Haynes: Damian Lillard Requests Trade

[YogurtProducer]

I ain't giving up Scottie for a 33 yr old Dame lol

Why?

Scottie might become an all-star. MAYBE. Dame IS an MVP calibre player.

32ppg on 65!!!!TS%.

You go to an immediate title contender and that’s kind of what you build a team for, right?

Because I have no interest in acquiring a player who doesn't want to be here, and will be getting paid 60 mill at age 37 for our best asset. Also, this team isn't like the 2018 situation, where we had so much depth that we could afford to trade DeMar/Jakob, you trade for Dame and we'll be left with a roster that's drained of talent and depth.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

Theoretical Scottie + FVV trade exemption leaves us at

Dame/Shroder
GTJ/Dick
OG/OPJ
Siakam/Achiwua
Poeltl/Boucher

I think we would be a legit contender with that. Dame/Siakam can carry the offense and then we have plus defenders everywhere.

[YogurtProducer]

Get a 40M trade exemption from Houston, use that along with Scottie for Dame.

Dame / Dick / OG / Siakam / Poeltl
Dennis / GTJ / OPJ / Boucher / Achiwua

This team would barely make the second round. The starting lineup looks decent but the bench? Nahh, cant win with those cats

Dennis was just a 26mpg on a WCF team last season. OPJ was a rotation player on a finals winning team two years ago. GTJ/Boucher are both fine as 8th/9th men.

[Mattatron]

Get a 40M trade exemption from Houston, use that along with Scottie for Dame.

Dame / Dick / OG / Siakam / Poeltl
Dennis / GTJ / OPJ / Boucher / Achiwua

This team would barely make the second round. The starting lineup looks decent but the bench? Nahh, cant win with those cats

Your just hating right ? It's cool to hate in today's era I know.. but u really want to tell me we wouldn't beat the heat, knicks, hawks, cavaliers? I think we would be right there with the celtics and bucks.

[docholliday99]

All this chatter of teams trading for Lillard - including TO - like Dame doesn't have input into where he's going. 2 things are working for Dame in this case, the last 2 years of his contract are PO's and then there's the optics. Dame and the FO have been very careful with optics and the approach in the media. Dame's been loyal and the FO is on record that because of that, they would accommodate Lillard in a trade to a team that he would like. This is not a KD situation here and wait him out.

I would think Lowry, Herro, 2 frps (2027, 2029), 3 pick swaps would do it. Those frps could potentially be quite valuable.

[YogurtProducer]

Are you agreeing that we trade Scottie or not trading Scottie? Can’t tell.

how did I know the usual suspects would be all over this mediocrity

I don't want to trade Scottie+ for Dame. I don't agree with that scenario.

If you get trade exemption from HOU for FVV it would not have to be Scottie+. Maybe Scottie+picks but we would for the most part keep the team together.

Essentially last years team but Dame/Schroder/Dick/OPJ in and FVV/Scottie out

[TGM]

I think the cost for Lillard is too high. Instead I wonder if Harden can be had. If you ask me those two guys don’t have that big of a gap. Harden is a bit bigger and slightly better defender.

Philly not getting full value for him.

Something like

Fred S and T to Houston. We maybe give a future 2nd. No skin off Houston’s back. We get a 43 million exception.

Trade OG to Memphis for 3 future firsts. Brandon Clarke and Jon Konchar.


Philly sends Harden, Melton, 2024 swap and 2029 first.

Philly receives Lillard

Toronto sends exception from Houston, Precious, Boucher 3 first round picks from OG trade

Toronto receives Harden, Clarke, Konchar

Portland receives, 4 first round picks, 1 pick swap, Melton, Precious, Boucher, 40 million exception.

[YogurtProducer]

Get a 40M trade exemption from Houston, use that along with Scottie for Dame.

Dame / Dick / OG / Siakam / Poeltl
Dennis / GTJ / OPJ / Boucher / Achiwua

This team would barely make the second round. The starting lineup looks decent but the bench? Nahh, cant win with those cats

Your just hating right ? It's cool to hate in today's era I know.. but u really want to tell me we wouldn't beat the heat, knicks, hawks, cavaliers? I think we would be right there with the celtics and bucks.

Not to mention if you get Dame it is not like you just throw your hands up and quit. You still have other assets/picks to make a Marc Gasol-esque trade. Thad/Boucher/picks is 20M you can use to get someone else as well.

[TorontoBarneys]

The dumbest part about those people claiming we will be the Magic/Rockets, is they are the same ones that preach "Trust in masai" and wax intellectuals about how great our drafting is.

