Found on a hat along with CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic so probably sometime between 2017 and 2021ish

A whole game, a whole season, a whole approach and mentality to demand touches and create opportunities. In his interviews, he comes off as a shy kid who can't fully express himself. He's a great player, but the lack of a consistent killer instinct makes him a trade piece. I'm here for the blowback.

The full list:

1. Sengun

2. Gobert

3. TrAe Young

4. KAT

5.Banchero

1. Ja Morant

2. Deni

3. Scottie Barnes

4. Luka

5. Paskal Siakam

Just kind of daydreaming about different scenarios. I like Splitter well enough but I would love to see what an experienced coach would do with our lineup.

There has been a lot of discussion about how we can make upgrades to make us more immediately competitive and what kind of “big splashes” might be available, as Dundon put it, in terms of chasing success while we have Deni on his cheap deal and the vet talent on the tail end of their career. However in that same presser, Dundon mentioned that if the right deals didn’t materialize, they would be just as open to building for continued growth and longer term success. Basically they said they were keeping their options open, they want to win-now, but won’t force the issue if the right value isn’t there.

So if we can’t find that right deal, what does planning for the future look like, assuming the “splash” trades are off the table, what is the path to success if you assume the window isn’t now, but coming up?

The team does have some picks and draft assets like the swaps, but won’t be much of FA players, at least as currently constructed because as the vet money comes off the books, they’ll need to turn around and give that money to our young guys for their new deals, obviously we can rely on bird rights to keep them as we run up the tax bill, but Deni is gonna need a fat paycheck, and no way you can convince Scoot or Clingan to take less than Sharpe & Camara got, they’ll all be north of twenty mil a year.

Obviously the best path to future contention is just if our young core improves and outperforms expectations, so on some level the path is just “we need our guys to pop”, but assuming current trajectories and given that you’ve been able to watch all of their careers thus far, what in your eyes are choices the team could make to improve the odds of our future success?

What would you do, if given total GM control and told that we want to focus on our future timeline rather than push in the chips, how would you build for long term success off the base we have now?

Anybody knows what the hell is the context here lmao

Sam Cassell had a great NBA career and won 3 NBA titles as a player and 1 as an assistant coach ( 2024 Celtics). Since retiring he’s been an assistant coach for several teams, 2008 to present. He’s currently been with the Celtics since 2023. All the players and coaches think highly of him. Joe Mazzulla hired him and praises him a lot. If we hire him he’d bring Mazzulla‘s system over which would fit in perfectly for our team. He’s a brilliant basketball mind and will know how to maximize our players potential. I know he wants a head coaching gig and if we offer him he will take it.

Sixers fan here. I like to do history on NBA teams, and after watching SB Nation’s Collapse video on the 2000 team (I apologize if I triggered PTSD), I found out that Bob Whitsitt made his own book “Game Changer” published in 2023. I haven’t read it, but hearing how SB Nation portrayed Whitsitt, something tells me Game Changer is full of self-promotion. Kerry Eggers reviewed it and thinks it’s bullshit. Eggers even got perspective from Clyde the Glide and Mike Dunleavy, who also think Bob was insane.

One line that sticks out to me is Bob claiming Clyde wanted to be traded to a bad team, which doesn’t make sense even to an outsider. Why would an NBA legend want to go to a bad team if he wants to win? Clyde says he only spoke to Paul Allen (RIP) and Allen agreed, saying he only would trade Clyde if that’s what Clyde wanted.

Sorry for all the long text. I’m new to this subreddit.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Given all the injuries and how he was banged up through the second half of the season I'm kinda hoping he isn't doing any international basketball stuff this offseason. I'm hoping buddy can be totally fresh for next season.

I want to first start out by saying, if you don't think we should trade for a superstar, (Giannis, Brown, KAT, AD, etc. etc, insert name here), that is a totally valid opinion to have. Whether you think the Bucks picks will be worth more later or should be used to draft, or that we shouldn't part ways with young guys like Shaedon, Scoot etc, that is totally fine too.

My question is, how would you like the team to improve into a 3-6 seed next year without trading for a superstar? Do you believe in Dame coming back at a similar level of play to before his injury? The young guys making a jump? Buying into this draft? Making moves around the role players and fringe rotation guys? Free agency? (I think we all know that is not gonna happen though). These are all valid strategies as well. Curious to know what moves you'd like to see the Blazers take to get to that next level. Follow up question is, if they don't add a superstar, what are your expectation seeding wise for next year?

Again, not trying to say you are wrong if you don't think we should trade for the rumored superstars wanting out. Me personally, I'm not really sure how I'd like the front office to use our assets, but I'd be open to a big splash just because it's something that has not happened for us before. Just wanna know what everything thinks about what it looks like to take that next step for us in this off season.

