Is RIP CITY back? Blazers shoot for Play In ???

[garrick]

I can see Portland overtaking us Suns especially as our schedule gets increasingly difficult and out extremely small lineup continues to get pounded by teams with size and athleticism.

You guys got the better end of the deal shedding Nurkic's dead weight and salary and Camara is really looking like a stud right now. Unfortunately for us I believe Ishbia is one of the most moronic owners in the league and our future with aging stars and lack of high lottery picks for the next 7-8 years we have a worse future than yours. lol

Having Isiah Thomas anywhere around basketball decisions even as an adviser after how he mismanaged the Knicks for a decade should have been an offense so bad the leagues other owners got together and kicked him out... Unfortunately for Suns fans, they probably saw that and realized Ishbia will be an easy target to rip off in deals for the next decade of mismanagement they're about to undergo.

Camara was an absolute steal in that deal. Never really understood why the Suns wanted Nurk in the first place.

Well our failure of a GM hates point guards so I think part of the reason was Nurkic was at least on paper a center that could pass well out of the post but all that happened was that he was a turnover machine who got roasted on defense.

Another reason was just trying to fill out the roster after totally gutting our team with the Mikail and Cam trade so on paper it looked like a good deal due to us getting back so many assets but in reality it backfired spectacularly and now we are trying to shop Nurkic for anything and the one "steal" of the trade in Grayson Allen has fallen back to earth and is back to being a scrub.

[Butter]

I can see Portland overtaking us Suns especially as our schedule gets increasingly difficult and out extremely small lineup continues to get pounded by teams with size and athleticism.

You guys got the better end of the deal shedding Nurkic's dead weight and salary and Camara is really looking like a stud right now. Unfortunately for us I believe Ishbia is one of the most moronic owners in the league and our future with aging stars and lack of high lottery picks for the next 7-8 years we have a worse future than yours. lol

Having Isiah Thomas anywhere around basketball decisions even as an adviser after how he mismanaged the Knicks for a decade should have been an offense so bad the leagues other owners got together and kicked him out... Unfortunately for Suns fans, they probably saw that and realized Ishbia will be an easy target to rip off in deals for the next decade of mismanagement they're about to undergo.

Camara was an absolute steal in that deal. Never really understood why the Suns wanted Nurk in the first place.

I think it had something to do with shedding Aytons massive contract

[garrick]

I can see Portland overtaking us Suns especially as our schedule gets increasingly difficult and out extremely small lineup continues to get pounded by teams with size and athleticism.

You guys got the better end of the deal shedding Nurkic's dead weight and salary and Camara is really looking like a stud right now. Unfortunately for us I believe Ishbia is one of the most moronic owners in the league and our future with aging stars and lack of high lottery picks for the next 7-8 years we have a worse future than yours. lol

Having Isiah Thomas anywhere around basketball decisions even as an adviser after how he mismanaged the Knicks for a decade should have been an offense so bad the leagues other owners got together and kicked him out... Unfortunately for Suns fans, they probably saw that and realized Ishbia will be an easy target to rip off in deals for the next decade of mismanagement they're about to undergo.

Camara was an absolute steal in that deal. Never really understood why the Suns wanted Nurk in the first place.

I think it had something to do with shedding Aytons massive contract

Which doesn't make sense because Sarver traded for Beal's no trade clause super max contract!

[Sinobas]

We're in a situation now where we've won too many games to "tank". Even if we started losing again, we'd probably finish no lower than 7th.

The play in seems improbable. We're 5 losses behind the 8,9,10 seed and 4 losses behind the 11th place Mavericks.

I want to see us continue to play well, but we're probably going to miss the playoffs and end up picking 8-10.

[Tim Lehrbach]

We're in a situation now where we've won too many games to "tank". Even if we started losing again, we'd probably finish no lower than 7th.

The play in seems improbable. We're 5 losses behind the 8,9,10 seed and 4 losses behind the 11th place Mavericks.

I want to see us continue to play well, but we're probably going to miss the playoffs and end up picking 8-10.

Yep. We've reached silver lining time. The progress of Scoot, Sharpe, Camara, Deni, and Clingan had better be pretty darn shiny to justify the opportunity cost of not landing at or near the top of this draft. Or maybe, a la 2007, we'll pair a promising building year with lottery luck. Just make sure to honk twice this time.

[JRoy]

POR has no all star level players.

Making the play in to get squashed would be a catastrophe.

It gets happen FRP might convey to CHI. If that happens the entire FO needs to go.

[Tim Lehrbach]

POR has no all star level players.

Making the play in to get squashed would be a catastrophe.

It gets happen FRP might convey to CHI. If that happens the entire FO needs to go.

You can only make a team so bad by design. I think the Blazers are designed to capture the Flagg, but by fluke or by real growth have risen above that pace. If that is mismanagement, certainly move on from Cronin and co., but it's probably not reasonable to expect The Process-level tanking where anybody resembling a contributor is dumped, year after year.

