CJ for ???

[slos]

Bucks fan here, who really likes the fit of McCollum next to Antetokounmpo and Middleton. I'd like to ask if your board would consider this.

Portland in: Bledsoe, Snell, Maker, Wilson
Portland out: McCollum, Leonard, Baldwin, Layman

PG: Lillard, Bledsoe, Curry
SG: Snell, Simons, Trent Jr.
SF: Turner, Harkless, Stauskas
PF: Aminu, Swanigan, Wilson
C: Nurkic, Collins, Maker

I see Bledsoe as 6th in this, playing 12 minutes at pg when Lillard is benched and another 18 minutes with him as sg. If it doesn't work his contract is expiring. That would give also more time for your young players (seems weird you drafted two shooting guards, while having CJ).
The rest of the deal works for Portland to avoid the tax, they will be around 123 mil with 15 players guaranteed. I know it would look better if Milwaukee had something more valuable than Snell or at least a 1st to offer, but still i had to ask!

[DeBlazerRiddem]

Bucks fan here, who really likes the fit of McCollum next to Antetokounmpo and Middleton. I'd like to ask if your board would consider this.

Portland in: Bledsoe, Snell, Maker, Wilson
Portland out: McCollum, Leonard, Baldwin, Layman

PG: Lillard, Bledsoe, Curry
SG: Snell, Simons, Trent Jr.
SF: Turner, Harkless, Stauskas
PF: Aminu, Swanigan, Wilson
C: Nurkic, Collins, Maker

I see Bledsoe as 6th in this, playing 12 minutes at pg when Lillard is benched and another 18 minutes with him as sg. If it doesn't work his contract is expiring. That would give also more time for your young players (seems weird you drafted two shooting guards, while having CJ).
The rest of the deal works for Portland to avoid the tax, they will be around 123 mil with 15 players guaranteed. I know it would look better if Milwaukee had something more valuable than Snell or at least a 1st to offer, but still i had to ask!

Middleton would probably be the asking price for McCollum. Frankly your offer has nothing very intriguing for us and you don't trade your second best player for tax purposes.

[zzaj]

Bucks fan here, who really likes the fit of McCollum next to Antetokounmpo and Middleton. I'd like to ask if your board would consider this.

Portland in: Bledsoe, Snell, Maker, Wilson
Portland out: McCollum, Leonard, Baldwin, Layman

PG: Lillard, Bledsoe, Curry
SG: Snell, Simons, Trent Jr.
SF: Turner, Harkless, Stauskas
PF: Aminu, Swanigan, Wilson
C: Nurkic, Collins, Maker

I see Bledsoe as 6th in this, playing 12 minutes at pg when Lillard is benched and another 18 minutes with him as sg. If it doesn't work his contract is expiring. That would give also more time for your young players (seems weird you drafted two shooting guards, while having CJ).
The rest of the deal works for Portland to avoid the tax, they will be around 123 mil with 15 players guaranteed. I know it would look better if Milwaukee had something more valuable than Snell or at least a 1st to offer, but still i had to ask!

Yeah, this is not even close and is perhaps the worse proposal for CJ that I've seen. It's essentially giving up CJ for tax relief, since Snell, Maker and Wilson aren't needed on the Blazers and Bledsoe cant stay healthy. The Blazers would be really dumb to give up their second best player for tax relief.

Something surrounding CJ and Middleton is the only trade the Blazers would consider. And I'm sure that ruins your hopes of getting CJ for a bunch of the Bucks crappy parts.

[monopoman]

Bucks fan here, who really likes the fit of McCollum next to Antetokounmpo and Middleton. I'd like to ask if your board would consider this.

