Ayton, Grant, and Simons for anything?

[Tim Lehrbach]

^^Again, not to defend Cronin here or ever, but (1) and (2) together may very well be too much to ask. Whether he is holding these guys for a king's random or there is no demand whatsoever for them, time keeps ticking and they don't get traded. I won't be convinced the Blazers can unload the titular trio, let alone get assets for them, until I see it happen. </broken record>

[Walton1one]

OK, but what about Toumani Camara, an affordable, defensively dominant forward any contender would have ponied up a first-rounder to acquire? He didn't get traded either?

.

https://www.bleacherreport.com/articles/10153346-grading-every-teams-2025-nba-trade-deadline

Okay 'Portland should trade Toumani Camara' thing has reached Jarace Walker proportions. I never understood the rationale of moving off a 2nd year player just because--what, he's a little older?

This rebuild is so labyrinthine that Camara might be the one main piece the team can circle around. Any other comment he had was invalidated by that Camara bit.

The Camara nonsense aside, the point I was making was that I don't see anyone who thought POR inaction at the deadline was good\acceptable or made a lick of sense.

and the inescapable fact is that he has pretty much stated the same baloney now for 3 straight years at the trade deadline. They guy is a monument to say little, do even less, and yet no one in the local media wants to even challenge him about his clear history of inaction?

BTW, here is another stellar review from the Ringer. Their one-word summation? Bizarre...

https://www.theringer.com/2025/02/11/nba/nba-trade-deadline-2025-nuggets-wolves-magic

Portland Trail Blazers
The Trail Blazers have somehow won 10 of their past 12 games and deserve a standing ovation for the restraint they showed on Thursday, not taking all their assets and pushing them front and center for a chance to win the 2025 NBA title. (That was a joke. Sort of.)


Portland is 23-31, a spunky 13-seed that’s only 4.5 games back of the play-in. It’s also spinning its wheels, trudging through an increasingly paradoxical rebuild that can now, fairly, be categorized as bizarre. In the short term, Portland’s roster is tantalizing, explosive, and somewhat nonsensical. Its core players, several of whom are extension eligible this summer, may not be compatible with one another, and none are clear foundational centerpieces.

The Trail Blazers clearly aren’t going full bore on a youth movement, Jerami Grant, Deandre Ayton, and Robert Williams III are all (when healthy) in Chauncey Billups’s rotation. While veteran leadership can certainly bring value to a green team, there’s also something to be said about developing young players by, like, putting them on the court at the same time. Lineups that feature Shaedon Sharpe, Scoot Henderson, and Donovan Clingan—the team’s three most recent lottery picks—have played only 145 minutes this season, and they haven’t started a game together since November 20.

The Blazers have made it unnecessarily hard to figure out who should be part of the organization’s next growth cycle, a perplexing dilemma when you realize that all but four players on this roster are under contract next season, too. Yes, Portland will likely have another lottery pick in what’s expected to be a deep draft. But the strategy, right now, all feels a bit too circumspect.

Winning is intoxicating. But would it have made sense to be a little more aggressive about moving off Williams and Grant or potentially even selling high on Anfernee Simons? (Assuming that the market for any of those three could yield positive draft capital in a league full of teams so desperate to win.) There are a lot of questions, and I don’t have all the answers. But I really hope that the Blazers weren’t hoodwinked by their own recent success. That would be criminally shortsighted, regardless of how formidable they’ve looked over the past six weeks. Since January 1, the Thunder and Clippers are the only teams that rank higher in defensive rating, which might be the most unbelievable stat I’ve read all season.

Adding to the frustration: Reports have trickled out that Portland wasn’t particularly close to completing any deals. “We know a lot of fans, and probably a lot of people in here, prefer a little bit of action,” Blazers general manager Joe Cronin said. “Often, we do too. We’re always looking for ways to participate in these windows and find guys who can help us be better. But this time around, we just didn’t find the value. So, we decided to pass.”

The trade deadline can be an inflection point for any franchise mired in the wilderness of a prolonged rebuild. By sitting this one out, Portland tacked another level of uncertainty on top of a plan that’s yet to take shape.

