CB returns

[Shem]

I got news for you guys in case it needs to be said.

We're tanking again next season!!!

So unless something happens unexpectedly with the roster like drafting Bonny James so that LeBron wants to come to Portland to play with his son type of move for example, we're tanking again.

People need to remember that the Blazers missed the playoffs for 6 years between 2003-2009 rebuilding which landed us Roy, Aldridge and Oden. Some players like Sebastian Telfair and Martell Webster slowed the process down.

The Thunder was in rebuild mode for 5 years and let Shai Gilgeous-Alexander grow into the player he is today during that time. The point is being a small market team it's going to take time to rebuild as no free agent signings are going to rescue us.

[JasonStern]

it really doesn't matter much at this point. In fact, if Billups is a bad coach than he's the perfect tank commander to have for next season, especially if Cronin screws up the off-season as I suspect he will

Eh. I fully expect he uses the lottery picks, then uses remaining assets to dump Timelord's contract to stay under the luxury tax. Or failing that, stretch him so we get dead cap space for 3 seasons. Olshey Guide to General Managing. Here's hoping our scouts are lucky.

well, if Timelord is stretched in the off-season it would be a 5 season stretch of around 5.2M/year

But if it saves the Vulcan overlords money, is that really such a bad thing?

[JasonStern]

The Thunder was in rebuild mode for 5 years and let Shai Gilgeous-Alexander grow into the player he is today during that time. The point is being a small market team it's going to take time to rebuild as no free agent signings are going to rescue us.

No, they weren't.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/OKC/

The 44 (reminder - 72 game season) and 49 win seasons you are referring to weren't rebuilds. They really only had a 2 year rebuild. And you could argue 3, and I would give you that. But year 3 was still 40 wins. And year 4 was 57 wins. The Blazers are 3 years into the rebuild and far, far away from anything close to 57 wins.

The real fear is not becoming the next Sacramento Kings or Minnesota Timberwolves, with a long stretch of incompetent management and complacent, indifferent ownership.

[Wizenheimer]

The Thunder was in rebuild mode for 5 years and let Shai Gilgeous-Alexander grow into the player he is today during that time. The point is being a small market team it's going to take time to rebuild as no free agent signings are going to rescue us.

No, they weren't.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/OKC/

The 44 (reminder - 72 game season) and 49 win seasons you are referring to weren't rebuilds. They really only had a 2 year rebuild. And you could argue 3, and I would give you that. But year 3 was still 40 wins. And year 4 was 57 wins. The Blazers are 3 years into the rebuild and far, far away from anything close to 57 wins.

The real fear is not becoming the next Sacramento Kings or Minnesota Timberwolves, with a long stretch of incompetent management and complacent, indifferent ownership.

as is all things blazers in the olshey/cronin era it's hard to set timelines and inception dates because Portland straddled every fence in sight. They only traded Dame 8 months ago. They dumped CJ-Powell-Roco-Nance, but then added Hart and Grant and Payton while keeping Dame and Nurkic. They traded Hart to NY...after dumping Payton..but laughingly, they got back Thybulle. They then traded Dame, but they traded him for Brogdon and Timelord while trading Nurkic for Ayton

if this is a rebuild, it's one of the most incompetent rebuilds I've ever seen

[Pattycakes]

The Thunder was in rebuild mode for 5 years and let Shai Gilgeous-Alexander grow into the player he is today during that time. The point is being a small market team it's going to take time to rebuild as no free agent signings are going to rescue us.

No, they weren't.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/OKC/

The 44 (reminder - 72 game season) and 49 win seasons you are referring to weren't rebuilds. They really only had a 2 year rebuild. And you could argue 3, and I would give you that. But year 3 was still 40 wins. And year 4 was 57 wins. The Blazers are 3 years into the rebuild and far, far away from anything close to 57 wins.

The real fear is not becoming the next Sacramento Kings or Minnesota Timberwolves, with a long stretch of incompetent management and complacent, indifferent ownership.

as is all things blazers in the olshey/cronin era it's hard to set timelines and inception dates because Portland straddled every fence in sight. They only traded Dame 8 months ago. They dumped CJ-Powell-Roco-Nance, but then added Hart and Grant and Payton while keeping Dame and Nurkic. They traded Hart to NY...after dumping Payton..but laughingly, they got back Thybulle. They then traded Dame, but they traded him for Brogdon and Timelord while trading Nurkic for Ayton

if this is a rebuild, it's one of the most incompetent rebuilds I've ever seen

The Blazers get back two future two way starters in DA and Camara along with potl 3 Bucks lottery picks to add in the mix during prime years for our current future. I don’t see how the Dame trade was possible a net negative considering he’s declining and the trade was 5 years too late. I really don’t get any logical pessimism on that trade or even this last offseason, alone. Blazers are executing incredibly lately for an actual serious rebuild. Not a retool, a multi year rebuild.