Portland in: Bledsoe, Snell, Maker, Wilson
Portland out: McCollum, Leonard, Baldwin, Layman

PG: Lillard, Bledsoe, Curry
SG: Snell, Simons, Trent Jr.
SF: Turner, Harkless, Stauskas
PF: Aminu, Swanigan, Wilson
C: Nurkic, Collins, Maker

I see Bledsoe as 6th in this, playing 12 minutes at pg when Lillard is benched and another 18 minutes with him as sg. If it doesn't work his contract is expiring. That would give also more time for your young players (seems weird you drafted two shooting guards, while having CJ).
The rest of the deal works for Portland to avoid the tax, they will be around 123 mil with 15 players guaranteed. I know it would look better if Milwaukee had something more valuable than Snell or at least a 1st to offer, but still i had to ask!

Middleton would probably be the asking price for McCollum. Frankly your offer has nothing very intriguing for us and you don't trade your second best player for tax purposes.

Well remember we are in tax hell so people can lowball us with offers like these. Never-mind that we have one of the wealthiest owners in all of professional sports. Yeah he should set up another trade that dumps Lillard for more tax relief!

[zzaj]

The thing that other teams' posters (and some of us as well) tend to forget is that CJ has missed a total of 5 games in the past 3 years (and one was due to Stotts' oversight). For a talent strapped team like Portland, having your second best player be an 'iron man' is incredibly important.

Personally, it's one of the main reasons why these Love/Griffin/Bledsoe/Gordon, oft-injured player deals breakdown--even if some of these players are more talented or have more upside than CJ, only having them for 60 games a season knocks the impact of their talent down to BELOW the impact CJ has in 80 games.

Overall, the Lillard/CJ backcourt duo has been incredibly healthy...pretty easily the healthiest of the league's best backcourts for the past 3 years. It would be interesting to do the homework and find out if they have been the healthiest #1 and #2 best players on a team during that same span.

[BlazersBroncos]

I think a trade w/ Milwaukee that doesn't include Middleton could be found but it would be difficult to orchestrate. Likely involving Bledsoe going to team X w/ a SF or PF upgrade to PDX and Brogdon to PDX to replace CJ at SG.

Maybe:

PDX Trades - CJ McCollum
PDX Receives - Malcolm Brogdon, Evan Fournier, John Henson

MIL Trades - Malcolm Borgdon, John Henson, Eric Bledsoe
MIL Receives - CJ McCollum

ORL Trades - Evan Fournier
ORL Receives - Eric Bledsoe

PG - Damian Lillard / Wade Baldwin /
SG - Malcolm Brogdon / Seth Curry / Anferne Simons / Nik Stauskas
SF - Evan Fournier / Mo Harkless / Gary Trent Jr.
PF - Al-Fariq Aminu / Zach Collins / Jake Layman
C - Jusuf Nurkic / John Henson / Myers Leonard

Honestly, am I crazy for thinking that deal improves us across the board? Downgrade SG, but get a better fit next to Damian (Brogdon is a 3/D guy who can initiate the offense), still gain a player in Fournier that can create his own shot and upgrade SF (Albeit he is a defensive liability), upgrade the backup C position w/ a guy who expires when all our other bad deals expire. Maybe have ORL send a top 20 protected R1 since they get an EC. IDK, I sorta like the look of that team. And both impact guys coming back are slightly younger than what we send out.

[Wizenheimer]

Bucks fan here, who really likes the fit of McCollum next to Antetokounmpo and Middleton. I'd like to ask if your board would consider this.

Portland in: Bledsoe, Snell, Maker, Wilson
Portland out: McCollum, Leonard, Baldwin, Layman

PG: Lillard, Bledsoe, Curry
SG: Snell, Simons, Trent Jr.
SF: Turner, Harkless, Stauskas
PF: Aminu, Swanigan, Wilson
C: Nurkic, Collins, Maker

I see Bledsoe as 6th in this, playing 12 minutes at pg when Lillard is benched and another 18 minutes with him as sg. If it doesn't work his contract is expiring. That would give also more time for your young players (seems weird you drafted two shooting guards, while having CJ).
The rest of the deal works for Portland to avoid the tax, they will be around 123 mil with 15 players guaranteed. I know it would look better if Milwaukee had something more valuable than Snell or at least a 1st to offer, but still i had to ask!

