Shams: Lillard to Milwaukee in three team deal

[ForeverTFC]

A bit of a zag to the conversation, but hear me out: Goodwin ran a masterclass on this one but part of me wonders if he's even more pissed at Masai than he was previously.

It's clear both Portland and Goodwin played a media war to their benefits and the Raptors and Heat didn't really participate. Based on the series of events and what has been confirmed, here's is my take on what went down:

- Dame sometime last month reaches out to Giannis and expresses his interest to play there (confirmed)
- Goodwin reaches out to Horst to let him know Giannis wants to be there but to keep it quiet and not let Portland know in order to not give Portland leverage (confirmed)
- The connected media guys come out of the woodwork after the trade saying they knew Milwaukee has been working on this but never mentioned them during the process (e.g. Windhorst); my take is that Goodwin asked the media to keep the Milwaukee interest hush hush
- Giannis comes out and says he might leave, making teams with assets second guess whether they want to offer assets for Lillard or just wait for Giannis next offseason, further depressing Dame's value (and nudging his ownership to make a more long term tax commitment)
- Portland is now negotiating with Milwaukee and needs some leverage, starts leaking the Raptors offer which is the best offer they have; Suns rumours suddenly surface even though the construct of the Ayton/Nurkic trade had been agreed to in July according to the Hoop Collective guys yesterday on their pod in order to get Miami to increase their offer
- Goodwin tries to depress our threat by getting Shams and others to come out and say "Dame would report, unless its Toronto; Dame would never go to Toronto"
- Masai being Masai keeps his deal out there despite this which Milwaukee eventually matches to a decent degree
- Portland guilts itself into choosing the Milwaukee deal once they get something they think is comparable to the Raptors deal "to do right by Dame", not knowing Dame has already communicated with the Bucks to go out and get him
- Goodwin comes out and thanks Miami for "doing everything they could to make a deal" because at the end of the day, "only Miami" went from being real to a leverage point to get Dame to his next preferred destination --> the Bucks and Goodwin used Miami to depress Dame's value and make a deal possible for Milwaukee with their shallow asset base --> Cue Jimmy Butler "NBA gotta investigate Milwaukee for tampering"

So end of the day, Goodwin used Miami while the Blazers used the Raptors. Pretty wild stuff.

[2019nbachamps]

We can sing kumbaya about keeping OG all we want but the fact of the matter is our roster with him hasn't won a playoff round in 3 seasons and we're destined to keep that record in tact for another year. Is it OG's fault? Of course not. But it stands to reason replacing a 17 ppg player with a 30 ppg one would be an upgrade, even after taking into consideration OG is the far superior defender. As a roster, with OG's superior defending, we haven't won a playoff round. So why do we think trading him for Dame would've resulted in a worse outcome? At the very least, it would've been worth the gamble.

Of course, this is based on the hypothetical that we were in the running for Dame. If he did not want to come here, as Stein and Shams reported today, then no it was not worth trading for a malcontent. I do not blame him for preferring to join the Bucks over us. We forget due to their first round meltdown that the Bucks finished first in the East last year and were going to be contenders again going into this season.

[Kurtz]

The thing that's become abundantly clear is how much general BS is out there and how little credence people should be giving to any source that's not WOJ or Shams.

IE we've been repeatedly told that Miami never budged from the Hero + two 1sts offer. Now it comes out that their offer was actually significantly greater and clearly superior to what Phoenix got from Bucks, and they basically just acted out of spite.

The story on Dame to Raps has also changed a number of times, from us offering OG to not offering OG to a deal being done but Dame refusing to play here.

And not a single reporter had the scoop of the Bucks being interested.

Just an incredible amount of BS floating out there, and folks need to stop treating every rando tweet as the gospel.

Only Shams has it that the Heat offered more, which contradicts every other report. It is not to be believed at all. Portland was playing Toronto and Miami off each other in the media.

Toronto knows that Miami won't budge their Herro + 2 FRP offer, so they don't put OG on the table. Portland is privately keeping Milwaukee's bid out of the media, likely because Milwaukee doesn't want to upset Jrue if OG then gets added and knocks them out. Miami's offer according to Shams, is overwhelmingly better than anything anyone offered and Cronin has a job to do, including making Toronto think that Miami's offer is better than Herro + 2 FRPs, or Milwaukee think that Miami's offer is better than Herro + 2 FRPs. Miami's offer was weak. Riley was under the impression that he just had to beat out Toronto, and he and Dame's agent pushed a bunch of scare tactics about Dame's future behaviour, Masai's flakiness in deals, attempting to keep Toronto out of it or cause Portland second thoughts about negotiating with us.