So either we've got a great FO that can properly navigate a full teardown and rebuild. Or they are incompetent and we will be the magic 2.0. But with them, somehow it's both. Have faith in the FO, but only if I agree with the direction.

I'm convinced all the people like this are just fans of players and not teams, since I never hear "Yeah we should do this for the betterment of the team long term." but, instead it's always defending these players like they are family.

Yeah it never made sense to me. Complete faith in Masai but if we actually changed course and started rebuilding all of a sudden we are at great threat for being terrible essentially forever. It never made any rational sense whatsoever. Posters have clearly picked their camps for a while now and are formulating arguments out of necessity to their own emotional responses to team developments.

It's blatantly obvious that certain elements of the fanbase utterly detest building through the lottery as a concept and will use any rhetorical tricks necessary to present such a scenario as an outrageous proposition. That was obvious to me shortly after joining here.

I just wish some people could actually be honest and just say "No, I don't want to tank/rebuild no matter what because I have no personal interest in watching a team that doesn't have a chance for playing in the playoffs in seasons x and y, so I'm never going to support such an endeavor even if it means in the long-term we do get there, because I will miss out on my playoff entertainment for a couple seasons or more as a result." Wouldn't life be simpler if people could just do this?

I think the issue is the all or nothing attitude here.

There are times where rebuilding is indeed the correct option, but is rebuilding the only way to acquire talent and build your asset collection?

You can still be a solid and competitive team and accumulate assets in the draft or through smart trades.

Now? Who the fudge knows what the actual correct course is now. Tanking certainly makes far less sense next season than it did last.

The iron rule seems to remain that you just need that bonafide star or two "batman" type player along with a quality supporting cast to actually do real damage in the playoffs, let alone contend. We were never going to land that kind of a player through a trade and people waiting around for the next "kawhi trade" don't understand that that was a once-in-a-lifetime, lightning-in-a-bottle situation.

You need to accumulate talent through the draft not only to try and acquire that kind of a player but to accumulate talent in general in order to have that level of talent available to swing for a superstar in a trade package without gutting your team in response, and statistically the answer to that problem lies in the lottery, increasingly so the higher you get within it. People can point to counter-example anecdotes all they like but the solution has always remained the same for teams like us. We are a dismal FA destination.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

Dame/Siakam/OG eats all the cap room. It wont work.

It'd be OG out imo. You cant have two 40M+ players and OG with 30M.

[TorontoBarneys]

Dame/Siakam/OG eats all the cap room. It wont work.

It'd be OG out imo. You cant have two 40M+ players and OG with 30M.

Yeah it's a cap space nightmare the season after next let alone the actual problems of gutting the team now to acquire him.

[AHCanada]

This team would barely make the second round. The starting lineup looks decent but the bench? Nahh, cant win with those cats

Your just hating right ? It's cool to hate in today's era I know.. but u really want to tell me we wouldn't beat the heat, knicks, hawks, cavaliers? I think we would be right there with the celtics and bucks.

Not to mention if you get Dame it is not like you just throw your hands up and quit. You still have other assets/picks to make a Marc Gasol-esque trade. Thad/Boucher/picks is 20M you can use to get someone else as well.

Exactly. So many posters on this board seem to just enjoy hating, or see things as totally black and white.

[aj174]

Get a 40M trade exemption from Houston, use that along with Scottie for Dame.

Dame / Dick / OG / Siakam / Poeltl
Dennis / GTJ / OPJ / Boucher / Achiwua

This team would barely make the second round. The starting lineup looks decent but the bench? Nahh, cant win with those cats

Your just hating right ? It's cool to hate in today's era I know.. but u really want to tell me we wouldn't beat the heat, knicks, hawks, cavaliers? I think we would be right there with the celtics and bucks.

No no I'm not hating I'm just being critical here, we've seen what kind of depth is needed for a legit title contender. This kind of team has issues

Starting lineup is good, even though we have a rook slotted in, he better be lights out to make up for Yak's lack of spacing, but mainly on the bench OPJ has barely played for us, we have no idea how he is now in 2023. Boucher and Achiuwa are inconsistent shooters and to make it deep in the playoffs you need consistent 3 point shooting

Our bench in 2019 had: FVV, OG, Norm, Ibaka, Boucher/whoever else that night

Compare that to the bench proposed and you see where I'm getting at

edit: OG wasn't even in the playoffs but you get my point, playoffs run 8 or 9 deep

[docholliday99]

Get a 40M trade exemption from Houston, use that along with Scottie for Dame.

