Blazers 2023-2024 Thread

[droop10]

Even in the best case scenario where Sharpe or Henderson pan out to be a star, there's a very realistic chance they just bolt come free agency for a bigger market.

This is just false and has been addressed in previous CBAs specifically by small-market teams. It will take a long time for a 1st round draft pick to actually leave in unrestricted free agency, at which point if they've become All-NBA and are that adamant they want out at age 27/28, you're getting a haul for them in return.

You have 4 years on the rookie scale with a 1st rounder and then they enter restricted free agency. The shortest contract they can sign with another team is 2 years that can be matched by Portland (and obviously longer deals can be made too) but call it another 4 typically and you just hit 8 years of team control.

That's fair. Guess I should reword it a bit. I understand to get the max they'll need to resign with the Blazers, so saying they'd leave via free agency was false. But this day and age it doesn't mean a whole lot. Stars in the NBA that are discontent just request a trade, which is usually granted. Obviously, the team doesn't need to adhere to their request, but now you have a malcontent guy on the squad. I'm not saying it's a guarantee that Henderson or Sharpe do so, but we've seen plenty of examples of it in the NBA, and it's not out of the realm of possibilities. There's also a very real chance that neither pans out to be a star. Next year's draft is supposed to be one of the weaker ones in years, so there's no harm in keeping Lillard on the roster for the time being.

[Phalanx]

The harm in keeping him on the roster is that his contract is a ticking time bomb that other teams will not want to take on if they can't get a few good years out of him first. If they don't trade Lillard soon, he will be untradeable.

[dd10snoop28]

Even in the best case scenario where Sharpe or Henderson pan out to be a star, there's a very realistic chance they just bolt come free agency for a bigger market.

This is just false and has been addressed in previous CBAs specifically by small-market teams. It will take a long time for a 1st round draft pick to actually leave in unrestricted free agency, at which point if they've become All-NBA and are that adamant they want out at age 27/28, you're getting a haul for them in return.

You have 4 years on the rookie scale with a 1st rounder and then they enter restricted free agency. The shortest contract they can sign with another team is 2 years that can be matched by Portland (and obviously longer deals can be made too) but call it another 4 typically and you just hit 8 years of team control.

That's fair. Guess I should reword it a bit. I understand to get the max they'll need to resign with the Blazers, so saying they'd leave via free agency was false. But this day and age it doesn't mean a whole lot. Stars in the NBA that are discontent just request a trade, which is usually granted. Obviously, the team doesn't need to adhere to their request, but now you have a malcontent guy on the squad. I'm not saying it's a guarantee that Henderson or Sharpe do so, but we've seen plenty of examples of it in the NBA, and it's not out of the realm of possibilities. There's also a very real chance that neither pans out to be a star. Next year's draft is supposed to be one of the weaker ones in years, so there's no harm in keeping Lillard on the roster for the time being.

There are many reasons for not keeping Lillard:

(1) Lillard is a highly valued asset for competing teams now. The longer they hold him, the less value he retains.
(2) Holding him puts them in an awful cap situation. Getting 50+ million off the books is good for allowing a lot of flexibility in trades/signings.
(3) They have 0.1% chance of winning a championship with Lillard. Please don't debate this one.

The only benefit I would see for keeping Lillard is to have him be a mentor for Scoot. However, if a deal comes along that is getting value for PDX, they should move him in a heartbeat. If that deal doesn't come until the trade deadline then OK, but I'd be wary of trying to get a "great" deal for the worry that they will never got a "good" deal.

[Duck07]

Thanks, was going to address this next. The real issue here will be not having enough money to match whatever offer Sharpe and Henderson can get, which brings us back to Lillard's insane contract.

This is the crux of the "rationale" brain argument to me: You get those 3/4 cheap years of Scoot/Sharpe while they learn to play off one another, while also seemingly having natural, complimentary fits to their games. By the time the need to start paying them fair-market value, you will hopefully have a new owner and some mid 1st/lottery picks from having moved on from Dame.

Simons could have developed into an ideal 6th man off the bench with Thybulle, while some combination of Murray, Little, Rupert, Watford and the young player(s) from a Dame trade have grown into their roles off Scoot/Sharpe.

The "emotional" brain says Dame can win with Scoot/Sharpe only if he accepts that after his contract is up, he has to take a team friendly deal so they can get paid and he can be a part of a balanced team with a new owner.

[Phalanx]

Well, Sharpe's deal ends a year before Lillard's, so there is a real chance that Blazers won't be able to match, since Lillard is slated to make over $63 million the next year. All another team has to do is front-load a poison-pill offer sheet that takes Portland way over the tax threshold, which won't be hard if they are stupid and also sign Grant to a massive deal. The Blazers have already lost good players because they knew they couldn't match - Josh Hart and Gary Trent come to mind.