Shams and Amick - and I would absolutely trust these two over a dozen Granges and other Twitter semi-pro journalists.

[ATLTimekeeper]

A bit of a zag to the conversation, but hear me out: Goodwin ran a masterclass on this one but part of me wonders if he's even more pissed at Masai than he was previously.

It's clear both Portland and Goodwin played a media war to their benefits and the Raptors and Heat didn't really participate. Based on the series of events and what has been confirmed, here's is my take on what went down:

- Dame sometime last month reaches out to Giannis and expresses his interest to play there (confirmed)
- Goodwin reaches out to Horst to let him know Giannis wants to be there but to keep it quiet and not let Portland know in order to not give Portland leverage (confirmed)
- The connected media guys come out of the woodwork after the trade saying they knew Milwaukee has been working on this but never mentioned them during the process (e.g. Windhorst); my take is that Goodwin asked the media to keep the Milwaukee interest hush hush
- Giannis comes out and says he might leave, making teams with assets second guess whether they want to offer assets for Lillard or just wait for Giannis next offseason, further depressing Dame's value (and nudging his ownership to make a more long term tax commitment)
- Portland is now negotiating with Milwaukee and needs some leverage, starts leaking the Raptors offer which is the best offer they have; Suns rumours suddenly surface even though the construct of the Ayton/Nurkic trade had been agreed to in July according to the Hoop Collective guys yesterday on their pod in order to get Miami to increase their offer
- Goodwin tries to depress our threat by getting Shams and others to come out and say "Dame would report, unless its Toronto; Dame would never go to Toronto"
- Masai being Masai keeps his deal out there despite this which Milwaukee eventually matches to a decent degree
- Portland guilts itself into choosing the Milwaukee deal once they get something they think is comparable to the Raptors deal "to do right by Dame", not knowing Dame has already communicated with the Bucks to go out and get him
- Goodwin comes out and thanks Miami for "doing everything they could to make a deal" because at the end of the day, "only Miami" went from being real to a leverage point to get Dame to his next preferred destination --> the Bucks and Goodwin used Miami to depress Dame's value and make a deal possible for Milwaukee with their shallow asset base --> Cue Jimmy Butler "NBA gotta investigate Milwaukee for tampering"

So end of the day, Goodwin used Miami while the Blazers used the Raptors. Pretty wild stuff.

Why wouldn't Goodwin work to get Miami to offer more than Herro + 2 firsts to give Dame is first choice? That's what the agent must do. Telling Portland that Dame would like to play in Milwaukee does nothing but help Portland build a market for each place he wants to play, and drowns out Toronto fairly quickly.

[T-d0t]

If we would have gotten Dame for GTjr, Dick, Achiuwa + pick/swap that would have been robbery.

[ForeverTFC]

A bit of a zag to the conversation, but hear me out: Goodwin ran a masterclass on this one but part of me wonders if he's even more pissed at Masai than he was previously.

It's clear both Portland and Goodwin played a media war to their benefits and the Raptors and Heat didn't really participate. Based on the series of events and what has been confirmed, here's is my take on what went down:

- Dame sometime last month reaches out to Giannis and expresses his interest to play there (confirmed)
- Goodwin reaches out to Horst to let him know Giannis wants to be there but to keep it quiet and not let Portland know in order to not give Portland leverage (confirmed)
- The connected media guys come out of the woodwork after the trade saying they knew Milwaukee has been working on this but never mentioned them during the process (e.g. Windhorst); my take is that Goodwin asked the media to keep the Milwaukee interest hush hush
- Giannis comes out and says he might leave, making teams with assets second guess whether they want to offer assets for Lillard or just wait for Giannis next offseason, further depressing Dame's value (and nudging his ownership to make a more long term tax commitment)
- Portland is now negotiating with Milwaukee and needs some leverage, starts leaking the Raptors offer which is the best offer they have; Suns rumours suddenly surface even though the construct of the Ayton/Nurkic trade had been agreed to in July according to the Hoop Collective guys yesterday on their pod in order to get Miami to increase their offer
- Goodwin tries to depress our threat by getting Shams and others to come out and say "Dame would report, unless its Toronto; Dame would never go to Toronto"
- Masai being Masai keeps his deal out there despite this which Milwaukee eventually matches to a decent degree
- Portland guilts itself into choosing the Milwaukee deal once they get something they think is comparable to the Raptors deal "to do right by Dame", not knowing Dame has already communicated with the Bucks to go out and get him
- Goodwin comes out and thanks Miami for "doing everything they could to make a deal" because at the end of the day, "only Miami" went from being real to a leverage point to get Dame to his next preferred destination --> the Bucks and Goodwin used Miami to depress Dame's value and make a deal possible for Milwaukee with their shallow asset base --> Cue Jimmy Butler "NBA gotta investigate Milwaukee for tampering"