One-word verdict: Bizarre

[tester551]

Nurk is a good dude...

Read on Twitter

[Walton1one]

Apparently, the price (for Joe) of sending Simons to ORL was not right.....

[PDXKnight]

Apparently, the price (for Joe) of sending Simons to ORL was not right.....

Is that something you read or just joking?

[Walton1one]

Just joking, but he didn’t make any trades, so he didn’t find any price worth liking

[Norm2953]

Presumably he wanted more for Simons than Orlando was willing to trade.

This might be brought back up prior to the draft when we all know where Orlando and
Denver's FRP controlled by Orlando will be.

[oldfishermen]

This post is pure speculation, based on a coincidence. Or is it a coincidence?

The Blazers had the nice three week long win streak going, winning 10 of 11 games. The streak ended on Feb 6th. The trade deadline.

Since the day after the trade deadline, they have not won a game.

What was it about the trade deadline that motivated them? What ever it was, the magic disappeared.

[DusterBuster]

This post is pure speculation, based on a coincidence. Or is it a coincidence?

The Blazers had the nice three week long win streak going, winning 10 of 11 games. The streak ended on Feb 6th. The trade deadline.

Since the day after the trade deadline, they have not won a game.

What was it about the trade deadline that motivated them? What ever it was, the magic disappeared.

Seems more like a case of teams scouting reports catching up to what Portland was doing. They're also missing Ayton who - for all the s he catches from fans - was a big part of why they went on that streak, so the rotation is a bit off from what it was again and the teams needing to adjust to that.

[zzaj]

This post is pure speculation, based on a coincidence. Or is it a coincidence?

The Blazers had the nice three week long win streak going, winning 10 of 11 games. The streak ended on Feb 6th. The trade deadline.

Since the day after the trade deadline, they have not won a game.

What was it about the trade deadline that motivated them? What ever it was, the magic disappeared.

I don’t think it has to do with the TD…for the Blazers. IMO, Crolshey had ZERO desire to trade anybody.

I think that the Blazers had an easy spot in their schedule, and they capitalized on some other team turmoil around the deadline. That coupled with some better play by Ayton and Scoot, got them past some bad teams.

As expected, now that they are playing against better teams they’re losing again.

[Wizenheimer]

This post is pure speculation, based on a coincidence. Or is it a coincidence?

The Blazers had the nice three week long win streak going, winning 10 of 11 games. The streak ended on Feb 6th. The trade deadline.

Since the day after the trade deadline, they have not won a game.

What was it about the trade deadline that motivated them? What ever it was, the magic disappeared.

There was no magic; I think the 'streak' was mostly a schedule circumstance. A bit misleading. 8 of those 11 games were at home. 8 of the 10 wins were against teams with losing records, and one of two other wins was against a team only 1 game over .500. The only game against a playoff top-4 team they played was a 10 point loss, at home; and it was never really in doubt

personally, I think it couldn't have come at a worse time because it gave Cronin an excuse to do nothing

[dckingsfan]

This post is pure speculation, based on a coincidence. Or is it a coincidence?

The Blazers had the nice three week long win streak going, winning 10 of 11 games. The streak ended on Feb 6th. The trade deadline.

Since the day after the trade deadline, they have not won a game.

What was it about the trade deadline that motivated them? What ever it was, the magic disappeared.

There was no magic; I think the 'streak' was mostly a schedule circumstance. A bit misleading. 8 of those 11 games were at home. 8 of the 10 wins were against teams with losing records, and one of two other wins was against a team only 1 game over .500. The only game against a playoff top-4 team they played was a 10 point loss, at home; and it was never really in doubt

personally, I think it couldn't have come at a worse time because it gave Cronin an excuse to do nothing

Yeah, might disagree with you a bit there (on one point, not your conclusion).

I can't find the tweet I posted earlier but Portland plays pretty well against top teams (that aren't elite). So, having a winning streak when you are playing middling teams should have been expected - ESPECIALLY because they moved to a defensive team mindset (sans Simons).

