Maybe Dame or Giannis in the summer but that wouldn't happen this season. I could see Doc being let go though. Maybe they hire Stotts?
How do you rebuild without your own picks? If they ever do want to look at trading Giannis think we'd have to be part of the deal. Right now obviously we're many years away from trying to acquire a Giannis player directly. But we could be the 3rd team. Something like we give the Bucks their picks and OKC sends us Jalen Williams plus multiple Clippers picks.
I actually wouldn't mind having Dame back, because we have plenty of salary on this roster that is easily expendable for him, for the next 2 years. The kick in the pants is 26-27 when he's what...37, making almost 60 mil. I'd package, Simons/Thybulle/RW3 for him without blinking if it weren't for that 3rd year.
Let some other team give him that 60 million. The Blazers off-loaded it, it seems insane to take it back. I'd much rather get picks for Simons/ Thybulle / RW3 no matter what picks they are. Is Lillard going to play for the vet minimum the following season? Or be gone again?
On the other hand: the Blazers won't have much on the books in 26-27. We'd be paying Sharpe whatever,but everyone else would still be on their rookie scale salaries aside from Avdija.
The Blazers should use the salary in 26-27 to make the team better in that season and to build for future seasons. Not pay the supermax salary of a 37 year old has been.
A better way to look at it would be that ‘26-‘28 seasons will be our prime years for competing with a cheap young core. Having cap space shouldn’t give us an excuse to make a bad cap move. And aside from salary cap, I’m not interested in bringing Dame back until Scoot has shown he is a star quality player, and Dame’s addition will take him up a notch from being a good-stats-on-a-non-contending-team kind of player to a perennial AS. I want Dame back as much as anyone, but there has to be a clear message of “we appreciate what you’ve done for us, we have what we think is a contender and we want you to come back and finish this story”, not “please come back and save us”. I’d be very interested in bringing him back for 2 yrs/$50m or something like that in ‘27-‘28 though. - PG: Scoot will just have started his extension - SG: Shae would be in year 2 of his extension and I think around DBook’s age when CP3 got traded there - Our ‘25 draft pick would be in year 3 - Forward: Avdija will be in the last year of his deal. But honestly, I’m hoping he would’ve been traded in a package for an “all in” kind of move” - C: Clingan will be in year 4 - Forward: Camara will be extended That’s six guys I can project to be here by the time Dame would be affordable to me. I’m not putting Rupert or Murray in the list, while either could still be here, they also could be dealt in an upgrade. I’m sure there will also be a draft pick between now and then that we can also add to this core. This is the time bringing Dame back would make sense in my mind. Anytime before then wouldn’t make sense.
Wild Idea: Dame and Giannis don’t get it done in Milwaukie while we build around a core of Scoot, Shae, our draft this year, and Clingan. Dame and Giannis decide to run it back on their goal in Portland and we won’t have to give up any of those guys. I get Giannis will be 34 by then, but it doesn’t really matter, he is another big ball handler that would guarantee at least 4 ball handlers on the court playing at the PF position next to DoBro. Whether it’s Camara and a couple depth pieces + their ‘30 pick back or a sign-and-trade for Avdija + their ‘30 pick back and 2nds, I think we will have the assets to trade for a 34yo Giannis.
I think all of the guys you mentioned besides Deandre are all still too green and/or redundant (Ant) to help Dame win games in the regular season let alone the playoffs. The Bucks will have a much better record than us. They will make the playoffs and we won't. I don't know if they have a good enough supporting cast, even if healthy, to get Dame a ring but they're a lot closer than our roster would be.
He's worth most to the Warriors. If drafted by a non-Stotts team, would Lillard have always been the player he is now?