Yeah, this is not even close and is perhaps the worse proposal for CJ that I've seen. It's essentially giving up CJ for tax relief, since Snell, Maker and Wilson aren't needed on the Blazers and Bledsoe cant stay healthy. The Blazers would be really dumb to give up their second best player for tax relief.

Well remember we are in tax hell so people can lowball us with offers like these. Never-mind that we have one of the wealthiest owners in all of professional sports. Yeah he should set up another trade that dumps Lillard for more tax relief!

well. to be fair, Portland has made 3 obvious tax moves in a year: Crabbe for significant negative value; Vonleh + cash for nothing; and letting Ed Davis walk without even making an offer. Those 'moves' have been noticed and the motivation for the moves is obvious. And they are strong evidence that the "richest-owner-in-the-NBA" narrative has a lot more weight on RealGM then it does in the real world. PA doesn't want to pay tax and I think the odds are decent that he won't end up paying tax this coming season

with the 'fairness' out of the way, that trade idea is pretty weak. Bledsoe's injury history makes him a bad risk and that combined with him being an expiring contract, gives him little positive trade value. Snell, I like as a component in the trade...he's a true wing he can plug in at either SG or SF; but he's not really strong starting level talent. The inclusion of Meyers is interesting, but not for Maker and adding Baldwin makes everything worse

Something surrounding CJ and Middleton is the only trade the Blazers would consider. And I'm sure that ruins your hopes of getting CJ for a bunch of the Bucks crappy parts.

in a vacuum, a CJ for Middleton swap seems decent value for Portland. Middleton is about equal to CJ on offense; he's more efficient as a scorer, gets to the FT line at a good rate, is much better defensively, and is even a better playmaker than CJ (in terms of passing). A Dame/Middleton back court would be better balanced, in several ways, then the Dame/CJ back court. And Middleton is paid almost half of what CJ is paid

but Middleton has a player option for 2019-2020 and it's certain he will opt out and be UFA. So, it could be a one year rental for Middleton, and unlike the Nurkic situation, there will be a strong market for Middleton. That makes a CJ for Middleton swap a lot less desirable. Sure, it could work out for Portland much like it worked out for OKC and Paul George. But OKC was rolling the dice on a elite talent in PG; Middleton isn't elite

personally, at ths point, I doubt I'd do a CJ for Midd trade unless there was more positive value coming back to Portland. A big problem is that Milwaukee has claims against their 1st round pick(s) till 2021, and the earliest 1st they could trade is 2022. That eliminates one component of returning value to Portland, but I can see some interesting trade possibilities:

* CJ + Swanigan for Middleton + Henson + a 2nd or two. That plugs the hole left by a departing Davis

* CJ + Swanigan + Stauskas for Henson + Snell + Brogdon. That leaves Portland with some weak alternatives at SG, but maybe slightly better fits. It strengthens Portland's depth at wing, PG, and C, and it makes the Blazers an even better defensive team

* CJ + Meyers + Layman/Baldwin + Stauskas for Henson + Snell + Delladova + Brogdon. Portland swaps the bad contract of Meyers for the bad, but smaller contract of Delly. Henson is a really good 2nd unit C; and Snell + Brogdon strengthens Portland wing depth (while weakening starting level talent). But this trade leaves Portland about 1.5M over the tax line which seems like a good spot to drop under from

Obviously, Olshey wouldn't make any of those moves, especially that last one. To give up his two favorite players for a package like that would be too depressing for him. But I think Portland would have a better rotation and possibly a better team

[Wizenheimer]

I think a trade w/ Milwaukee that doesn't include Middleton could be found but it would be difficult to orchestrate. Likely involving Bledsoe going to team X w/ a SF or PF upgrade to PDX and Brogdon to PDX to replace CJ at SG.