[JRoy]

POR has no all star level players.

Making the play in to get squashed would be a catastrophe.

It gets happen FRP might convey to CHI. If that happens the entire FO needs to go.

You can only make a team so bad by design. I think the Blazers are designed to capture the Flagg, but by fluke or by real growth have risen above that pace. If that is mismanagement, certainly move on from Cronin and co., but it's probably not reasonable to expect The Process-level tanking where anybody resembling a contributor is dumped, year after year.

This is on management, not the players. Their gutty efforts are inspiring in the short term but only delay the inevitable.

[Butter]

I was all in on tanking to Capture the Flagg, but maybe it's time to rethink the paradigm.

The Blazers will never be an NBA destination city like LA or Miami. But I was just thinking, at it's peak, what made the Blazers a special NBA city is the fans that really LOVE this team.

I have decided I'm going to enjoy the winning and send positive vibes to this group.

Now... watch Cronin tear it down on the deadline... Lol

[PDXKnight]

I think the run has brought back some of the fun in blazer land which is a positive. It would have been easy to check out given the incompetency from the top down but fans have stayed pretty loyal all things considered. But now seeing some life in the team helps increase the fan interest which is cool and should ultimately lead to a revival.

All that said I'm trying not to put the cart before the horse. We have made a nice run here but the West is super competitive from 1-10 and getting to the 1-5 games over .500 may be a difficult ask given that we only have 31 games left and the remaining sos is one of the harder ones at 9th toughest. I think we end up at 11th or so which sort of sucks in terms of the draft but it is what it is. Honestly if we ended up at 11th I'd have wished we either tanked a lot better or won a few more to finally end that nutty first round purgatory we created for ourself with the nance trade. Feels pretty unlikely we make the post season so I suppose it's the former rather than the latter.

So basically it's mixed feelings, nice to see some life but it sucks it happened this season when we had maybe the best shot at a top 10 player with the top end of this class. But who knows maybe we end up at 8-9 and defy the odds it's been known to happen before

[DusterBuster]

POR has no all star level players.

Making the play in to get squashed would be a catastrophe.

It gets happen FRP might convey to CHI. If that happens the entire FO needs to go.

That pick debt goes til 2029 iirc. I actually wouldn’t hate finally paying that **** off.

**** you Olshey.

[Shem]

The Blazers are pulling down the "Flagg" on tanking!!!

[Pattycakes]

POR has no all star level players.

Making the play in to get squashed would be a catastrophe.

It gets happen FRP might convey to CHI. If that happens the entire FO needs to go.

Scoot, Shae and Deni all reasonably look like they have asg potential within 2-3 years.

Which means, in next years we become reliably good.

They kind of already are?

Man the crow, like I don’t think you guys are actually ready for it. It seems like lately there’s been some “great enlightenment” that maybe just maybe, our team isn’t horrible, we actually have a future, Chauncey and Joe are actually tolerable for now…

Then I realize, no. They really still want to live in the land that thinks we should have completely thrown our season away and fired our coach to chase after the “ODDS” of a draft pick. Specifically one player.

I cannot ever agree with this logic.

We chose to be good now, as the youngest team in the league, with a whole chest of assets, plus somewhat helpful vets around.

You couldn’t possibly be mad right now, unless - you guessed it, you’re a Blazer “fan”.

It’s the golden era to be a Blazer fan, and you cannot convince me otherwise.

And guess what? You can just stay pessimistic, and not only will the Blazers continue improving and Scoot continues to prove *everybody but his 4 believers* wrong, Deni and Ayton continue taking steps up, and JoeCro/Chauncey continue to make the right moves and improve themselves, respectively in their own newer positions.

Everyone wins. Us believers win, you guys who think losing is the only path to success, you’ll learn a whole new era of what team chemistry and success look like… ya just might learn something or two

[JRoy]

I think it would be a mistake to think that this recent run of unexpected success is going to be the norm for this team as currently constructed.

I hope POR has several all stars in the near future. Maybe they already on the roster; none are current all star level players. Not one.

This looks to me like the promising IND a few years ago without anyone as talented as Haliburton.

It looks to me like DA is
A- auditioning for his next team
Or
B- proving the haters (me among them) wrong.

Time will tell.

This team is not the 2004 Pistons, not by a long shot, and teams lacking top end star talent do not enjoy much postseason success.

This team needs a star player to either emerge from the existing roster, or to acquire one via draft or trade.

[m0ng0]

I think Grant is the one who should go, I have heard whispers Ayton is starting to become a leader?

[DusterBuster]

I think it would be a mistake to think that this recent run of unexpected success is going to be the norm for this team as currently constructed.

I hope POR has several all stars in the near future. Maybe they already on the roster; none are current all star level players. Not one.