Dame / Dick / OG / Siakam / Poeltl
Dennis / GTJ / OPJ / Boucher / Achiwua

This team would barely make the second round. The starting lineup looks decent but the bench? Nahh, cant win with those cats

Your just hating right ? It's cool to hate in today's era I know.. but u really want to tell me we wouldn't beat the heat, knicks, hawks, cavaliers? I think we would be right there with the celtics and bucks.

Gradey hasn't played a minute yet and you've penciled him over GTJ? That won't happen. That said, Dame, GTJ, OG, Siakam, Poeltl would be an interesting starting 5, not sure contender but I think they would compete enough to get to the ECF.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

Dame/Siakam/OG eats all the cap room. It wont work.

It'd be OG out imo. You cant have two 40M+ players and OG with 30M.

Yeah it's a cap space nightmare the season after next let alone the actual problems of gutting the team now to acquire him.

Going from OG to Scotty as the third might work cap wise. That's why I assumed it was OG going out.

You can get away with Dame/Siakam...but the third's got to be cheap.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Let's say Blazers are deciding, independently of Lillards wish to join Miami, to trade Lillard for the best offer, I really think a framework deal that include
Scottie Barnes, Precious Achiuwa, Boucher, Dad Young, Flynn +Porter plus couple FRP would be one of the better, if not the best offer out there. Especially compared to Miami and Brooklyn.

Imagine Lillard, GTJ, OG, Siakam & Poeltl
And Schroeder, Dick Pic.

Yeah I'm not even sure if we make it past the 2nd round with that roster to be honest.

That's terrible depth.

Lillard is awesome, but he's not a great facilitator and not a great defender. Obviously he's an unbelievable player/scorer. There is a reason why Portland only won 42, 27 and 33 games in the last 3 seasons.

Pascal and Jak are great facilitators, I think it's a good compliment

[YogurtProducer]

This team would barely make the second round. The starting lineup looks decent but the bench? Nahh, cant win with those cats

Your just hating right ? It's cool to hate in today's era I know.. but u really want to tell me we wouldn't beat the heat, knicks, hawks, cavaliers? I think we would be right there with the celtics and bucks.

No no I'm not hating I'm just being critical here, we've seen what kind of depth is needed for a legit title contender. This kind of team has issues

Starting lineup is good, even though we have a rook slotted in, he better be lights out to make up for Yak's lack of spacing, but mainly on the bench OPJ has barely played for us, we have no idea how he is now in 2023. Boucher and Achiuwa are inconsistent shooters and to make it deep in the playoffs you need consistent 3 point shooting

Our bench in 2019 had: FVV, OG, Norm, Ibaka, Boucher/whoever else that night

Compare that to the bench proposed and you see where I'm getting at

edit: OG wasn't even in the playoffs but you get my point, playoffs run 8 or 9 deep

Playoffs run 8ish deep. Nuggets played 8 guys, with Braun playing 13mpg and Jeff Green playing 17mpg. 2019 Raps played 8 deep as well.

Dame/Shroder/GTJ/Dick/OG/OPJ/Siakam/Achiwua/Poeltl/Boucher is 10 guys you could in theory see playing minutes and being pretty productive. Not even counting if we sign a guy with the BLE or if Koloko takes a step or if we trade Thad + picks for a bench piece (which we would likely look into if we got Dame).

We did have major depth issues last year, but a lot of that looks to be accounted for this year with Dick, signing Dennis, bringing back OPJ, and grabbing Poeltl at the deadline. That is 4 rotation players in and FVV being the only one out.

[aj174]

Also, this kind of trade is best for a team in win now mode. Not a team that couldnt get past the first play in game

[aj174]

Your just hating right ? It's cool to hate in today's era I know.. but u really want to tell me we wouldn't beat the heat, knicks, hawks, cavaliers? I think we would be right there with the celtics and bucks.

No no I'm not hating I'm just being critical here, we've seen what kind of depth is needed for a legit title contender. This kind of team has issues

Starting lineup is good, even though we have a rook slotted in, he better be lights out to make up for Yak's lack of spacing, but mainly on the bench OPJ has barely played for us, we have no idea how he is now in 2023. Boucher and Achiuwa are inconsistent shooters and to make it deep in the playoffs you need consistent 3 point shooting

Our bench in 2019 had: FVV, OG, Norm, Ibaka, Boucher/whoever else that night

Compare that to the bench proposed and you see where I'm getting at

edit: OG wasn't even in the playoffs but you get my point, playoffs run 8 or 9 deep

Playoffs run 8ish deep. Nuggets played 8 guys, with Braun playing 13mpg and Jeff Green playing 17mpg. 2019 Raps played 8 deep as well.