Maybe:

PDX Trades - CJ McCollum
PDX Receives - Malcolm Brogdon, Evan Fournier, John Henson

you're adding about 5M in salary to Portland's cap and since the Blazers are over the apron I don't think that's a legal trade. Even if it was legal, I seriously doubt Portland does a trade that add 10-12M in tax while downgrading their starting SG (even though Fournier is not a major downgrade)

besides that, Portland has 15 guaranteed contracts so they'd have to add a couple of players to this deal anyway (otherwise, they'd have 8 guards... ) Stauskas + Curry would get the trade within about a million of neutral cap effect

[BlazersBroncos]

I would want to keep Seth and go all-in on 3's. Maybe instead include Swanigan + Stauskas + Layman? That's 4.9M right there.

[bob2]

to be fair, Portland has made 3 obvious tax moves in a year: Crabbe for significant negative value; Vonleh + cash for nothing; and letting Ed Davis walk without even making an offer. Those 'moves' have been noticed and the motivation for the moves is obvious. And they are strong evidence that the "richest-owner-in-the-NBA" narrative has a lot more weight on RealGM then it does in the real world. PA doesn't want to pay tax and I think the odds are decent that he won't end up paying tax this coming season

Letting Davis go had nothing to do with tax concerns. His salary is pretty cheap (not much different than Curry+Stauskas) and Portland could have kept him if they had decided so.
The other moves were made to avoid paying the tax too early and being a repeater in the future, which was smart.
It's pretty clear to me that Paul Allen always intended to pay the tax this year and next year and he won't gut the team to save a couple millions.

[slos]

I think a trade w/ Milwaukee that doesn't include Middleton could be found but it would be difficult to orchestrate. Likely involving Bledsoe going to team X w/ a SF or PF upgrade to PDX and Brogdon to PDX to replace CJ at SG.

Maybe:

PDX Trades - CJ McCollum
PDX Receives - Malcolm Brogdon, Evan Fournier, John Henson

MIL Trades - Malcolm Borgdon, John Henson, Eric Bledsoe
MIL Receives - CJ McCollum

ORL Trades - Evan Fournier
ORL Receives - Eric Bledsoe

PG - Damian Lillard / Wade Baldwin /
SG - Malcolm Brogdon / Seth Curry / Anferne Simons / Nik Stauskas
SF - Evan Fournier / Mo Harkless / Gary Trent Jr.
PF - Al-Fariq Aminu / Zach Collins / Jake Layman
C - Jusuf Nurkic / John Henson / Myers Leonard

Honestly, am I crazy for thinking that deal improves us across the board? Downgrade SG, but get a better fit next to Damian (Brogdon is a 3/D guy who can initiate the offense), still gain a player in Fournier that can create his own shot and upgrade SF (Albeit he is a defensive liability), upgrade the backup C position w/ a guy who expires when all our other bad deals expire. Maybe have ORL send a top 20 protected R1 since they get an EC. IDK, I sorta like the look of that team. And both impact guys coming back are slightly younger than what we send out.

I think that Henson should be a dealbreaker for Portland in what you suggest. Fournier and Brogdon is a nice base for McCollum trade (of course not ideal), but the sweetener for Blazers in that mix can be only avoiding the tax. Adding Henson's money just doesn't worth the bill that will be paid.

I would suggest you add Wilson and Maker for 3rd PF and C and send away to Bucks and Orlando three of Baldwin, Stauskas, Layman, Swaningan.

Or if you like Henson you should add Leonard and Zeller in the trade for the same financial issues. Both reduce the total money for Portland to 124 mil.

