stashing assets for the 2023 nba offseason

one good prospect isnt really a youth movement

simons sharpe #3... whoever they can get for dame, whoever they can get for their other vets

add #3 pick to simons and sharpe and that's a youth movement

is dame dissatisfied with simons and sharpe

they do have a lot of guards i guess

seems like dame is maybe going to get traded

portland has always had a lot of guards

they should check out: forwards

great position imo one of them best

almost as good as center

thats where the big men play

just making the team untenable for dame is a decent strategy, everyone would come out looking ok

this whole thing feels increasingly ridiculous... there is no way for them to acquire a significant veteran player w/ the third pick this year unless they're sitting there on the clock and scoot is available. no one wants brandon miller or cam whitmore that much. i'd have to assume the team that is actually fielding the trade requests the blazers want is the hornets

i guess from dame's perspective what's another few weeks of back and forth but.... how much longer can the world spend talking about whether he wants to be traded or not? like...

floating that they’re trying to acquire bam adebayo is great “see???? we’re trying!!!” type of stuff

dame is obv an all-timer and a lot of fun to watch when he's rolling, but it feels like he'll be forced to confront how the limits of his talent (not to mention age+contract) clash with the image in his mind that he can ever contend in portland

in the last like 25 years of basketball what even is the history of trading a top 3 pick -- not a pick that turned into a top 3 pick but a pick where everyone knew the draft slot -- for a veteran player?

in 2001 the clippers traded no 2 pick tyson chandler to the bulls for elton brand, so there's one

in 2005 the wizards traded the no 5 pick (ended up becoming ricky rubio) for mike miller and randy foye

in 2013 the pelicans traded no 6 pick nerlens noel for jrue holiday *but* they also had to throw a second first in so idk if that counts, tho for the right player i'm sure the blazers would throw in an extra pick

in 2019 the suns traded the no 6 pick for dario saric and the no 11 pick but i don't think that counts

can anyone remember others? what the blazers are trying to do feels pretty ahistorical. maybe whoever made that deal for the clippers 22 years ago is still bouncing around the NBA somewhere...

so I’ve listened to basically all the podcasts now and I have to say I’m flabbergasted, like does anyone understand how the NBA works? there’s a salary cap…you can’t really have a contender with a main guy who is significantly less valuable than his contract. what’s the history of a guy like beal playing on a champion? I just took a look at the previous 15 championship teams or so and arguably the two most overpaid key players are michael porter jr and klay…and those are players who give you more than just offense and are also parts of complete teams. beal is making 43 million next year and it only gets worse from there, and that’s before you even get into the fit issues with this team and complete lack of depth. it’s a disaster imo

higher than the sun(s)

funny thing is the suns were actually fucked when they made the kd trade, beal deal doesnt move the needle that much, tho it does prolong the pain

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.3347360875.4919/flat,750x,075,f-pad,750x1000,f8f8f8.jpg

suns front office, on all-stars

that’s the thing I think people are missing…chris paul was underperforming his contract but it was much shorter and not guaranteed, aka somewhat tradeable, but worst case he’s a good fit with the roster. instead you turn that into…the worst contract in the NBA! a guy who in absolute terms is a comparable player to paul but a worse fit, completely unreadable, AND fucks the extended booker/KD window

beal keeps his no-trade clause!

i mean i guess waiving cp3 wouldve been the smart thing to do but theyd still have no way to put together a contender around kd

doubt there was another cp3 trade that makes them better at basketball

i agree w/ your first point i was listening to the lowe pod w/ bobby marks this morning and zach is like, you can't put the suns over denver but i've got them no 2 in the west. marks is like, yeah they'll have depth issues but you put those 3 guys into a playoff rotation and i love that. i had to look up at the sky to make sure it was still blue.