So end of the day, Goodwin used Miami while the Blazers used the Raptors. Pretty wild stuff.

Why wouldn't Goodwin work to get Miami to offer more than Herro + 2 firsts to give Dame is first choice? That's what the agent must do. Telling Portland that Dame would like to play in Milwaukee does nothing but help Portland build a market for each place he wants to play, and drowns out Toronto fairly quickly.

I think it's because both Miami and especially Milwaukee didn't have more to offer than what they were giving up, so there is no value in Goodwin creating a higher value for Dame. If both your preferred destinations have a bare cupboard of assets, it's in your client's best interest to depress his value.

It also sounds like Portland really didn't want to be strong-armed into sending him to Miami. Windhorst confirmed again that there has been no real conversations between Miami and Portland for over a month. Dame and Goodwin probably knew Miami wasn't happening so they used the Miami threat to get to their next best destination. Keeping Dame's Milwaukee interest under wraps makes Cronin and Portland believe they are not being strong-armed into this trade as was happening to them with Miami. It also continues to depress value when everyone in the league apparently knew that Miami and Portland were not talking, keeping others from trying to up their offer.

[Badonkadonk]

The thing that's become abundantly clear is how much general BS is out there and how little credence people should be giving to any source that's not WOJ or Shams.

IE we've been repeatedly told that Miami never budged from the Hero + two 1sts offer. Now it comes out that their offer was actually significantly greater and clearly superior to what Phoenix got from Bucks, and they basically just acted out of spite.

The story on Dame to Raps has also changed a number of times, from us offering OG to not offering OG to a deal being done but Dame refusing to play here.

And not a single reporter had the scoop of the Bucks being interested.

Just an incredible amount of BS floating out there, and folks need to stop treating every rando tweet as the gospel.

Well said, cutting out social media and the toxic portion of Raps twitter that just hunts engagement with apocalyptic, dumb statements has really simplified offseason for me lol

Bottom line, the Raps determined that to have a viable shot at a 'chip they'd still need Scottie+Pascal+OG. This wasn't the Kawhi situation, who was already finals MVP, plays both sides of the ball at an elite level and put the Raps on equal footing with the other giants of the East.

An all-in move for this season never really made sense. The amount of words wasted over this outcome is wild, tho I guess not surprising.

[ATLTimekeeper]

I think it's because both Miami and especially Milwaukee didn't have more to offer than what they were giving up, so there is no value in Goodwin creating a higher value for Dame. If both your preferred destinations have a bare cupboard of assets, it's in your client's best interest to depress his value.

It also sounds like Portland really didn't want to be strong-armed into sending him to Miami. Windhorst confirmed again that there has been no real conversations between Miami and Portland for over a month. Dame and Goodwin probably knew Miami wasn't happening so they used the Miami threat to get to their next best destination. Keeping Dame's Milwaukee interest under wraps makes Cronin and Portland believe they are not being strong-armed into this trade as was happening to them with Miami. It also continues to depress value when everyone in the league apparently knew that Miami and Portland were not talking, keeping others from trying to up their offer.

Okay, but Miami DID have more to offer than what they did. Goodwin failed to convince Miami that it would be worth it. And also don't ignore that Brooklyn was also approached by Goodwin, and they have nothing but liquid assets to make the deal happen.

