2023-24 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

As much as I’d love to have Jrue, I’m just not into trading away younger assets for a 35 year old. Been there, done that. Besides, the way Rob and Darvin raved about Rui in their joint press conference, he’s going nowhere.

 

thanks, jsm. i wonder if we'll get to hear portland's side, since miami and lillard have been squawking all summer via their various mouthpieces.

after reading lillard's side, i really came to understand his angle. just kidding, eff that guy.

seriously--the headline is that he was willing to rescind his trade demand, but in tiny letters it read "so that portland could move him to miami later". gtfo. literally. love that now they're trying to throw blazers management under the bus because a) they tanked for the pick (um...everybody does this in their situation...had lillard been better, maybe they wouldn't have been in position to tank) and b) they didn't trade the pick. we don't know what the offers were. because dame was already chirping to the press (literally naming players and teams he'd like to play for/with), he killed any leverage they might have had in dealing the pick for real impact. it's actually not THAT easy to build around a scoring guard who doesn't defend anyone, particularly when you're not a glamor market. it also doesn't help when said scoring guard has alienated a bunch of folks by publicly s***ting on them for...trying to play with other star players in glamor markets (!!!!!!). i can't stress this last part enough. i just can't respect this guy at this point. his game is crazy, but he's proven to be just absolutely full of s***. overflowing with s***.

as for portland "letting emotions get in the way of business"...cry more, pat. if you hadn't tried to mob boss strong-arm them, you might not be trying to convince tyler herro he's not on the block for the next three years. btw, looks to me like portland got the better business end, too, as miami's best offer was supposedly three 1sts and nikola jovic. portland got two 1sts, one swap, ayton, and holiday (or whatever holiday will bring). the latter is a better deal, period.

i LOVE that when miami called, portland said sure, which one of butler and adebayo are coming our way? awesome. and then they stuck to it. so much that lillard's agent was forced to develop a second list of teams. as they should have from day one, btw--had lillard just made a short list of teams that would interest him, the whole thing would have been over in a week, imo. but he had to try to force his way to one team that didn't have the assets. just awful.

finally, i think it's funny that portland's being accused of being emotional when lillard and miami are the ones whining. "waahhh they wouldn't call us back waaahhh". unless you were calling to say something different than you'd already said, why would they talk to you?

hey, joe--aaron goodwin's on the line again
oh, have they decided that it's not miami-or-bust?
no
i'm not f***ing here

ok, today's rant has concluded.

 

…. great rant though You’ve had @Weezy talking about what’s happened to the Star Wars franchise passion about this ….

 

Cronin seems to be well liked in league circles. Larsuel says he's a really good dude (he started off in Portland before joining the Lakers) and has known him before his rise up the ranks. Maybe some earnest journalist will do a sit down with him at some point, if he wants to even rehash it.

I'd like to know from their perspective what exactly was told/promised to Dame and what their plan B was since according to Dame that was the final straw to this marriage.

What I think is amusing is while Portland didn't give him what he wanted, they did what was best for Dame's career. If you could air drop him anywhere that should all but guarantee he wins at least one ring, it's Milwaukee (seriously, that 2 man game + MIL's front line D to protect him it's a cheat code). After he moves past the disappointment of how it played out and that it's not South Beach, he should take a full page ad out in The Oregonian, thanking them for putting him in pole position to win it all.

Yeah, we'll likely never get the straight, no BS version of this from either side, BUT I want to know what the agreement and understanding was between both sides AND what offers did Portland turn down for the pick.

I do think that even if Dame was nuclear all season, it's a faulty roster so they would've been in a similar position. I do blame Portland for their love affair with small guards next to Dame. At some point, you'd think they'd try something else. I know they don't have the deep pockets that they have in GS and there's only one Dray, but that's your blueprint of what to do with a small guard who doesn't play defense. Even the dollar store version is a better path than the two dwarf backcourt + 7 athletic meh SFs, praying the collective amounts to one Iggy.

Is this the most they've been at bat and struck out? KD, Mitchell, Beal, Kyrie, Dame. Is the luster wearing off of Pat? It's wild he's missed on all 5 and this takes them out of the Antetokounmpo race too cause to quote Leo in Wolf Of Wall Street, he's "not f***in' leavin'!!!" Only big fish who's looking around for the next two years, as of now, is Embiid. I don't think he has enough picks for Morey who will refuse to lose that trade.