[Wizenheimer]

The Blazers get back two future two way starters in DA and Camara along with potl 3 Bucks lottery picks to add in the mix during prime years for our current future. I don’t see how the Dame trade was possible a net negative considering he’s declining and the trade was 5 years too late. I really don’t get any logical pessimism on that trade or even this last offseason, alone. Blazers are executing incredibly lately for an actual serious rebuild. Not a retool, a multi year rebuild.

good job painting the situation in the most wishful thinking manner you could. The reality isn't all sunshine and rainbows like you imply

* calling Ayton a 2 way player is only fair if you acknowledge that Portland traded a 2-way player in Nurkic for him. Ayton is a much better shooter than Nurkic and is 4 years younger. But Nurkic is a better rebounder, a much better passer, better at screens, a better rim protector, and a better paint defender. And Nurkic costs half as much

* Camara is a 2-way player, but calling him a starter seems to ignore he's just a default starter at this point. Kind of similar to the way Aminu and Harkless were default starters. I like Camara and have some optimism about him but that optimism is tempered by the reality that Camara wasn't a 19-20 year old starter at SF. He was 23 and he turns 24 in two weeks. He has already progressed thru those significant 19-22 year old development years

********************************************************

as to the "potential 3 Bucks lottery picks", two of those are not picks they are swaps and the reality is historically, swaps aren't valuable at all and people around here pointing to those swaps in defending the Dame trade are deflecting, IMO:

"But how valuable is a pick swap? To answer that question, we surveyed every first-round swap in NBA history, according to the Pro Sports Transactions archives. We recorded whether the swap was exercised, and if so, how much value the exercising team gained by exchanging picks, using Kevin Pelton’s calculations of pick values as a benchmark.

The results suggest that pick swaps aren’t anywhere near as important as they might seem. Historically, a first-round pick swap has been only about as valuable as the no. 36 overall pick. That’s worth repeating: The average first-round pick swap returns second-round value!

Out of 31 times through the 2022 draft that a team could have swapped a first-rounder, it did so on only 12 occasions. That means in 61 percent of the league’s possible swaps to date, the swap ended up being worth nothing

What about those 12 exercised swaps? Many provided only a smidgeon of value for the team that was able to jump to a better pick, like a move from 20th to 18th, or 17th to 15th, or 26th to 18th. Some swaps—the Celtics-Nets exchange most of all—were much more valuable. But those were few and far between.

So overall, accounting for the swaps that weren’t exercised and the boosts in draft position for those that were, we can calculate that the average pick swap yields about as much value as the average no. 36 pick in the draft. That’s 20 percent the value of an average first-rounder—a massive difference in trade price between swap rights and an unprotected pick."

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2022/10/12/23399637/nba-draft-swap-picks

and of course, extracting value from that 2028 swap might be impossible because that pick could belong to Chicago (thanks Olshey)

and the wishful thinking notion that those 2029 picks will be a great adjunct to what the Blazers are 'building' right now ignores just how far away 2029 is in NBA terms. That 2029 draft when the Blazers have Milwaukee and Boston picks, and the 2029-30, are 3 years AFTER Ayton, Ant, and Thybulle will be unrestricted free agents. That 2029 draft could be 2 weeks before Sharpe is UFA. And the 2030 pick swap could be 2 weeks before Scoot is UFA

let's also be further realistic about those questionable 2028-2030 picks and swaps. We saw how far Scoot has to go to be a credible starter this year. And we saw that Sharpe has a long way to go as well. Honestly, most rookies who are not generational talents need to progress into their 3rd or 4th or 5th seasons before they really start impacting the trajectory of a team. See Anthony Edwards. So forget the 2029-30 season and think 2032 or 2033 before there's a real potential payoff in team trajectory for trading Dame

[Shem]

The Thunder was in rebuild mode for 5 years and let Shai Gilgeous-Alexander grow into the player he is today during that time. The point is being a small market team it's going to take time to rebuild as no free agent signings are going to rescue us.

No, they weren't.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/OKC/

The 44 (reminder - 72 game season) and 49 win seasons you are referring to weren't rebuilds. They really only had a 2 year rebuild. And you could argue 3, and I would give you that. But year 3 was still 40 wins. And year 4 was 57 wins. The Blazers are 3 years into the rebuild and far, far away from anything close to 57 wins.

The real fear is not becoming the next Sacramento Kings or Minnesota Timberwolves, with a long stretch of incompetent management and complacent, indifferent ownership.

We're both right, but depending on how you view it. When Dame ended the OKC season on a 37 footer, the Thunder decided to rebuild. Trading Paul George for SGA. They also moved Westbrook to Houston and because OKC had to take salary back, they got Chris Paul. Paul wasn't flipped in another trade like expected just like Brogdon. Even Chris Paul said later on he expected to be flipped but wasn't. And since Paul finally missed the playoffs for the first time since 2010, that would mean OKC still made the playoffs in year 1 of their rebuild.

Rebuilds have varying results depending on how who the players are and their talent levels and how they're used. OKC decided to ride Chris Paul and he put up his usual numbers before finally unloading him to the Suns. I'd argue the Blazers would have gotten around 35 wins had they rode Brogdon last year. Not good for the long term development of young talent and hurts your chances in getting good talent in the draft.

Let's go back to the 2008 season. The season what would have been Greg Oden's rookie year, but sat out because of microfracture surgery. The Blazers went 41-41. Some seasons that could net you the 8th seed, but that year they missed the playoffs for the 6th straight season. Anyway, I would still consider that 41-41 season a rebuilding year.

The problem with the Wolves and Kings rebuilds is the players they kept on passing up in draft after draft. Way more misses than hits. That hurts you.

[Shem]

Article:
https://www.portlandtribune.com/sports/like-it-or-not-chauncey-billups-has-made-himself-indispensable-to-the-trail-blazers/article_f98f053c-ff4f-11ee-a80e-cf7475c3dd65.html