>Haynes reports that 2 days before the draft Cronin called Lillard and said they weren’t trading the pick
>After that meeting the Blazers knew they had a few days to make a trade to show Dame that they’re trying to give him a contending team
>The vision wasn’t kept and in his eyes the promises weren’t kept
>The timing of the trade request was so teams that might be interested didn’t make trades elsewhere or sign players in that they wouldn’t be able to trade for Lillard
>Stein says that people he’s talked to around the league are skeptical that Portland will be able to do deal with anyone but Miami
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cub21ueWNvbnRlbnQuY29tL2QvcGxheWxpc3QvZTczYzk5OGUtNmU2MC00MzJmLTg2MTAtYWUyMTAxNDBjNWIxL2Y2MjI3ZWNjLTEyNjEtNGM0Ny04ZjgxLWFmN2YwMGQ5OTk4Yi8yNTZiNGIwMS1mMjk3LTQ4NDQtYTE5NS1hZjdmMDBkOWY4MWQvcG9kY2FzdC5yc3M/episode/NmJjOTkxYzctOWRmMi00ZThhLTg0YjAtYjAzNDAwNGNkM2E5?sa=X&ved=0CAQQ8qgGahgKEwiQ492m2vL_AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQhiQ
by EarthWarping
34 Comments
So demanding. Having superstars as a GM seems very stressful if you can’t pull great moves out of your butt by living in a great market.
Lillard putting everything out there through Haynes lol
Portland fans in shambles.
Didn’t the immediate reports after this meeting indicate it all went well? lol
2.5 hours? What did they discuss?
“Dame, we did what you asked. We signed Jerami Grant.”
“Yeah, that’s cool”.
“We also drafted another guard…”
“… Aite, trade me”
2 1/2 hours? How many breaks?
I hope Portland takes the best deal. Lilliard has been amazing for them, but players shouldn’t be able to re-sign to get the most money and also get to force their trade to their specifically preferred destination (unless they have a NTC).
If you sign a contract with the team, especially at the max rate which limits everything else, you can’t expect that you can always get max money AND build a contender, especially if you’re not a top-5 player in the league.
A big portion of our fanbase is just going to watch Dame and root for wherever he goes, at least until our horrible, terrible owner sells the team. The franchise has been so incompetent and toxic ever since Paul Allen’s death in 2018. It’s been truly nauseating to try and root for
Phoenix is going all out, Denver made smart moves, Dallas is always trying to re-tool to be better, San Antonio is consistently a good organization making good moves and drafting wisely. None of those are “great” markets. Their front offices are either just competent or are going all-in to improve. I think people just like to make excuses for organizational mediocrity.
Heck, even a lot of Miami fans have been up in arms about Micky always trying to maneuver to be under the tax (that cheapness cost us Mike Miller during Lebron years, cost us Wade when he left, might have cost us Beal). There is nothing wrong with players demanding their FO’s be better and leaving if they are not.
2 1/2 hours sheesh 😂 I’m imagining Lillard coming in with a 150 slide PowerPoint presentation on why he’s unhappy and them going over each slide
I get his frustration but trading away that 3rd pick (with everyone lowballing them because Dame never stops talking about how they need to trade their picks for vets) when you have Scoot falling into your lap would be malpractice
I’m sorry, but the idea here is that Lillard is going to be incredibly cancerous if he’s traded to Boston and is under contract with a title contender for four years? Is this a joke?
The PR battle begins.
Lillard, it’s okay. We don’t care that you want out. I’ve come to a point that I think it’s in our best interest to move on anyway. You don’t have to keep justifying yourself
Dame feels cheated which explains his actions over these last several days. He feels he’s given everything to a team that hasn’t done the same for him and he feels betrayed.
For a few reasons, namely the potential blowback at not acquiescing to Dame’s request and the long term ramifications of not doing so, trading Dame to anywhere but his desired destination would be a very fraught choice to make. The rest of the league also potentially themselves having a disgruntled star on their roster and we’ve seen how that’s played out over these last few seasons.
Generally, stars go where they want to eventually. I think the Blazers will want to resolve this before the season but they’re not desperate to, and they’ll take Dame to camp in a few months if they don’t receive an offer to their liking. Something likely gets done eventually but I think this drags out.
Even if he didn’t fulfill promises, props for Cronin to finally pull the trigger and I hope for the organization that they get the best trade available.
Basically Cronin has fucked the relationship Olshey built.
I don’t know if Olshey was good at the building a contender part of being a GM but he was apparently great at the relationship builing and trust aspect (despite also being a horrible person to his subordinates. complicated guy)
I think they owe it to him to send him to a contender but to say they owe it to him to take a lesser deal which hampers their future and only serves to fuck the organization and fan base is bullshit.
Well yeah, Portland basically drafted his replacement lmao. Imagine getting gaslit to tank for 2 seasons just for your team to draft your replacement.
Dame shouldn’t have signed a long term contract.
Well he isn’t wrong. The Blazers are not building around him now
LOL at all the NBA drama through journalists. Even the “private” meetings aren’t private. How can you trust anybody in this league?
This will get buried, but here’s the thing.