Butler's got to be feeling some kind of way that Riles let them get worse and can't land the plane on one of those guys in Miami, arguably the second most desired city to play in. It's tough to count Pat out because he's done the impossible, the illegal, under the table, whatever-it-takes countless times but right now it's not looking good. They lost two starters... he has to have a plan B, I'm not seeing it though. It should be Holiday, he's a perfect fit there but after reading how all this played out I'd be shocked if Cronin and Riley spoke this season. In fact, Cronin should probably have someone start his car for him for a bit.

Yep, if he had Bucks, Nets, Miami, and maybe one more team on there; he would have been in Miami in July. AD had a one team list too, but Rich Paul knew how to play the game and fluffed it out with other half serious options so New Orleans didn't lose all leverage in negotiations. Maybe Dame should've let Rich broker this thing for him. But like I said, Portland him a favor by sending him to Milwaukee. That's best fit out there for him.



Random additional thought: Also, I'm really surprised this got to the point to where the league stepped in to get these sides back to the table. When does that happen?

 

I'm generally on the players side, but I'm also not sure what Dame was really expecting to happen there.

He was forcing his way out. There's no way that wasn't going to get ugly. Especially with Pat and his agent trying to force them into a deal they didn't want.

And I don't blame them for not wanting him back. It would've just left a dark cloud on the team as everyone knows he wants out.

Ultimately, he ended up in a much better situation so I think he should just consider himself fortunate and keep it moving.

 

How is Miami talking about tampering if the player openly asked for a trade? I'm still confused by how they process that as a legitimate concern. Sounds more like just being butthurt to me.

 

Larsuel was on Irwin's pod yesterday and mentioned he's heard that Holiday is interested in going back to the team that drafted him -- Philly.

I can't see Portland wanting Beard within 100 feet from their young guys. You don't want them learning those ways. I'd assume if that's a thing, that facilitates Beard to Clipps, which I'm much more in favor of vs them getting Holiday.

Shams was on the Pat McAfee show and brought up Philly is aggressively pursuing this one and Beard's inclusion to the Clipps


I brought up Miami losing out on guys in my earlier post, if Philly gets Holiday then i think Embiid is happy. Then this massive trade (or if it's 2 trades) essentially took four guys off their board -- Dame, Antetokounmpo, Embiid, and Holiday (No official word he's on their board but he's got to be with the kind of player he is). That has to be a record.


And here's the starting price for Holiday


A Clipps - Philly - Blazers deal should result in some of the Clipps guys getting bought out in Portland. Some names I'd be interested in using a 15th spot on.

 

i think at first it was because they kinda lucked into cj mccollum (they didn't think he'd be that good, i'm guessing). but when they traded him, they didn't trade up (packaging him with other stuff) and instead broke him into smaller pieces. that one was a headscratcher for me, but again, i don't know what the market was like for him over the years. but then the other draft hit is simons, another small guard. sorta bad luck that you keep hitting on the same position and role as your franchise player, but you'd figure you could parlay that into something else that fits better at some point. i'm sure some other team had one too many good young bigs at some point, for example.

that said, i don't have problems with players wanting out of bad situations. AD was totally justified, imo. dame was justified in wanting out, too. he just a) shouldn't have first built a whole brand on "not wanting out" and b) shouldn't have had a one-team list. these are his sins. other guys are smart enough to know they might find themselves in a position where they want out, so they don't build themselves up as being sort of morally superior to their colleagues. and again, this is a BIG reason why fans liked lillard! he was the anti-kd...until he became exactly kd. or worse. kd had five teams on his list.

i think the current plan b is that spoelstra can take camp-level guys and make them nba starters for his team. this is my fear with vincent, btw. both us and cleveland should be worried that we're about to get nunn-ed. this used to happen with popovich all the time, too. dudes left SA and turned into pumpkins. i mean, martin was undrafted and had two really unimpressive years in charlotte and then basically becomes a legit 25mpg 2-way wing overnight.

i do think riley may be losing his touch a bit, though. both he and the media are just shocked that cronin didn't bend over for him.

i think it was just one too many. and the egregiousness of it being on the heels of signing a supermax AND demanding a trade to one team...i don't think most people appreciate how problematic this was. the supermax was designed precisely to stop this kind of stuff. my guess is silver has also sent a memo out to players and agents that they better be careful with this stuff going forward, or the next cba negotiations could get hairy.

agree with all this.

i am almost always on the players' side in these kinds of situations. i'm always anti-owners in the cba negotiations, but this pissed me off because (see above) it could undermine the players' case going forward. if they can sign a mammoth deal and then demand to be sent wherever they want shortly thereafter, why can't owners agree to a mammoth deal and then change their mind about it? if the players want the power of a short-term contract, maybe they only get short-term contracts. i think that's bad for the game, the brand, and the fans. it would be pandemonium of team-switching, which would basically start to make the offseason more interesting than the actual games. i feel like silver is keenly aware of all this, and that the nba plays a dangerous game with how much interest its offseason generates. it's great, but there's a tipping point.