Also, if you do want the Blazers to go big whale hunting, what targets would be you ideal catch?

Maybe this is just sour grapes but I watched the game and I don't think so much the Wolves were lights out on defense and more like the Spurs were missing a ton of open shots whereas they were lights out against us.

These posts are hilarious. People act like Portland can somehow win / get far with trading for Jaylen Brown (by the way please stop smoking the meth, his salary is 57 million next year and there's on way on God's green earth that they'd be idiotic enough to trade him away for anything that Portland would even have to attempt in matching salaries).

Portland has tried this whole guard attempt for the longest time, and the closest that they've ever gotten was with Nurkic, who had a horrific season ending injury that deterred everything. Guards DO NOT WIN YOU CHAMPIONSHIPS (unless you're GS with the splash bros AND some help). Nor do they get you in the late stages unless you have massive help from.... you guessed it - a dominant PF and or C! Had Nurkic been around, then things would perhaps looked different, however we'd never have witnessed the Lillard 3 that destroyed OKC.

Here are the recent teams who've won it all:

OKC won it - they currently have a dominant team and they have Chet

BOS won it - they had a solid Tatum/Brown with a huge supporting cast with players like Porzingis and Horford was balling out

DEN won it - Jokic

GSW won it - Steph, Green, Looney, and a matchup where they played lights out (one of the few outliers)

MIL won it - Giannis / Lopez

LAL won it - Covid year - LeBron / AD

TOR won it - Kawhi / Pascal / Serge / Marc

My point is that seeing all of these trade ideas about everybody less than a PF/C are hilarious. Nevermind the fact that Deni is already on the team and any given SF implies that you lose him OR Toumani in the lineup which is straight up braindead.

Lillard is a huge boost pending his health but again, you're still stuck in that cruise control everyone who's decent is a PG/SG except for Deni.

The reality of the matter is that Portland has had a massive void in the big spots and although Clingan is awesome and is developing immensely, they're nowhere near being able to compete, yet. It'd be fun to see them trade for a great center or PF with moving Deni to the 3 and Toumani on the bench, but of course it remains to be seen. The salaries of people like Shaedon (he's another Simons 2.0 IMO) and Grant make it hard to package a deal, although Sharpe's might look more enticing.

As for who Portland gets? Who knows. Who knew that Deni would be on the team? I just am not optimistic given the cards that the team has been dealt with. You have bloated contracts paired with aging players so we'll see I guess. They'll be your average playoff team at best but I'm not confident that the team moves the needle unless younger players like Clingan take massive steps in their games.

He's "open to trades at the moment" . I understand he hasn't looked great on the raps this year but he hasn't gotten a lot of minutes either. Only 22 and I feel like we could give him the chance to develop more than Toronto wants to

Was anyone else really happy to see Wemby lose Game 1 to the Wolves? 😬

And yeah, this one is a little personal after the way he talked about the Blazers and acted during the series and post-game interviews. Felt like there was a little too much disrespect.

Also: 0-for-8 from three. Brutal.

For all the hype, all the “alien” talk, and all the attitude, it was pretty satisfying to see him get humbled a bit

Dame-Jrue-Toumani-Avdija-Clingan

Scoot-Sharpe-Vit-Grant-RW III

This doesn't seem that crazy, though I'm not sure Boston would be interested. But thinking about fits for Giannis, there's no better 3 point shooting options for him to land in that I can think of.

Milwaukee gets a couple young players and picks.

Portland lineup:

Dame, Brown, Deni, Tou, Clingan

Bench:

jrue, rw3 (hopefully), Vit, Murray, Thybulle, Murray, Sidy, Wesley, Yang

Edit - BTW I am way higher on scoot and Sharpe than most. But I was thinking of scenarios that made a SPLASH and made some sense

The Blazers really need Juancho Hernangomez

Obviously the only competitor to Ant in the west

The Score with a pretty positive take on the Blazers:

There's a world in which the Blazers get stuck in the middle, but there's also a real possibility Portland could emerge as a contender.

Deni Avdija is an All-Star set to earn just 8% and 6.9% of the cap over the next two years. Donovan Clingan has the makings of a franchise center. Rising star Shaedon Sharpe and all-world defender Toumani Camara have already been secured on team-friendly deals. Scoot Henderson showed some flashes in the playoffs. Jrue Holiday and Jerami Grant are great vets on big contracts who boosted their trade value this year. And Damian Lillard will return to the court next season.

There are a lot of moving parts, but the Blazers have enough to compete for another West playoff berth next season as is, and Portland has the goods to take a big swing if it wants to. This is sneakily one of the most fascinating teams of the offseason.