[pezsez1]

The only benefit I would see for keeping Lillard is to have him be a mentor for Scoot. However, if a deal comes along that is getting value for PDX, they should move him in a heartbeat.

Obviously, the table is set for a Damian Lillard trade. By all accounts, Lillard wants to be here, and Cronin wouldn't have given him such a massive contract extension if he didn't want him here, too, but circumstances have changed and now here we are.

I think part of the problem though comes back to that statement of "value" up above. So far, the trades floated for Lillard have been laughably bad. It's widely understood that when you trade superstars you rarely get back true value in return, but there's a middle ground between true value and laughably bad. We haven't seen that yet.

Cronin would likely pick up that phone if another GM wanted to have a serious trade discussion. And he'd probably be candid with Dame about it, and Dame would probably be understanding of those circumstances. These two appear to have a healthy working relationship (no matter how we choose to characterize each of them) and Dame definitely wants to win.

So far, though, there really don't appear to be any serious trade offers on the table.

Lillard's contract could be a problem, absolutely. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter as much if the Blazers mostly surround Dame with rookies. Maybe Jodi is willing to go into the tax for a couple years to get through Dame's contract. Either way, we won't be winning a ton of games anytime soon with a youth movement so I don't see the harm in keeping Lillard around if he wants to stay. We might actually make some noise with Lillard on the roster if Scoot is as good as some people say he is.

[pezsez1]

Well, Sharpe's deal ends a year before Lillard's, so there is a real chance that Blazers won't be able to match, since Lillard is slated to make over $63 million the next year. All another team has to do is front-load a poison-pill offer sheet that takes Portland way over the tax threshold, and they won't be able to match.

I predict either Scoot or Sharpe will eventually need to be moved anyway. The new CBA appears to be capping teams at two max-contract superstars, and I don't think it would be in our long-term interests to anchor the team with two star guards going forward. I'm a big believer in Sharpe and think he'll someday be a max player, and many seem to think the same about Scoot.

Dame's contract beyond his current extension could always be reworked to be more team friendly, but Scoot & Sharpe or only going to command bigger bags if both are who we think they'll be. This team will eventually need a stud frontcourt player if it wants to be more than a darkhorse contender. Space will need to be made somehow.

Phalanx -- I'm actually not trying to discredit or minimize your concern here. It's a solid concern, maybe the only thing you've been saying that I fully agree with in terms of being a real concern. Just saying that if we really do go young then things might work themselves out.

[Phalanx]

When you are trying to trade an overpaid, aging player, it isn't about getting value back. It's about getting out of that contract and freeing up that money to do other things. You just compare the deals being offered and take the one with the best picks or tradeable contracts.

[dd10snoop28]

Here are what some "stars" fetched in the last 3 years. Beal is the exception:

James Harden
-Ben Simmons
-Seth Curry
-Andre Drummond
-2022 first-round pick
-2027 first-round pick

Donovan Mitchell
-Collin Sexton
-Lauri Markkanen
-Ochai Agbaji
-2025 first-round pick
-2026 pick swap
-2027 first-round pick
-2028 pick swap
-2029 first-round pick

Rudy Gobert:
-Malik Beasley
-Patrick Beverley
-Leandro Bolmaro
-Walker Kessler (No. 22 pick)
-Jarred Vanderbilt
-2023 first-round pick
-2025 first-round pick
-2026 pick swap
-2027 first-round pick
-2029 first-round pick (protected)

Dejounte Murray:
-Danilo Gallinari
-2023 first-round pick (via Charlotte from New York, protected)
-2025 first-round pick
-2026 pick swap
-2027 first-round pick

[droop10]

Even in the best case scenario where Sharpe or Henderson pan out to be a star, there's a very realistic chance they just bolt come free agency for a bigger market.

This is just false and has been addressed in previous CBAs specifically by small-market teams. It will take a long time for a 1st round draft pick to actually leave in unrestricted free agency, at which point if they've become All-NBA and are that adamant they want out at age 27/28, you're getting a haul for them in return.

You have 4 years on the rookie scale with a 1st rounder and then they enter restricted free agency. The shortest contract they can sign with another team is 2 years that can be matched by Portland (and obviously longer deals can be made too) but call it another 4 typically and you just hit 8 years of team control.