Dame is not 100% in the right, but he is mostly right. The FO spent years convincing him that he had a chance to compete in Portland while actively tearing down the roster to set up for a rebuild. They did so because Dame puts butts in seats and they didn’t want to piss of their fan base. People yak about him cashing their checks, but he made them FAR more money than they paid him, and any other team in the league would have happily paid him the same as he got from Portland.
Where he fucked up is either believing them when he shouldn’t have, or burying his head in the sand. It was clear to everyone at least a year ago when he they drafted Sharpe that they had no interest in building a contender. And tbh, between the clippers, suns, nuggets, etc being all in during Dame’s window there was never any real path to a chip in Portland for Dame.
Still, he generated hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in value for the TB and they should honor his request regardless of what they get back from the heat. If they don’t, every other star should know that they should stay away from Portland because their FO cannot be trusted. Players should honor their contracts, but orgs should also be held to their word. Portland did not, and Dame is correct to ask out if he wants any chance at a chip.
This is the moment Haynes has waited like 6 years for.
Kinda hilarious how all the Heat flairs are suddenly experts on the Blazers front office and apparently how badly their team is run
Anyone else hoped that when Dame finally requests a trade that he will also shut the fuck up?
I don’t really understand why it’s bad for Dame to request Miami. Every player has a destination in mind, we’ve seen players request certain teams and they end up traded elsewhere for good value.
If you wanted us to be able to do something with that pick then maybe you shouldn’t have made it clear to the media that you’d ask out if we couldn’t do anything with the pick
Context matters: we tried to trade the picks, tried hard to get bridges, but the Nets said no. Other trades woukd have fleeced us. That’s also on Dame. He ruined all of our leverage by talking to the media daily about where he wants to go, and that he’ll leave if we trade the pick. If he stayed quiet, we would’ve had way more leverage. I wish that we traded the pick, but ultimately we did the best thing for the franchise.
I don’t understand the melodrama over all this and narrative pushing.
It’s great that Dame was loyal.
It’s good for them all to move on. It’s in the Blazers best interest to hit a reset button, and if Dame wants to compete for a title, it’s going to be with another team that has veteran stars.
It’s ok. No need for blame games, shade throwing, or “that’s what happens when you’re loyal!” nonsense.
After PG was traded, Thunder fans saw the writing on the wall with Russ. Russ asked for a trade to Miami or Houston. He was sent to Houston.
There was no blame game, no finger pointing, no acrimony, no narrative control…it was done, we worked with him (both of them) to go where they wanted to go, and moved on. Six months later, we’re cheering PG when he returns to Paycom and give Russ one of the more moving player tribute videos you’ll see.
I don’t know why it can’t go that way for the Blazers right now.
The Miami package, if offered, of 3 FRPs, Lowry’s expiring, Herro (who is flipped to the Nets for another first, and possibly a second first to Blazers to take on Simmons), and possibly Jovic, is a helluva deal for a 33 year old player, coming off of two injury riddled years, will make 63 million in four years, and you, as an org and fanbase, should want to do right by.
Anything above that is freaking unrealistic. Blazers are starting their rebuild on first base already, as they have a young backcourt that can be top 5 in the league in a few years, and be that way for another ten years.
Assuming Scoot is their best player on a playoff team capable of making a deep run ~2028, and Sharpe is at worst 3rd best, the second and fourth best players on a contending Blazers team *are going to come from their own tanking picks the next two years*…NOT from an extra first round pick squeezed out of Utah or San Antonio or Orlando in comparison.
The Blazers rebuild will continue in their own picks in the draft, not the number of picks they get in the aftermath of a Dame trade. Those are nice, and they help to fill out a roster, and maybe you hit a home run in a guy taken 27th in the 2024 draft, but the future of the Blazers is half now (Scoot, Sharpe) and half 24 and 25 drafts (with top 5 picks from tanking for two years)…NOT the draft compensation from a Dame to Miami trade.
This looking over the shoulder, eyeing previous trades for comparison, and saying “No! We won’t do anything unless we get the PG or Gobert return!”…those are two outlier trades that can’t be used for comparison. The PG trade to the Clippers was for *two* players (Kawhi), and both were in their 20s…not one 33 year old, and the Gobert trade is the STUPIDEST trade in the history to mankind, that no one with an IQ above -1,382,625 would offer.
Now, if Miami’s offer is less than their best offer…if they’re only offering one first and Duncan instead of Herro, I get it. But it sounds like the Miami offer is closer to their best closer than a ludicrous lowball.
What!? This doesn’t fit the narrative AT ALL. He blindsided them! Portland gave that contract to Grant because they thought Dame was staying not because they’re trash, right?! RIGHT!? Please tell me out FO ain’t trash bro – Blazers fans
“I’m not happy with the way the team is constructed guys, we need to do something to change things up!”
“Got it, let’s give Jerami Grant a huge check.”
“Promises not kept” its a job and youre paid hundreds of millions thats the promise being kept lol
What Promises are there?? Lillard gets 450 mill and in return hoops.
You can’t clap with one hand, both parties are at fault. FO for failing to put together a good roster for decade and Dame feeling like he needs to talk to the media daily to facilitate/force the process so FO will take him seriously and by doing so tanked the assets of the 3rd pick. After failing to trade the pick, Dame requested out and only wants a team with no equivalent assets and now we are in this mess. This is simply a messy relationship with lots of grudges over the years, not as simple as people make it out to be.