instead of being the playoff failure that he was. Things got out of focus in Portland when LMA left as a free agent and Olshey went from a confident GM to a guy in panic mode.

[Boom]

Jake Fischer is reporting that the Blazers are targeting Giannis Antetokounmpo or Anthony Davis this summer.

[Phalanx]

Davis is probably the worst contract in the NBA. Giannis is perfect for the Blazers, but acquiring him will involve trading away more than I would want to lose.

[TheDrake]

Anthony Davis is a very brittle man...just say NO!

[pezsez1]

I would almost say Lillard is the opposite, making most teams he was on worse in the playoffs by playing like it was all about him (e.g. 'Dame Time') but his main problem aside from his game dropping in the playoffs instead of rising is that he sucked up a huge chunk of the salary cap that should have gone to signing more talent. Like Carmelo Anthony, 'his help was in his pocket'. If he had been a #2 guy for his career and been paid accordingly, he would likely have had better results in his career instead of being the playoff failure that he was. Things got out of focus in Portland when LMA left as a free agent and Olshey went from a confident GM to a guy in panic mode.

You seriously can't help yourself! Folks start talking about Jru and you bring it back to Dame, and you act like Jru going to the Bucks was the reason they won the title, not the Bucks coasting through an injury-riddled Eastern Conference and then facing an overrated Suns team in which Giannis was inexplicably facing man defense by Ayton all series. As if Jru would have carried Portland to a championship! As if we didn't just see Jru's Blazers pantsed and spanked in an elimination game.

I love Jru Holiday. He's a stud. But dude, you've got to take a step back here and just try to be a bit more level-headed. Jru's never done **** with the caliber of roster Dame ever had to work with in Portland. And that's not a knock on Jru, not even Steph Curry would have done **** with Dame's rosters. This year's Blazers roster was more balanced than anything Dame's had to work with since Aldridge left and we still got our asses kicked with Jru as a starter. And that's ok. Now, apply that standard evenly. To say Dame never made anyone better or doesn't have excellent intangibles is batshit crazy.

You can't hate Dame for getting paid max money. That was the NBA's collective bargaining agreement, and that's how teams were built. It's not like it was Dame and Lebron getting max money and nobody else. The Blazers could have made better moves along the way and didn't. You love blaming Dame, but he wasn't the GM. That's on Olshey and Cronin for being bad at their jobs. Quit giving Joe Cronin a pass just because you're obsessed with Damian Lillard.

[Phalanx]

You can lavish as much adoration on to your hero as you want, he will always have one of the worst playoff records in NBA history, and his tenure in Portland was marked by a descent into league laughingstock status. That's Lillard's career legacy. He topped it off by also destroying the Bucks not long after Jrue helped them win a championship. Your attempts to minimize that championship run are pretty sad. Almost as sad as watching the Celtics lose in the first round in their first year without Jrue. So many coincidences.

George Karl didn't think it was a coincidence. He had this to say right after the Bucks traded Jrue for Lillard:

Embedded Tweet

Ask any Bucks fan if they thought it was a good trade. Heck, ask Giannis:

In September 2023, the Bucks traded Jrue Holiday, a key player on their title-winning team, for Lillard in an attempt to extend their title window with Antetokounmpo.

While hailed for its boldness and potential at the time, not only did it not work out as planned, it diminished the team's assets as the pressure built to win with Antetokounmpo in his prime. To add insult to injury, Holiday ended up winning a title with the Bucks' Eastern Conference rival, the Boston Celtics, the next season.

Subsequently, sources told ESPN that Antetokounmpo confided to Holiday how much he and the Bucks missed Holiday's defense and leadership.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/482 ... marc-lasry