Honestly, if Dame is going to force his way out of Portland because he wants to win a title now, why is he going to force his way to the Pels or OKC?
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Honestly, if Dame is going to force his way out of Portland because he wants to win a title now, why is he going to force his way to the Pels or OKC?
Scoop is a hack and not a source.Originally Posted by Fedupfan
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We have this huge war chest. If Lillard comes available...and we can't trade for him because he doesn't want to come here....
Then our war chest is utterly useless and we'll never do anything meaningful with it. Not like the next guy on Lillard's level will speak highly of us and can't wait to come here unless we start winning and show sustainability and competence BEFORE we get another real player added to the mix.
Why else do we even have all these assets if this situation is not what it's for?
Get Lillard. Make everything going forward about winning him over by winning. Put a damn good team around him and Zion. Build a team that's switchable. Build a team that can defend in spite of Zion and Dame being below average to bad defenders. Getting Covington to come over in the trade is step in that direction.
Hell, figure out some way to make two blockbuster moves this offseason somehow. Dame and someone else we gamble on if there's some way to make a bad contract fit.
If he does not want to come to NOLA, our war chest is irrelevant. The stars force themselves to a select group of teams. I highly doubt Dame wants to come to NOLA.
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Then it is all pointless, and always would be pointless. So...trade for his ****** anyway. Why not? What else we gonna do with the assets? Hoard them? Trade for reclamation projects past their prime, nursing injuries, and/or bloated contracts for overachievers?
We have nothing to lose. What, wait for a big star who likes us? They'll never like us until they have no choice but to do the thing humans do and adapt...so why bother with their bellyaching and force Portland to take a huge offer they can't refuse? They make the trade. No one will blame them for taking the trade from the outside except Dame and his people, assuming that's how he plays it.
Worst case scenario is he refuses to report. I'm sure that'll cost him millions though.
Most likely is he complains. He adapts. Zion is awesome and the best teammate he's ever played with. Not hard to build a team around the guy who can score from anywhere and the guy who is unstoppable from one place and is a brick wall on the pick and roll waiting to happen. Get shooters. Get dudes who can switch. Hope we keep one of Hayes, NAW, Lonzo/Ingram.
If it fails, whatever. I'd rather fail with Lillard than fail without him. It'll give us super exciting games along the way.
fair enough.
Just another Kiwi basking in the reflected glory of Steven Adams....bask bask..
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So trade a boatload of assets for a guy who does not want to be here? What will he do to the locker room and Zion? Then when he forces his way out of NOLA, what does Zion do? We need to be somewhat realistic.
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Being realistic is examining all factors at play and all the objective truths. A lot of us, myself included, are assuming everything. We assume Lillard won't want to come here. You assume he'll corrupt Zion to wanting to leave. Will they both just phone it in on the court? Two elite guys...won't even try to make the best of it? Why are we assuming they don't have some professional integrity? It's not like we're doing wrong by Lillard. We want to build a winning franchise. Flipping a ton of assets is proof of that to him.
So we also assume he won't care? Is that how humans are? No way we could win him over?
I don't accept that. I can't....
I do accept that Griffin could screw it all up somehow though.
Last edited by Eman5805; 06-28-2021 at 12:10 PM.
Yep. As for me, Dame is not good enough on both sides of the ball for me to move BI (and move him for a 30 year old at that) to try and win a title with a guy in his 3rd year. For all of Zion’s strengths, he still has a very long way to go before I’d be comfortable taking this gamble.
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His offense isn't good enough? Defense, okay. But how many players in the league can you honestly say have a better offense than him? Curry? Durant?
Exactly. Thank you!!! Sanity returns to our board.
Go back and look at why Dame would supposedly be asking out? The reports are that IF he were to ask it, it would be because he wants to win now. If you were a star who could control where he gets traded to and your goal was to win a title now, does the Pelicans even make your list? Again, just trying to be somewhat realistic.
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That's the other thing. Does he control where he gets traded? What leverage does Dame have? How does it work if he refused to report?
Lillard doesn't have a no trade clause. So, Portland would be open shop if this was true. Lillard would go to the highest bidder.
You guys dont have to debate that part of it --- Dame would be happy to come here. He actually doesnt want a big market or an already accomplished, set in place superstar teammate. The only hurdle to us getting him is if Portland decides to trade him and if they are old school with preferring to send him East. But Dame would have no issue coming here
@mcnamara247
I agree. If we are stacking these assets ?just cause? and not for situations like this, we might have to rethink what we are doing in the first place. Just to brag about a so called war chest?
If Dames available, you have to make it shake in my opinion. Anyone but Zion and Jax would be available if it were up to me...trying to keep NAW if I could as well.
If not Dame, who?s your guy behind the curtain? Giannis? Bucks win a ring, kiss that goodbye. KAT or Embiid in a year or two? Then you clearly aren?t taking the Zion family threats serious.
He could do just what Harden did to force his way to Brooklyn. There were certainly other teams with more assets than Brooklyn, but they were not touching Harden given his demands.
Dame
Lonzo
Defensive minded 3/4
Zion
Jax/Willy
Plenty enough defense and insane offense. Probably a championship core
I doubt Dame would force himself out of Portland to go the Pelicans. His reported reason for being unhappy is with management and with their ability to put together a contender. Why would be force his way out of Portland to come here.
Dame doesn't have much leverage at all. Blazer brass will be trying to maximise their return if the relationship becomes untenable. They don't have to trade him in the slightest, but it might end up being the best for all parties.
In our favour we have the (pretty good - better than most) war chest and we have Zion of course. Everyone knows we're in win now mode. And we have good young core piece in Ingram that you could sell the Blazers to build around, as well as other guys with 'potential' like Kira/NAW and #10. As well as a plethora of other 1sts. You add all these things together and you probably trump most other clubs.
It doesn't have to be a marriage made in heaven, but if it's the best of all the options out there, that's good enough.
Last edited by AusPel; 06-28-2021 at 02:01 PM.
Did Brooklyn have the best assets for Harden? Yet, he forced his way there. The superstars have all the control unfortunately.
That they do. Dame might give brass a shortlist of teams he would like, as opposed to a single one like AD and Harden. But who knows
He certainly could if he decides to force his way out. Personally, I do not think he forces his way out. However, if he did and somehow the Pels made the list, we should go all out to get him. Realistically, unless he just wants to play with Zion, I see no reason he would put us on a short list.
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What does forcing his way out even mean in this context? Trade me or I'll hold out? Pull a Jimmy Butler and make a lot of noise? Is that even Lillard's personality? Is that what Harden did? Is it even that simple?
I just don't understand this logic, do people forget we already have a generational type of talent in Zion. Dame has never had a teammate the cailber of Zion. Everytime we played Portland last year Zion destroyed them you think Dame didn't take notice. Dame wanting to come here is so far down the list of things that would prevent us from getting Dame. As already been mentioned the first being will Portland even be willing to trade Dame.
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