across the podsphere the plugged in types (windhorst, lowe) are, even w/ some reservations, dutifully explaining the suns' logic which basically breaks down to "we are being so reckless about our future that it would actually be irresponsible for us to not be even more reckless." they're speeding down a snaking mountain road at 110 mph like "hey if we're gonna go off this cliff we might as well do it at 130 mph" and i'm just having trouble believing what i'm hearing. maybe actually slowing down is a good idea? idk

if you were handed this team pre beal trade the best thing to do is prob trade kd, obvs theyre not going to do that so its all bad options

i do disagree w/ the idea that cp3 is better for them than beal tho. that may be true on paper in terms of fit or for the regular season but you can't be thinking of yourself as a contender and also be relying on cp3 to have all of his body parts intact by the third round of the playoffs. beal has obv had his own issues staying healthy but you can reasonably dream on him being able to dribble and shoot when the calendar hits mid-may

the cp3 -> beal thing is just a question of opportunity cost. i buy the idea that turning nothing into brad beal is a great trade but we don't live in a context free world

paul’s health is the major question of course, and at some point you might just read the writing on the wall and say his unreliability in may makes it completely not worth it. but I just feel like not enough is being made of the awkward fit. who is passing the ball on this team? defending wings? rebounding? booker and beal would be tiny on the wing. put booker at point and suddenly that’s a lot to ask of a guy who doesn’t have a spotless injury history either

like paul brings top 1% passing, above average defense, above average rebounding for his position. and while his shooting numbers have sort of fallen off a cliff the past 2 years, his larger body of work suggests that at least has a chance to regress in the right direction. I just don’t see the fit on this team with beal

beal will "be the point guard", which is prob fine, the least of their worries

if you’re a contender you can’t bet on cp3 you just can’t

what the heat just got out of kyle lowry, minutes & role wise, feels like a best case scenario use for this version of chris paul to me, if the goal is for him to be healthy enough to play 4 playoff rounds

its so insane, they won 64 games the year before last and had some guys with upside to balance out cp3 aging out. now they have nothing

potential 5+ year contender thrown down the drain as an overreaction to an admittedly abhorrent game 7 loss in the offs

many xps to J0rd - don't forget

2008 Celtics trade #5 (Jeff Green) + Wally Szczerbiak & Delonte West for Ray Allen and the pick that became Big Baby

Celts doing the instant rebuild that prevented Pierce from becoming a disgruntled trade-demanding star is probably the model for teams like the Blazers with Dame, and maybe the Wiz with Beal a couple of years ago. What they may not be considering is that without the KG trade, the one for Ray wouldve probably felt like moving deck chairs around, maybe getting back in the offs but certainly not making much noise there

near impossible to trade for 2 guys that good and still have a rotation tho

oh for sure. to clarify, i did not mean that this is the model they should be trying to follow, but rather it’s the model they have in their heads

and celtics really caught lightning in a bottle with rondo ascending and the right mix of ring chasing vets

there's at least one more i forgot too

2014 the cavs trade no 1 pick (andrew wiggins) for kevin love

there was a bunch of other irrelevant stuff involved incl a third team (philly) but we know what this was about

oh yeah there you go thats a real one

obviously a very unusual situation though for the team with pick #1 to be able to sign the best player in the league in free agency

of the ones we have listed, the allen/celtics & love/cavs ones were specific situations where a team was loading up on outside stars and so the pick had little value to them aside from being a trade piece

the jrue holiday trade ended up being great for the pelicans but anthony davis was 21 when they made that trade not 32. also the sixers made two pretty bad picks

trading the no 2 pick for elton brand and the no 5 pick for mike miller & randy foye feel like the closer analogues to what this blazers thing would be and needless to say those were not very good trades

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzGTB9RaEAAXpfa?format=png&name=900x900

puny humans and their "based ball"

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzGXM4dXgAA-uLv?format=jpg&name=900x900

that my guy (left)

6’3” jj redick looking like lil penny

Would love to see a pic of Wemby next to Yao Ming and Kareem.

and also an average ILHer for reference

Breaking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLhdZKtSWxM

If I were the first 18 teams in the draft I'd consider skipping this kid.