It is actually a recipe moving forward that our coach will ignore. Play a defensive minded lineup vs a lazy veteran lineup.

C: Clingan & Williams
PF: Camara & Williams, Walker
SF: Grant & Avdija
SG: Avdija & Simons
PG: Scoot & Banton

And tell Sharpe and Simons that they get more minutes if they actually play defense.

[BlazersBroncos]

This post is pure speculation, based on a coincidence. Or is it a coincidence?

The Blazers had the nice three week long win streak going, winning 10 of 11 games. The streak ended on Feb 6th. The trade deadline.

Since the day after the trade deadline, they have not won a game.

What was it about the trade deadline that motivated them? What ever it was, the magic disappeared.

There was no magic; I think the 'streak' was mostly a schedule circumstance. A bit misleading. 8 of those 11 games were at home. 8 of the 10 wins were against teams with losing records, and one of two other wins was against a team only 1 game over .500. The only game against a playoff top-4 team they played was a 10 point loss, at home; and it was never really in doubt

personally, I think it couldn't have come at a worse time because it gave Cronin an excuse to do nothing

Yeah, might disagree with you a bit there (on one point, not your conclusion).

I can't find the tweet I posted earlier but Portland plays pretty well against top teams (that aren't elite). So, having a winning streak when you are playing middling teams should have been expected - ESPECIALLY because they moved to a defensive team mindset (sans Simons).

It is actually a recipe moving forward that our coach will ignore. Play a defensive minded lineup vs a lazy veteran lineup.

C: Clingan & Williams
PF: Camara & Williams, Walker
SF: Grant & Avdija
SG: Avdija & Simons
PG: Scoot & Banton

And tell Sharpe and Simons that they get more minutes if they actually play defense.

Ya, my rotation would be something like -

G - Scoot Henderson (30) / Anfernee Simons (18)
G - Toumari Camara (16) / Anfernee Simons (10) / Shadeon Sharpe (22)
F - Jerami Grant (28) / Shadeon Sharpe (6) / Rayan Rupert (14)
F - Deni Avdija (32) / Toumari Camara (16)
C - Donovan Clingan (24) / Robert Williams (24)

I want to see some more Rupert to see if he is worth a roster spot next season. I think Kris is not a NBA talent.

[dckingsfan]

There was no magic; I think the 'streak' was mostly a schedule circumstance. A bit misleading. 8 of those 11 games were at home. 8 of the 10 wins were against teams with losing records, and one of two other wins was against a team only 1 game over .500. The only game against a playoff top-4 team they played was a 10 point loss, at home; and it was never really in doubt

personally, I think it couldn't have come at a worse time because it gave Cronin an excuse to do nothing

Yeah, might disagree with you a bit there (on one point, not your conclusion).

I can't find the tweet I posted earlier but Portland plays pretty well against top teams (that aren't elite). So, having a winning streak when you are playing middling teams should have been expected - ESPECIALLY because they moved to a defensive team mindset (sans Simons).

It is actually a recipe moving forward that our coach will ignore. Play a defensive minded lineup vs a lazy veteran lineup.

C: Clingan & Williams
PF: Camara & Williams, Walker
SF: Grant & Avdija
SG: Avdija & Simons
PG: Scoot & Banton

And tell Sharpe and Simons that they get more minutes if they actually play defense.

Ya, my rotation would be something like -

G - Scoot Henderson (30) / Anfernee Simons (18)
G - Toumari Camara (16) / Anfernee Simons (10) / Shadeon Sharpe (22)
F - Jerami Grant (28) / Shadeon Sharpe (6) / Rayan Rupert (14)
F - Deni Avdija (32) / Toumari Camara (16)
C - Donovan Clingan (24) / Robert Williams (24)

I want to see some more Rupert to see if he is worth a roster spot next season. I think Kris is not a NBA talent.

Can't disagree with giving Rupert some run. He is only 20. It would help the tanking and help him for next season as well.

Question, Avdija has been playing guard when it is Camara/Grant/Avdija, was there a reason you wanted Camara to play guard? I haven't seen Camara play guard on either offense or defense this season (only PF with a bit of C).