stashing assets for the 2023 nba offseason

imagine saying that with a straight face after these events

"I wanted everyone to understand that even though we didn't have a no-trade clause, a provision that's not afforded to Dame under the CBA, I was going to do everything in my power to stumble around being a nuisance and a fuckup by getting in the way of any deals getting made for my client."

wonder if dame couldve gotten to miami if he was a lil more accommodating to the blazers

not mentioned in the article but you gotta think that blazers suspected miami of tampering

if only they could have gathered a bunch of roughly similar offers, maybe he could have come in at the end and said you know if all these are about equal i'd really prefer miami.

wild idea

xp maybe but it doesn't seem like miami even had time to tamper. dame's agent was like pre-tampering by nuking the market before it existed.

they just wildly misread their own control of the situation for some reason

it's the agent's responsibility to know the market and give good advice to their client. dame's only job is playing hoops.

some aspect of dame feeling he deserved the blazers deference

I got the sense that dame’s camp thought his reputation as a good loyal community guy trumped everything, as if people don’t turn on each other as the wind blows xp yeah

yes, like if i talk about how loyal i am constantly it will somehow matter

while in the process of being disloyal

loyalty of course was not rewarded by absolutely insane guaranteed money extensions which are not mentioned once in that chris haynes piece

it seems like dame and aaron goodwin misread joe cronin on a personal level. he is a grudge holder!

the stuff about dame and the extensions is really backwards to me tho. the blazers put $120 million in front of him… was he supposed to say no? i would agree with dame that taking the money meant nothing as far as his loyalty goes. i don’t believe that anyone could say with a straight face that dame was supposed to turn down a free extension of $60m per year even if he intended to force his way out one day

ultimately if you step back tho, this all ended up ok for dame. his reputation took a hit but success on the court absolves all sins and he ended up in a place where there’s a really good chance of achieving the kinda success that would make all this worth it. and none of us are the ones who have to live in milwaukee. except frogbs

i mean he didnt get to go where he wanted and he looks a fool but at least hes not on the knicks

i would agree with dame that taking the money meant nothing as far as his loyalty goes.

right, his loyalty never meant anything. he took compensation and gave up his ability to pick his next team, except for some reason he thought he could still pick his next team.

imo mostly he made his whole persona about how it’s other guys who chase rings not him he does the grind he works for the blazers then he asked to go to the eastern conference champs and now is on a team with the best player in basketball and he looks silly but yeah we will forget it all in a few months

he took compensation and gave up his ability to pick his next team, except for some reason he thought he could still pick his next team.

― call all destroyer, Thursday, September 28, 2023 11:18 PM (nine minutes ago)

yes, dad

in reality, he did have some power to pick his next team. he just overestimated exactly how much power, and when to use that power. but there was still willingness on portland's end to work w/ him even until the bitter end.

being like "dame took their money, he should suck it up" is very weird to me personally, it's all a reaction to the owners trying to bend the rules of the league in their direction. tit for tat. dame isn't a victim by any stretch but i'm not gonna chide him for taking the money and trying to figure the rest out later. it's pretty rational behavior given the modern CBA... and again he wasn't wrong in assuming he'd have some power to dictate his next move

dad otm tho

dame had longings and desires and these were not being fulfilled. he set about filling that empty space that money alone could not fill. not that he minded the money, of course, or expected any less money in the quest for fulfillment. he just wanted a rich and fulfilling NBA experience. and the money.

dame isn't a victim by any stretch but i'm not gonna chide him for taking the money and trying to figure the rest out later. it's pretty rational behavior given the modern CBA... and again he wasn't wrong in assuming he'd have some power to dictate his next move

if it turns out dame was a good stats on bad teams dude all along I will have some strange reactions, but yeah he was always limited as a #1 dude

Last February:

Damian Lillard set an NBA record in his monster scoring night on Sunday, racking up 71 points in 39 minutes, including 13 three-pointers, as the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Houston Rockets 121-114.

With his effort, Lillard became the first player in NBA history to score more than 70 points in under 40 minutes and just the eighth player to hit the 70-point mark.

