Wizenheimer wrote:zzaj wrote:I am witholding judgement on the trade return on Lillard. Until the value of those future picks is revealed, it's impossible for me to judge.
well, there is Golden State's pick this season, but if they make the playoffs that pick would be 18-20 in a weak draft. Even if they don't make the playoffs, the pick would likely be 13 or 14....in that weak draft....for arguably the best player in franchise history and by far the most loyal until Cronin essentially maneuvered him into the corner of asking for a trade
the first un-protected pick isn't until 2028. That's 5 long years after Dame was traded and as we've seen with Sharpe and Scoot, the odds are, even if it's a good pick, Portland wouldn't see a real pay-off on that player till his 3rd or 4th season; that's 2031-32 in case you're keeping track; 7-8 years from now.
Well, you can go ahead and hold off gauging the Dame trade until then, but when the payoff for trading Dame is Camara, 31 year old Brogdon, always-injured Timelord, and a couple of unknown unprotected first's that far out from the trade....I'm gauging it a crappy returnzzaj wrote:There about a million ways the "trade Lillard" scenario is getting viewed, and skewed by "reports" of what was available, unavailable, 'who said whats', etc...99% of it is conjecture. What we do know is that Lillard publically wanted out, so that automatically is going to change the trade parameters.
ok...but isn't the reality when a player of Dame's stature is traded it's because they almost always are demanding to be traded?
Yeah, I said at the time of the trade this was a move to set up the team for the 2030s. I still stand by that. If Scoot and Sharpe are going to amount to anything, they will be in their prime when those (hopefully) high draft picks convey. But as both of us have pointed out, it's a pretty huge ask to have a fanbase wait a decade.
As to your second point, I suppose that's true. And like just about every other star player that gets traded, there is a trail of "should haves" and "could haves" that follow...when none of us really know the reality of any of that.
I guess my point is that, at current face value the Lillard return was poor. But we don't really know the actual value yet because a big portion of that value is future picks.
And I want to point out that I'm not trying to stand up for Cronin here--I think he's made plenty of blunders. I am just witholding judgement on whether the Lillard return should be included in that.