For an agent, his priority was to get Dame in Miami and he botched that so badly the league stepped in. And then the game between Miami and Goodwin was so awful that Masai jumped in. This led to the panac to reach out to Milwaukee and Brooklyn, but there was no reason to keep it quiet from Dame's perspective. This could have dislodged Miami's position (they were still letting it be known they had no reason to offer more than Herro + 2 FRPs). Also, there was nothing stopping Portland from publicly leaking Milwaukee's interest, other than a side agreement between Milwaukee and Portland.

[ImaBeatDatAzz]

I genuinely don’t understand why Portland takes jrue over gtj, dick, precious. There had to be something said my dames agent. Portland is now forced to take weak packages for jrue because they have absolutely no leverage

You really don’t understand.

GTJr hated his time in POR; there won’t be a reunion tour and he will need to resigned to play behind SS.

Although they do have value, POR would prefer TOR keep your Precious Dick.

Uhh what? Gtj would be going to the suns, which he has way better value than Grayson Allen. Portland would get precious and dick who are 2 prospects + picks. Portland even said they wanted dick. You guys will get fleeced now.. because jrue is 33 and expiring, he can leave for nothing if portland doesn’t accept the trash coming their way for him. All the offers will be minimal and it’s an easy lowball. Portland has no leverage here at all so they have to take it

[JRoy]

I genuinely don’t understand why Portland takes jrue over gtj, dick, precious. There had to be something said my dames agent. Portland is now forced to take weak packages for jrue because they have absolutely no leverage

You really don’t understand.

GTJr hated his time in POR; there won’t be a reunion tour and he will need to resigned to play behind SS.

Although they do have value, POR would prefer TOR keep your Precious Dick.

Uhh what? Gtj would be going to the suns, which he has way better value than Grayson Allen. Portland would get precious and dick who are 2 prospects + picks. Portland even said they wanted dick. You guys will get fleeced now.. because jrue is 33 and expiring, he can leave for nothing if portland doesn’t accept the trash coming their way for him. People can easily lowball. Portland has no leverage here at all

You think Jrue will not pick up his option, knowing he will never get an offer that high again?

[ImaBeatDatAzz]

You really don’t understand.

GTJr hated his time in POR; there won’t be a reunion tour and he will need to resigned to play behind SS.

Although they do have value, POR would prefer TOR keep your Precious Dick.

Uhh what? Gtj would be going to the suns, which he has way better value than Grayson Allen. Portland would get precious and dick who are 2 prospects + picks. Portland even said they wanted dick. You guys will get fleeced now.. because jrue is 33 and expiring, he can leave for nothing if portland doesn’t accept the trash coming their way for him. People can easily lowball. Portland has no leverage here at all

You think Jrue will not pick up his option, knowing he will never get an offer that high again?

I don’t quite understand. U get 0 value from jrue staying there. U literally have to accept any poo poo platter coming ur way for him. Just gotta hope it’s the bidding war that will increase the value of what u guys get for him

[sidsid]

The thing that's become abundantly clear is how much general BS is out there and how little credence people should be giving to any source that's not WOJ or Shams.

IE we've been repeatedly told that Miami never budged from the Hero + two 1sts offer. Now it comes out that their offer was actually significantly greater and clearly superior to what Phoenix got from Bucks, and they basically just acted out of spite.

The story on Dame to Raps has also changed a number of times, from us offering OG to not offering OG to a deal being done but Dame refusing to play here.

And not a single reporter had the scoop of the Bucks being interested.

Just an incredible amount of BS floating out there, and folks need to stop treating every rando tweet as the gospel.

Well wtf do you want us to do? Just sit around and wait?

Have fun with the rumours from these less than credible sources, but keep it in perspective and don't base your entire fan identity on them.

Everyone should factor in the Canada tax imposed by USA punditry.

Despite having the desirable player archetypes that drive trade value (multi dimensional wings), the Raptors "need" to trade their entire cores while other teams can unload their bench players and bloated contract flotsam for the same value.

Even Zack Lowe is guilty of this and he spends time with his wife here.

[JB7]

You really don’t understand.

GTJr hated his time in POR; there won’t be a reunion tour and he will need to resigned to play behind SS.

Although they do have value, POR would prefer TOR keep your Precious Dick.

Uhh what? Gtj would be going to the suns, which he has way better value than Grayson Allen. Portland would get precious and dick who are 2 prospects + picks. Portland even said they wanted dick. You guys will get fleeced now.. because jrue is 33 and expiring, he can leave for nothing if portland doesn’t accept the trash coming their way for him. People can easily lowball. Portland has no leverage here at all

You think Jrue will not pick up his option, knowing he will never get an offer that high again?