This looks to me like the promising IND a few years ago without anyone as talented as Haliburton.

It looks to me like DA is
A- auditioning for his next team
Or
B- proving the haters (me among them) wrong.

Time will tell.

This team is not the 2004 Pistons, not by a long shot, and teams lacking top end star talent do not enjoy much postseason success.

This team needs a star player to either emerge from the existing roster, or to acquire one via draft or trade.

DA seems like he unabashedly loves being in Portland. I can't realistically believe option A is real.

[JRoy]

I think it would be a mistake to think that this recent run of unexpected success is going to be the norm for this team as currently constructed.

I hope POR has several all stars in the near future. Maybe they already on the roster; none are current all star level players. Not one.

This looks to me like the promising IND a few years ago without anyone as talented as Haliburton.

It looks to me like DA is
A- auditioning for his next team
Or
B- proving the haters (me among them) wrong.

Time will tell.

This team is not the 2004 Pistons, not by a long shot, and teams lacking top end star talent do not enjoy much postseason success.

This team needs a star player to either emerge from the existing roster, or to acquire one via draft or trade.

DA seems like he unabashedly loves being in Portland. I can't realistically believe option A is real.

You may be right.

I am not interested in a long term commitment to a player with questionable motivation.

[DusterBuster]

I think it would be a mistake to think that this recent run of unexpected success is going to be the norm for this team as currently constructed.

I hope POR has several all stars in the near future. Maybe they already on the roster; none are current all star level players. Not one.

This looks to me like the promising IND a few years ago without anyone as talented as Haliburton.

It looks to me like DA is
A- auditioning for his next team
Or
B- proving the haters (me among them) wrong.

Time will tell.

This team is not the 2004 Pistons, not by a long shot, and teams lacking top end star talent do not enjoy much postseason success.

This team needs a star player to either emerge from the existing roster, or to acquire one via draft or trade.

DA seems like he unabashedly loves being in Portland. I can't realistically believe option A is real.

You may be right.

I am not interested in a long term commitment to a player with questionable motivation.

It's not a matter of may, you can hear it directly from DA in his post game interviews recently. He makes no secret that he loves being in Portland.

The question of resigning him will largely come down to two things, if he can keep this motivated play sustained and Clingan's development/health.

[BlazersBroncos]

DA seems like he unabashedly loves being in Portland. I can't realistically believe option A is real.

You may be right.

I am not interested in a long term commitment to a player with questionable motivation.

It's not a matter of may, you can hear it directly from DA in his post game interviews recently. He makes no secret that he loves being in Portland.

The question of resigning him will largely come down to two things, if he can keep this motivated play sustained and Clingan's development/health.

Also cost. He shouldnt be making more than, say, Zubac or Poeltl.

[Wizenheimer]

even though Simons and Ayton bug the shiz out of me, and Grant's contract bugs the shiz out of me, if I narrow my remedial powers of focus to just each game, the winning streak has been entertaining

but it is coming at a high cost, IMO. Portland's chances of a top-4 pick in the loaded 2025 draft are now effectively DOA. And landing an elite player is the only way the Blazers can become a contender

but worse than that is I'm inclined to think the streak has convinced Cronin his work is done. Now, all he has to do is 'bake that cake'. And we know how that works out.

notwithstanding the fun of the winning streak, the nuts and bolts for the 9 wins in 10 games are revealing. 7 of the 10 games were at home. The win against the Pacers last night was the only win against a team in NBA's top-10, record-wise. Only 3 of the 10 games were against teams in the top-6 in either conference and they lost one of those games. The Blazers have been getting wins on the backs of Simons-Ayton-Grant. In the previous win against Phoenix, Simons played as many minutes as Sharpe and Scoot combined. Simons/Ayton/Grant combined for 125 minutes and 51 shots; Scoot/Sharpe/Clingan combined for 51 minutes and 18 shots. If you love those 3 vets and want them as Blazers' top-3 options for the next 5 years then you'll be happy. But if you're like me and see those guys as captains of Purgatory....yuck

something else: 3-4 weeks ago the Blazers were 5 games out of 10th seed. After winning 9 of 10, the Blazers are now 4 games out of 10th seed. They picked up 1 game; that's all. Perhaps more important is they have 5 more losses than the current 10th seed(s) and they don't own the tiebreaker on any of them. And over the last 22 games starting in March, Portland has 11 road games and 10 games against Cleveland (2), Boston (2), New York (2), OKC, Memphis, Denver, and Lakers.

meaning their odds at 10th seed is really low. But it probably doesn't matter. As I said, I think Cronin probably feels vindicated now. Jody and the Vulcans don't care. treadnill

by the way in a 1 year period, Ayton, Simons, Williams, Thybulle, Scoot, Sharpe, & Camara will all be due new contracts. Good luck!