That's fair. Guess I should reword it a bit. I understand to get the max they'll need to resign with the Blazers, so saying they'd leave via free agency was false. But this day and age it doesn't mean a whole lot. Stars in the NBA that are discontent just request a trade, which is usually granted. Obviously, the team doesn't need to adhere to their request, but now you have a malcontent guy on the squad. I'm not saying it's a guarantee that Henderson or Sharpe do so, but we've seen plenty of examples of it in the NBA, and it's not out of the realm of possibilities. There's also a very real chance that neither pans out to be a star. Next year's draft is supposed to be one of the weaker ones in years, so there's no harm in keeping Lillard on the roster for the time being.

There are many reasons for not keeping Lillard:

(1) Lillard is a highly valued asset for competing teams now. The longer they hold him, the less value he retains.
(2) Holding him puts them in an awful cap situation. Getting 50+ million off the books is good for allowing a lot of flexibility in trades/signings.
(3) They have 0.1% chance of winning a championship with Lillard. Please don't debate this one.

The only benefit I would see for keeping Lillard is to have him be a mentor for Scoot. However, if a deal comes along that is getting value for PDX, they should move him in a heartbeat. If that deal doesn't come until the trade deadline then OK, but I'd be wary of trying to get a "great" deal for the worry that they will never got a "good" deal.

I said in the post above that, barring a sneaky good trade, they are a fringe play-in team at best, so I can't be accused of giving them a chance to win the championship. I'm more iffy on whether they really will get much value right now for him and, while I don't dispute getting him off the books provides more flexibility, I'm not as certain there's much they'd be able to accomplish with it anyway.

Essentially, my stance is that I can understand them going either way with this, and really I think they are kind of forced to leave it to Lillard. If you're already a team that has trouble attracting stars, you don't also want to tack on trading away your star against his wishes, granted it may not make much of a difference given Portland is what I'd say is already a bottom 5 free agent destination. But it will only be worth it to do that if you actually got a decent return back, which I'm skeptical they will. You would have to find a competing team that has the room financially to bring him in, and has a fit for him. I think it's a much smaller contingent than you may believe, and the returns from those teams will hardly be spectacular.

[pezsez1]

When you are trying to trade an overpaid, aging player, it isn't about getting value back.

But when you're trying to trade one of the league's best players who is coming off of his best year and has at least another couple years of prime hoops left in him, then yeah, you should expect better than Tyler Hero and pocket lint. It doesn't matter whether he's aging or overpaid if he's still in his prime and could help a team win a title.

Again... we're at "laughably bad" right now. Nobody expects Cronin to get actual value, but the proposals need to get significantly better for Cronin to change the nature of his dialogue with Lillard.

[Phalanx]

But when you're trying to trade one of the league's best players who is coming off of his best year and has at least another couple years of prime hoops left in him, then yeah, you should expect better than Tyler Hero and pocket lint. It doesn't matter whether he's aging or overpaid if he's still in his prime and could help a team win a title.

Again... we're at "laughably bad" right now. Nobody expects Cronin to get actual value, but the proposals need to get significantly better for Cronin to change the nature of his dialogue with Lillard.

Is this a joke? There were 13 players who got votes for MVP last year. None of them were named Lillard. He's only played in half the games the past two seasons due to injury, and he turns 33 in a few days. He's past his prime, but his contract has him making more than Giannis, Embiid, or Jokic over the next four years. I don't want Herro back either, but if the offer came with some picks and cap space, I would do it just to get rid of Dame's contract. Bring on Scoot, Ant, and Sharpe!

[pezsez1]

Is this a joke? There were 13 players who got votes for MVP last year. None of them were named Lillard. He's only played in half the games the past two seasons due to injury, and he turns 33 in a few days. He's past his prime, but blah blah blah blah

Is that a joke?

You answered your question right off the bat by pointing out that Lillard missed too many games. Also, the Blazers didn't make the playoffs. (Hint: Those two things are related!)

Dame wasn't really injured down the stretch of the season. Cronin shut him down so that the team could tank and improve draft position. Same as all of our other starters. They didn't all just get magically injured at the same time.

Dame just came off of his best statistical season ever. Dropped 71 in a game. Averaged like 40ppg for a month. Was wildly efficient. Why do you think the Heat want him so badly? Maybe they just want you to stop complaining.

Come on man. Stick with your salary argument, at least that's rooted in reality.

[Phalanx]

Are you trying to convince me, or the MVP voters who didn't vote for him? He played in more games (58) than Steph (56), who got votes,and only a couple games less than several others (Morant 61, Giannis 63, Butler 64, Doncic 66, Embiid 66). Shai and Luka also both missed the playoffs.

So much for those arguments. I still want to trade Lillard.

[Autzenoise]

On an unrelated side note.... Is there a way to mute a poster?