The risk is the Sixers sitting on a lot of cap space this summer. They might throw money at Jrue.

[tdotrep2]

You really don’t understand.

GTJr hated his time in POR; there won’t be a reunion tour and he will need to resigned to play behind SS.

Although they do have value, POR would prefer TOR keep your Precious Dick.

Uhh what? Gtj would be going to the suns, which he has way better value than Grayson Allen. Portland would get precious and dick who are 2 prospects + picks. Portland even said they wanted dick. You guys will get fleeced now.. because jrue is 33 and expiring, he can leave for nothing if portland doesn’t accept the trash coming their way for him. People can easily lowball. Portland has no leverage here at all

You think Jrue will not pick up his option, knowing he will never get an offer that high again?

drew might retire, he's said he's going to after his contract expires.

[Jerry Lucas]

If Masai was refusing to even include OG that basically means Masai was willing to pull the trigger on going all in for 2023-24. A trio of Dame/Siakam/OG would only be viable financially for 1 season. After this season it would have basically forced a decision between keeping Siakam or OG, because having 3 players on max contracts all worth at least 30% of the cap makes it very tough to build a solid rotation around them, even if you're a tax team, and especially under the new CBA.

A similar decision awaits Masai even as the roster stands right now in the 2025 offseason. When Scottie most likely gets a rookie max extension that summer, moving forward with a trio of Siakam/OG/Scottie on 30%+30%+25% max contracts will not work in terms of building the rest of a contending caliber rotation.

[Madvillainy2004]

I know Masai has faith in this team but I just don't. Nurse or not I just don't see how unless Scottie takes a massive leap are a better team than last years middling finish. And the ceiling of this team is a play-in and the worst case scenario of giving San Antonio a 7-10 pick is very much possible.

This team has like no outside shooting. A worse PG (Fred ain't worth 30 mill but Dennis is worse in almost every metric), a rookie SG, and i guess we hope Trent, Scottie, OG, Achuiwa all progress. I just don't see it. Maybe Darko has some magic sauce but Phil Jackson and Rick Adleman would have trouble making a workable half court offense with this roster.

[WuTang_CMB]

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[Tha Cynic]

You really don’t understand.

GTJr hated his time in POR; there won’t be a reunion tour and he will need to resigned to play behind SS.

Although they do have value, POR would prefer TOR keep your Precious Dick.

Uhh what? Gtj would be going to the suns, which he has way better value than Grayson Allen. Portland would get precious and dick who are 2 prospects + picks. Portland even said they wanted dick. You guys will get fleeced now.. because jrue is 33 and expiring, he can leave for nothing if portland doesn’t accept the trash coming their way for him. People can easily lowball. Portland has no leverage here at all

You think Jrue will not pick up his option, knowing he will never get an offer that high again?

He politely declines playing for a bad team as he can easily get a multi-year deal if he puts up close to what he did this previous season.

Portland took an offer worse what you were rueing down here lol

[JRoy]

Uhh what? Gtj would be going to the suns, which he has way better value than Grayson Allen. Portland would get precious and dick who are 2 prospects + picks. Portland even said they wanted dick. You guys will get fleeced now.. because jrue is 33 and expiring, he can leave for nothing if portland doesn’t accept the trash coming their way for him. People can easily lowball. Portland has no leverage here at all

You think Jrue will not pick up his option, knowing he will never get an offer that high again?

I don’t quite understand. U get 0 value from jrue staying there. U literally have to accept any poo poo platter coming ur way for him. Just gotta hope it’s the bidding war that will increase the value of what u guys get for him

He’s a top notch all nba defensive player, all star and can play alongside both guards and act as a mentor and/or moved for value.

[JRoy]

Uhh what? Gtj would be going to the suns, which he has way better value than Grayson Allen. Portland would get precious and dick who are 2 prospects + picks. Portland even said they wanted dick. You guys will get fleeced now.. because jrue is 33 and expiring, he can leave for nothing if portland doesn’t accept the trash coming their way for him. People can easily lowball. Portland has no leverage here at all

You think Jrue will not pick up his option, knowing he will never get an offer that high again?

The risk is the Sixers sitting on a lot of cap space this summer. They might throw money at Jrue.

That might be a concern.