Dame/Shroder/GTJ/Dick/OG/OPJ/Siakam/Achiwua/Poeltl/Boucher is 10 guys you could in theory see playing minutes and being pretty productive. Not even counting if we sign a guy with the BLE or if Koloko takes a step or if we trade Thad + picks for a bench piece (which we would likely look into if we got Dame).

We did have major depth issues last year, but a lot of that looks to be accounted for this year with Dick, signing Dennis, bringing back OPJ, and grabbing Poeltl at the deadline. That is 4 rotation players in and FVV being the only one out.

Definitely not a bad team, but the ceiling would be a ECF appearnace IMO, I could be wrong but that's what I see from it

I think we'd be better off seeing what we have with Scottie and keeping him for years, rather than fill our cap with a Lillard who has maybe 2-4 years of prime play left, he's 32.

[Mattatron]

This team would barely make the second round. The starting lineup looks decent but the bench? Nahh, cant win with those cats

Your just hating right ? It's cool to hate in today's era I know.. but u really want to tell me we wouldn't beat the heat, knicks, hawks, cavaliers? I think we would be right there with the celtics and bucks.

No no I'm not hating I'm just being critical here, we've seen what kind of depth is needed for a legit title contender. This kind of team has issues

Starting lineup is good, even though we have a rook slotted in, he better be lights out to make up for Yak's lack of spacing, but mainly on the bench OPJ has barely played for us, we have no idea how he is now in 2023. Boucher and Achiuwa are inconsistent shooters and to make it deep in the playoffs you need consistent 3 point shooting

Our bench in 2019 had: FVV, OG, Norm, Ibaka, Boucher/whoever else that night

Compare that to the bench proposed and you see where I'm getting at

edit: OG wasn't even in the playoffs but you get my point, playoffs run 8 or 9 deep

Sure, but like u said, og was injured and Powell barely played a role in that run. Our bench was basically Ibaka and FVV ^^ and the east is not that strong like it was back then. Harden is on his way out, milwaukee might lose lopez, and the celtics.... are just the celtics.

[YogurtProducer]

No no I'm not hating I'm just being critical here, we've seen what kind of depth is needed for a legit title contender. This kind of team has issues

Starting lineup is good, even though we have a rook slotted in, he better be lights out to make up for Yak's lack of spacing, but mainly on the bench OPJ has barely played for us, we have no idea how he is now in 2023. Boucher and Achiuwa are inconsistent shooters and to make it deep in the playoffs you need consistent 3 point shooting

Our bench in 2019 had: FVV, OG, Norm, Ibaka, Boucher/whoever else that night

Compare that to the bench proposed and you see where I'm getting at

edit: OG wasn't even in the playoffs but you get my point, playoffs run 8 or 9 deep

Playoffs run 8ish deep. Nuggets played 8 guys, with Braun playing 13mpg and Jeff Green playing 17mpg. 2019 Raps played 8 deep as well.

Dame/Shroder/GTJ/Dick/OG/OPJ/Siakam/Achiwua/Poeltl/Boucher is 10 guys you could in theory see playing minutes and being pretty productive. Not even counting if we sign a guy with the BLE or if Koloko takes a step or if we trade Thad + picks for a bench piece (which we would likely look into if we got Dame).

We did have major depth issues last year, but a lot of that looks to be accounted for this year with Dick, signing Dennis, bringing back OPJ, and grabbing Poeltl at the deadline. That is 4 rotation players in and FVV being the only one out.

Definitely not a bad team, but the ceiling would be a ECF appearnace IMO, I could be wrong but that's what I see from it

I think we'd be better off seeing what we have with Scottie and keeping him for years, rather than fill our cap with a Lillard who has maybe 2-4 years of prime play left, he's 32.

I mean fair, that is a completely fair assessment of the potential ceiling.

I just see that the Blazers went 27-31 when Dame played last year which in all honesty is not that bad considering the state of that team. His supporting case was Grant/Simons/Nurk who IMO are significantly worse than Siakam/OG/Poeltl, and that is not even accounting for that DREW EUBANKS started 28 games, Thybulle started 22, Reddish started 12 (and these are 3 guys that were simply value-less before coming to Portland).

Dame is a guy who is capable of just winning a playoff series by himself. I would put a Dame led team with actual good teammates around him in contention with anyone. His best teammate to date is CJ McCollum, maybe? I would argue Siakam would easily be his best teammate, and OG would be damn close in contention for 2nd best teammate as well.