Blazers 2023-2024 Thread

[Phalanx]

I think the Blazers could afford to sit on Lillard for one season before shifting to "must trade" mode. They'd still find trade partners a year from now (even if it's just Miami).

If the Blazers wait a year, there will be no deal to be made with Miami. Lillard is 33 and has already missed significant time the last 2 seasons to injury. Butler is even older, he turns 34 in a couple of months. Waiting one year means not only are Lillard and Butler older, but now you are getting 3 years of old Lillard at an average of $57 million a year. The Heat are already having issues thinking about paying Lillard the next four years, but if they miss the opportunity this year, they will walk away. This deal needs to happen by the trade deadline, or they need to be talking to other teams -if there are any other teams. Funny how there has been radio silence on that front.

[Duck07]

Funny how there has been radio silence on that front.

I think its a good ploy right now, it's a relative dead period for the NBA until we get closer to training camp and there isn't a need to make other moves when the expectation is to be lottery bound.

The team can still say we're trying to accommodate Dame to Miami but we still need to get Miami's "best offer" and then see if Dame blinks first and opens up his list.

I think its best to make a deal before the season even starts but it will likely happen after a Herro trade as the first move.

[Boom]

I see a lot of posts saying Cronin should hold out, and it just seems like they don't understand the money side of this. Lillard is overpaid now, but he is about to be wildly overpaid. The biggest problem with Blazer management when they get into these situations is that their contracts are terrible. Fans wanted all this value in trades for McCollum, or Powell, or Nurk, or Simons, and they seem blind to the fact that all of those contracts originated by the Blazers were/are liabilities that will always diminish trade value as well as the number of teams willing to trade at all. A team might be willing to swallow Lillard for this year and maybe next, but those last two years make him almost untradeable, and it Cronin waits that long, the only trade that will be there is for other bad contracts. He needs to do a deal now, and then he needs to get some religion about future contracts. Otherwise, the Blazers will never win.

Jaylen Brown will be making more money than Damien Lillard next season. All of these all nba quality players will soon be making 50-70 million per year.

[pezsez1]

Don't have a link but Shams just reported that the NBA sent a memo to all teams telling them to ignore Dame/Goodwin and warning that any future "one team" demands will be subject to discipline.

[greenyellow]

Dame and his agent just lost all leverage in the situation.

Embedded Tweet

Embedded Tweet

[squintsdd]

A collective middle finger just went up from every blazer fan to Lillard, his agent, and the heat. I'm curious what doors this will open

[pezsez1]

Best line of the memo:

"Goodwin and Lillard affirmed to us that Lillard would fully perform the services called for under his player contract in any trade scenario"

[Phalanx]

I thought the best line was what they said next: " The relevant teams provided descriptions of their communications with Goodwin that were mostly, though not entirely, consistent with Goodwin’s statements to us. "



Kinda like saying 'Mostly peaceful protests'. If Goodwin's story had lined up with what the teams said, there wouldn't have been a public memo from the NBA.

Something I didn't know until this statement came out is that a player is not allowed to make a public trade request. So this explains why Lillard was using passive-aggressive phrases like 'we will be having a different conversation' and 'that's not my road' and leaking stuff in the media so much the last several years rather than being forthright about his trade threats. He didn't want to cost himself any of the money he was able to bleed out of the Blazers before he leaves town. One thing we can rely on is that Lillard is motivated by money. Everything for him comes down to that, and that is why his moves have been so predictable.

[pezsez1]

Well in this case, Goodwin wasn't being truthful and honest with NBA teams through countless instances of dialogue each day and then just making threats after midnight. He was making threats pretty much the whole time.

I think it's a little too simplistic to say he's only motivated by money. Definitely motivated by money, for sure, but this whole thing smacks of spite, as well. I get it that his agent is just doing his job, and agents do agent things, but Dame isn't an idiot and he knows his agent acts on his behalf. This seems like his mindset is "The Blazers screwed me by not trying hard enough to get me real help, so I'm going to screw them by demanding a trade to a team with no assets."

I still respect Dame for his incredible skills and all he's done for Portland over the past decade, but I've gotta admit my views of him have definitely slipped a bit. Plans for that statue outside of Moda are definitely on hold. (Hey, it would just be torn down and carried off anyway, right?)

[nogerO]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

How much is enough Dumm?

[pezsez1]

Did you break the forum with all the $$$$$$$$$?

[Phalanx]

I still respect Dame for his incredible skills and all he's done for Portland over the past decade

All he's done for Portland is give us the 2nd-worst decade probably in team history (behind the Jailblazers and Brandon Roy/ Greg Oden). Obviously, Olshey helped a lot, but I don't think making two last-second shots excuses Lillard from an entire career of playoff failure.

I've decided that if Lillard has indeed played his last game for the Blazers, he goes down as the 4th best behind Rasheed. Sheed didn't put up the same offensive stats, but he played both ends of the court, and he put the Blazers in contention, which is something Lillard never did.

[pezsez1]

Hot take alert!

[Duck07]

You should all feel more sympathy to Miami, who clearly is the victim in this letter from the NBA.

[buckmarkduck]

I still respect Dame for his incredible skills and all he's done for Portland over the past decade

All he's done for Portland is give us the 2nd-worst decade probably in team history (behind the Jailblazers and Brandon Roy/ Greg Oden). Obviously, Olshey helped a lot, but I don't think making two last-second shots excuses Lillard from an entire career of playoff failure.

I've decided that if Lillard has indeed played his last game for the Blazers, he goes down as the 4th best behind Rasheed. Sheed didn't put up the same offensive stats, but he played both ends of the court, and he put the Blazers in contention, which is something Lillard never did.

Rasheed was arguably not even the best player on those blazer teams. Though he should have been, but he refused to be the leader. Guy was a mental midget, and if I was putting together an all time team, I wouldn’t want him on it. The blazers lost game 6 to the Lakers because he was too mentally soft to take the shots down the stretch. He had all the talent, and could have been Garnett like, but he didn’t want to be that.