[Wizenheimer]

to be fair, Portland has made 3 obvious tax moves in a year: Crabbe for significant negative value; Vonleh + cash for nothing; and letting Ed Davis walk without even making an offer. Those 'moves' have been noticed and the motivation for the moves is obvious. And they are strong evidence that the "richest-owner-in-the-NBA" narrative has a lot more weight on RealGM then it does in the real world. PA doesn't want to pay tax and I think the odds are decent that he won't end up paying tax this coming season

Letting Davis go had nothing to do with tax concerns. .

sure it did. if they'd had re-signed him for 4.5-5M, that would have been close to 15M more in tax and salary.

that was definitely a factor, although not the only one. Portland is looking at a 12.6M tax bill this year bringing their total payroll cost up to 144.2M. Resigning Davis would have added 10M in tax pushing total cost up close to 160M. Now, Layman would have probably been released (or Baldwin) so that would have dropped cost down to around 155M

It's pretty clear to me that Paul Allen always intended to pay the tax this year and next year and he won't gut the team to save a couple millions.

to start with, it's a lot more then a couple of million...

and I'd say that's premature to assume. If the Blazers are struggling, around a .500 team (or worse) approaching the trade deadline, I think Portland will be shopping for some cost cutting deals. Moving Aminu and one of Layman/Stauskas for TPE's would drop Portland below the tax line. And my guess is that those might be doable deals for Portland to complete

I'd even estimate that Portland will continue to have discussions with teams about cost-cutting moves even if they are winning more than they are losing

[monopoman]

We did re-sign Nurkic though if PA was really at "I must reduce salary now!" mode we would have let Nurkic walk. Has this team made some moves to cut salary yes, but every team in the NBA does that more or less. Crap some teams that are far below the cap have let players walk to save a few bucks.

[Unbiased hater]

Beal for CJ is ideal deal for both teams , swap them and it makes both teams better . Beal has size , passing, playmaking and defense with same shooting and CJ is better ball handler and he is better scorer so he is great fit for Wizzards.

[zzaj]

Beal for CJ is ideal deal for both teams , swap them and it makes both teams better . Beal has size , passing, playmaking and defense with same shooting and CJ is better ball handler and he is better scorer so he is great fit for Wizzards.

I would suspect that WAS would want more than CJ in a CJ/Beal deal...and that's a big issue in this trade when you consider that they are more over the cap than Portland.

Now that Beal has made it through an 82 game season, I'd do this in heartbeat, though. I'd probably even add a draft pick to make it happen.

[Blazers98]

Suns need a PG.
Would CJ be a possibility?
Does Booker have enough ball handling skills to have CJ bring the ball up and have Booker take over?
What would we want in return? The suns have a lot of young assets at the wing-which is where we need help.

[Norm2953]

We 're likely going to see some CJ to Phoenix trade proposals but its going to be hard without
Booker and Ayton being off the table. Things like Josh Jackson and Bridges would likely be
their trade assets in the deal.

[DusterBuster]

Beal for CJ is ideal deal for both teams , swap them and it makes both teams better . Beal has size , passing, playmaking and defense with same shooting and CJ is better ball handler and he is better scorer so he is great fit for Wizzards.

Aren't Beal and CJ the same size?

[Unbiased hater]

Beal for CJ is ideal deal for both teams , swap them and it makes both teams better . Beal has size , passing, playmaking and defense with same shooting and CJ is better ball handler and he is better scorer so he is great fit for Wizzards.

Aren't Beal and CJ the same size?

Don't know but Beal looks much bigger on court which means his game is game of someone bigger and that he can provide something that Portland need in this moment , something that Portland can't get from CJ.

[Wizenheimer]

Beal for CJ is ideal deal for both teams , swap them and it makes both teams better . Beal has size , passing, playmaking and defense with same shooting and CJ is better ball handler and he is better scorer so he is great fit for Wizzards.

Aren't Beal and CJ the same size?

pretty close

Beal: height 6'3.25....wingspan 6'8....standing reach 8'3....weight 202

CJ: height 6'2.25....wingspan 6'6.25....standing reach 8'0,5....weight 197

so, Beal has an inch advantage in height and a couple of inch advantage in wingspan & reach. They both have a little bit of the Trex arms at work (Dame's wingspan is 6'7.75" and he's a half inch shorter than CJ)

they are both a lot close to Dame's size then that of Klay Thompson or Jimmy Butler