some folks suggested that it was just trolling, but if so...it wasn't funny?

i mean, there's not a story you can tell that doesn't have miami as the bad guy here. hell, they were letting people report that they had FA signings contingent on the lillard trade going through. this while portland wasn't taking their calls! the audacity!

anyway, better hope spo's got some more magic in terms of getting a lot out of fringe talent. but even that won't solve that they have one pg on the roster, and he's a 37 year old kyle lowry.

 

clips to portland: morris/batum/covington/2028 1st, pick swap
philly to clips: harden
philly to portland: 2029 1st
portland to philly: holiday

who says no?

clips basically keep all the guys they value most and add harden for just a 1st and a swap.
philly gets out from under what's coming with harden and adds a great fitting piece with maxey, harris, and embiid.
portland gets all expiring money, 2 1sts and a swap.

 

Russ and Beard together yet again …. gotta love it for the dysfunction personality and egos wise.

 

Makes sense to me. Philly all of a sudden becomes pretty likeable with Holiday and Maxey vs. Harden.

 

https://fb.watch/nmJdHelre5/?mibextid=v7YzmG



Laker fans are hilarious. Unfortunately it doesn’t embed, but it involves Lebron, AD, and Kawhi

 

well, they still have embiid (i'm not a huge fan of his persona) and morey (ugh).

 

But the real kicker is the this f***ing bio hazard clown turd.

 

Great stuff abeer and JSM!

Yeah Jrue to Philly makes a ton of sense. And they are still not contenders for me so that's ok. Jrue in the Clips can really hit. If they all happen to be healthy in postseason, that's a dangerous team. Hope they get Harden, it will be fun to kick their a**

 

Was not a fan of KG but I like that quote. Screw Harden.

 

Yeah, I think the problem with that was they haven't been a team good enough to trade for parts instead of an upgrade since they were the Blazers teams that Kobe and Shaq faced and the kicker there is that team was good and deep enough that they didn't need that talent upgrade only to avoid the buzzsaw that was the Kobe/Shaq Lakers. That's a dangerous to bad building strategy when you're not a FA destination.

I know there were reports the Knicks and Hawks were also interested in him before he was moved to the Pelicans. Not sure what either deal would've included. Collins + from the Hawks, probably. I'm sure some solid offers have come across the desk in the 8 years he was in Portland, though.

It's almost like Ham moonlights as a scout for them.

Yeah, can't really fault them for taking him at that spot based on what was taken around there. Guess they could've moved out of the spot or moved up (include CJ?) for a Bridges or SGA.

At some point though, you have to prioritize available defensive size. Just in the draft alone, here's a few of their grave errors:
2017- actually traded their two first rounders to move up for Zach Collins. Missing out on Bam, John Collins, and Jarrett Collins. Since they like small guards, they also missed on Spider Mitchell here.
2020-drafted Isaiah Stewart but traded him on a 1 1/2 season rental of Covington. Do you need Covington when you have Melo, Powell, Trent Jr, Derrick Jones, and RHJ? I'd say no.
2022-Sharpe is a big guard for their standards at 6-5. Few notable bigs they whiffed on -- Duren, Mark Williams, and Kessler. Could've picked up an additional asset by moving 6-15 spots down to take one of them.

I'm really surprised his camp didn't manage this better. This is their only job when he's not negotiating a new contract. If we can see from the cheap seats how the game is played, the fact that they're in the pit and were bumping into things in the dark is bizarre. You gotta have a list even if it's a BS list and the tea leaves indicate as much, simply to give the team trading you a trade path. Only way you can bypass that is if you're in the final year of your deal and then you have a leverage play.

I think it can work for the 7th man down and if those guys develop, then you can push them up a few spots and do it again. I think those guys forced in that role this year are a year out.

Not often are both teams that were just in the NBA Finals got worse and have to hit home runs on internal development to have a chance next season. Jerry Krause is looking up right now really digging their approach.

Vincent worries me less than Nunn. Nunn was athleticism whereas Vincent is a heady, better paced player. His style of game translates better across the league, I think. Now if there's a bone bruise, I never want to see a Heat player here again.

Maybe Payne if there's no plan B trade. Slim pickings but he's the best PG on the market and will get plenty of time when Lowry is out. That is unless they want to learn how to Dougie

I'd pay to see Jimmy's face during that.