He is also the only player on that elite list to score 70 over the age of 30...

Even a 'good stats on bad team' guy doesn't come up with one of those kinds of games without elite skills.

otoh they barely beat the rockets that night

reading that haynes piece i got curious about aaron goodwin. these are his nba clients:

dame
derozan
gp ii
matisse thybulle
souley boum

interesting that he has gp ii, who we will recall was at the center of one of the more nagl front office situations in recent memory when portland may or may not have played dirty trading him to the dubs. no particular obvious way goodwin would have taken that, but potentially some baggage in the room negotiating with cronin and the blazers...

if it turns out dame was a good stats on bad teams dude all along I will have some strange reactions, but yeah he was always limited as a #1 dude

― Clay, Thursday, September 28, 2023 9:40 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i def dont think hes a good stats / bad team dude. hes much better than that. his profile is that of a tier 1 guy but i dont consider him a tier 1 guy. dont think he really elevates his teammates, doesnt do much if the ball isnt in his hands, and has never shown much effort on defense. the bucks had one of the ugliest offenses weve ever seen so dame should help there, but their defense is going to take a big hit.

dame and his agent thinking they could take extra money and years AND dictate his trade destination

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v-rIWUAQuI

goodwin is pitching to other nba players, and its not a bad pitch if oversold a little

in reality, he did have some power to pick his next team. he just overestimated exactly how much power, and when to use that power. but there was still willingness on portland's end to work w/ him even until the bitter end.

being like "dame took their money, he should suck it up" is very weird to me personally

― J0rdan S., Thursday, September 28, 2023 11:55 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

he didnt pick his team and portland refused to answer his calls so idk, its just a fact of the system that if you sign a contract your team controls where you play

and again he wasn't wrong in assuming he'd have some power to dictate his next move

i’d say the way this played out demonstrates that he was wrong! he misread what would result from trying to steamroll an absentee ownership and a gm who is perceived to be weak. i actually don’t begrudge him at all for trying to get someplace, but his attempt was inept and it failed and now he’s crying to chris haynes and writing sad raps. on those fronts he should definitely suck it up!

but my point isn’t really that the money should make everything ok. it’s that if he was worried about controlling his destiny he could have made some different decisions. you cannot, in fact, have it all.

the saddest part was when he was like ok i will just play for the blazers then and they were all no

yeah that was a real kick in the stomach

should probably keep in mind the haynes piece is mainly just regurgitating dame and his agent’s talking points

From the moment Lillard requested a trade from the Blazers on July 1, he informed the team that he wanted a deal specifically to the Eastern Conference champion Heat, sources briefed on those talks say. Lillard believed he gave the Blazers loyalty over 11 seasons and wanted the franchise to move him to his preferred landing spot.

The Blazers and Heat had multiple conversations in July, but the sides never engaged in substantive negotiations, according to those sources. In an initial call, the Blazers asked the Heat for Jimmy Butler or Bam Adebayo. The Heat came to believe that the Blazers had little to no interest in engaging in a deal with them, and as much as Lillard and Goodwin wished that the Blazers would attempt to satisfy the seven-time All-Star’s wish, Portland refused. As the summer progressed, Lillard wanted the Blazers to find a deal with Miami, but those wishes, in his mind, also went unfulfilled.

unclear to me what the word “also” is doing in this last sentence but lol at the blazers asking about a jimmy swap, that’s amazing

but my point isn’t really that the money should make everything ok. it’s that if he was worried about controlling his destiny he could have made some different decisions. you cannot, in fact, have it all.

i guess a clearer way of making my point is that i think the issue was not dame taking his max extension and figuring it out later — i think all players should do this — but a misreading of joe cronin on a personal level. i can’t quite tell if we’re disagreeing, but if the argument is “dame should turn down hundreds of millions in guaranteed security to become a free agent” … that’s intrinsically ownership logic, based on how the league is now structured specifically to kill free agency at that level, and i simply can’t get w/ that, just on like a baseline level of who i’m siding with morally/politically

i think obviously we all side with the players over the owners, the owners are shitty billionaires and the players are the ones who produce the cool thing called the nba, but its also worth considering that these are two groups of rich people fighting over a huge pile of money, projecting the real stakes of capital vs labor of say auto works vs ford on the situation is ultimately just some sort of fandom thinking, its taylor swift vs scooter braun, an inconsequential political fantasy, ask yourself how often these unionized players show solidarity with working people, ask lebron about nikes workers see what happens, hes certainly more concerned with his pickball investment, so if dame misread exactly how the trade demand game is played and then cried about it im not gonna pretend its some great injustice

