How's everyone feel about Smokin' Joe Cronin now?

If the W's offered the speculated deal and it was deemed the best return by management, I'd hope they keep Paul. Let him mentor Scoot for a year and then come off the books. If Cronin clears the space over the next few years and Scoot and Shaedon ball out as hoped, I am sure FAs will want to come. Dudes with options mostly want to get paid and win and Portland could be a prime destination for both.

STOMP

 

Like Lowry's, CP3's deal runs out after next season.... well, there is a 30M team option for 2024-5.

STOMP

 

hard to grow flowers on scorched earth

STOMP

 

good grief man, Jason Quick does not represent the franchise and his podcast is not team sponsered. He's a sports gossip columnist stirring the pot for the gullible

STOMP

 

But he allowed his agent to force it here.

He's got to take responsibility for that. I don't Blame Crinin any more than I blame Dame.

 

For someone with your moniker, you surely fell hard to this propaganda piece. And that is exactly what Haynes' article is.

 

Scorched and then salted.

 

Neither did Dame.

 

Yeah I was thinking about that last night. In one hand he’s holding out an olive branch to the fans while simultaneously salting the earth on his way out of town.

 

Joe Cronin is NOT “receiving insults for having Trail Blazers interests as a priority.” He is receiving insults because he’s a liar and a child who pushed out arguably the best player in franchise history.

Lillard is “receiving praise” for continuing to be the same standup guy to the city and the team that he’s always been. Joe is a liar. He started a rebuild while saying repeatedly that he was committed to building around Dame.

And I am a Trail Blazer fan. Dame WAS the Trail Blazers. None have represented us better. Since things aren’t actually either/or, this situation sucks. But as for saying you have to be a Cronin fan to be a. Trail Blazer fan, you can get the fuck out of here with that. It’s about decency.

 

It’s the classic: make the other person break up with you. Joe said one thing but did another like an asshole.

 

Except Dame's people made it play that way.

I wrote this somewhere else: For your suggestion to absolve Dame to be true, he'd have to have self-determination equivalent to an infant. It went two months before Dame allegedly said he'd be willing to come back. Two months of trashing the Blazers through his surrogates. Two months of trying to block any avenues for Cronin to explore deals that were better for the organization and Dame's former teammates who were going to stay in Portland. And, even after he supposedly said he was willing to return to the Blazers -- even after his surrogates hinted that he'd "make it ugly" if he wasn't trade to the Heat, Dame never went public with that. His original narrative continued to float out there.

What you're saying is Dame let Goodwin do that without Dame's approval, but, if that's true, it doesn't absolve Dame. It just infantilizes him.

 

How can you read it that way? It literally says the opposite.

And lying is “just how the world works”? Thanks for that.

 

Cronin added the best talent that was available around Dame. Which is what he said he'd do.

I understand Dame not liking how it went down (adding young players), but Cronin didn't lie to him.

There was nothing available that would have improved the team more than Grant, Sharpe, or Scoot.

Certainly not for what we had to offer.

 

It's the clerk not liking something the manager said, punching the manager in response, holding the manager's family at gun point, and then, realizing he didn't have another job lined up saying, "Hey, if I don't kill you guys, you know I'd be willing to come back and work here."

 

Did you even read the article? You can’t just lie to guy like Dame over and over and expect him not to react. Well, I guess you can expect him not to react since that’s what most of you are essentially saying.

 

This. A public statement from Dame that he'd be more than happy to come back to Portland would have given Cronin maximum leverage, and would have increased the chances of a Miami deal getting done. But Miami might have had to give up enough that they wouldn't be a contender with Dame. Dame didn't want that.

Dame refused to do that.

 

I'm glad someone else noticed Paul Allen's name missing as well. I found it strange. It would have been a lovely time to acknowledge the owner that drafted him and allowed his sister to be so generous to Dame.

 

From what I have seen in professional sports, when a generational player leaves, it's almost always bloody. Feelings are almost always hurt. To me, this divorce is a three on a scale of 10. Hell, ask the Packers how to behave when their quarterback leaves. They have f***ed up the last two.

As for Lillard saying he wanted to return, it wasn't "I reconsidered, and if you can't send me to Miami, I want to be a Blazer forever". He said he was willing to start the season as a Blazer to give us time to make a deal with the Heat. It sucks, but I can't blame the Blazers' FO for not wanting the distraction. Dame wanted to play lights out and show he was worth trading for, and we wanted to focus on the future.

If I'm going to blame anyone, I'm blaming Goodwin. Even by the low standards of agent conduct, he managed to surprise.