I think from a “moral” perspective (for the sake of argument when we’re talking about generational wealth…) everyone on this board is probably on the same page. but let’s be honest NBA players are not auto workers, this is an entertainment business, dame has every right to try this gambit but I don’t think even conscientious fans have an obligation to side with his ridiculous request to ask his team to disregard their own self interest here for his sake. if he were 3 years younger it might be a different outcome for him, but he found out the hard way that he doesn’t call the shots he thought he did, it’s a business baby

lol xp

ilh soviet has spoken

i would like to add that its objectively funny how bad dame botched the situation and then released a sad rap song about it

messy drama, it's is what we live for

ultimately i think the conventional wisdom that you make your trade demand with 1.5 or 1 seasons left on your contract is correct, any further out and management just isnt feeling that much urgency to get a deal done, we saw what happened with kd he was forced to rescind his and then a deal finally happened when the suns made an absolute max offer, bron understoof when he signed all those two year deals, likewise you cant just demand to go to one team it prevents your team from getting good value, both of these were known heuristics that dame just ignored

funny thing is he still landed in a great situation, he shouldve had the bucks on his list, i think theres some sort of deeper logic with trade demand where when theyre made it usually makes sense to trade the player, like no one asks for a trade when theyre in championship contention except kawhii, but then the specifics of the trade demand have to continue to make sense otherwise things can get dicey

i think obviously we all side with the players over the owners

it's actually not that obvious!

anyway, the question is not what the blazers should have done, i don't think anyone has argued that they shouldn't act in their own self interest. the question is whether dame was wrong to take their money and still ask out -- the implication of a number of recent posts -- and i just flatly disagree with that. i said previously that dame isn't a victim, i understand he isn't an auto worker, but your sympathies are going to seep out one way or another, and i know which way mine run, that's all i'm saying here. to each his own!

projecting the real stakes of capital vs labor of say auto works vs ford on the situation is ultimately just some sort of fandom thinking

i actually don't think this is true. not as it pertains to ILH exactly but sports management disputes are often proxies for public debates about the kinda capital vs labor battles that have "real stakes." you can often sniff out real rat ass human beings in the way they discuss player vs owner disputes

ah proxies for debates ok lol

ultimately i think the conventional wisdom that you make your trade demand with 1.5 or 1 seasons left on your contract is correct

i think the core of this argument comes down to whether you think dame was wrong for asking out w/ more than 2 seasons left or if you think the blazers were wrong for giving him a crazy and nonsensical extension that everyone said was crazy and nonensical from the minute it happened & then expecting that it meant dame wasn't going to ask out when their obviously mediocre team fully accepted the reality of rebuilding. because to argue the first point is to say he should've turned down the free extension money they threw at him for no reason & that's just a crazy position to hold, imo

dame was wrong in the sense that his plan did not work, thats all

tbc i’m not really on anyone’s side in this—both sides played the hands they were dealt to varying degrees of effectiveness and i just think the sour grapes on lillard’s part are silly. he wasn’t “wrong” to ask out but he was unrealistic in his expectations when doing so.

i think we’re maybe framing things differently in our minds, i do agree this is an interesting test case for some structural issues in the league right now but my reaction is really just that according to the current rules of the game, lillard made some bad and obvious blunders. of course i’d like those rules to be somewhat different, but they aren’t and won’t be anytime soon.

also, james harden has twice i think now turned down extensions to steer himself to different teams! lebron went year to year for a while with the cavs so he could extract himself at the right time. it’s not like it’s unheard of to trade financial security for short-term flexibility.

and i’m not even saying lillard should have done that! there was always a path for him to get to miami this summer but he just fucked it up.