Fuck this! Cronin needs to exchange the win now guys for young prospects and future draft assets. Then we need to play all of our young prospects the entire fucking season and let them do everything they can to win. If they end up close to the play-in that bodes very very well for where we'll be in a few years but most likely they will lose almost all of their games to begin the season and get more wins down the stretch but still end up in a solid lotto position. No need to sit the best players. No need to play guys out of position at the end of games to insure a loss. Just let the chips fall where they may after almost guaranteeing that the team will lose a lot but in those losses get valuable experience for guys who will win in the future.
If you think the vets dominate the ball too much....whose fault is that? It is pretty easy to sit a player if he is not doing what the coach is asking.
Id like to see Sharpe’s minutes scaled back a bit. They kind of ride him hard last year. I think next year will be really telling whether he has that dawg in him. I’m hoping Sharpe and Scoot are spending their offseason working out together, gelling and hopefully becoming besties. If they can develop a camaraderie and become hungry together our team can become good quick. They both seem like basketball geeks which is what you look for in a young prospect.
Personally I think the easiest fix is to trade win now players to win now teams for win later assets (draft capital/prospects). It's not only the easy fix to the problem you mentioned but just the sensible thing to do in our position. I don't think it is easy to tell two guys that you've labeled as the best players on your team and who probably still are, to sacrifice their game, during the game, in order to allow their eventual replacements to gain experience. I don't think it's easy on team morale to sit those guys and expect them to be as good for the team as they were when you were letting them do what they do best. Luckily again today at Clingan's presser Shaedon and Scoot were mentioned but Jermai and Ant were not, this time by Chauncey. Ayton was also mentioned and I think that means that we want to keep him starting and even try out lineups with him and Clingan. I feel like the writing is on the wall that Jerami and Ant will not suit up for us again but we'll have to wait and find out.
If you have vets that aren't producing they will lose value. Our vets have showed well. All I'm saying is let's turn that value into picks and Young players like we did with Brogdon. We're not going to get a better coach until we have a team that can compete. Or at least has the young players that could reasonably expect to be competitive in the future. Maybe one of those guys is already on our staff.
Yeah, I'm fine with Camara or Avdija getting the rest of Sharpe's minutes. We don't need Ant, Grant, or Brogdon (as an example) getting them. Those guys have value. Convert that value into youth.
I honestly don't think we CAN tank. We have 3 very good guards. We have 3 very good forwards (yes, I count Camara), and we have 2 very good centers. Also, if 2 of the guards are both injured, Deni can move down. If 2 forwards are injured, Sharpe can move up. I think the biggest priority is to move off of Thybulle's contract. If we do that, we are in full mle territory.
counting Clingan and Banton, do you have a handle on what Portland's payroll is? It knd of lookisk like they are 5-7M below the tax line
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/portland-trail-blazers/tax Currently $11M not including Clingan. With Clingan it will be approximately $4m
I just want to make sure I'm getting this straight. Are you saying that this roster is an MLE level player away from trying to win in the playoffs???
I agree with this except replace good with ‘talented’. It’ll be pretty messy most of the time and after trades they’ll be back in flagg territory.
It’s way early but it seems like some are getting ready for season win predictions when we start seeing people throwing out 45-50 win type numbers. This might be a direct result of some thinking Brogdon was worth two unprotected firsts. Kind of seems like those things go hand in hand.
3-5 they should have decent play, whether they suck or not depends on health and how the youngins are coming along. You don't win with subpar play from the backcourt STOMP
This is a wildly optimistic view on this roster. I wonder how you can reconcile the team's losing against other teams while thinking we have such a stacked roster.
Ahhh. Injury Riddled. So it’s okay to predict 40 wins and then walk it back because of injuries. Wait? We weren’t allowed to use the injury excuse when Stotts was the coach and they were actually trying to win. Here Chauncey has a whole new Tank/Fake injury Cooper Flag excuse. Two seasons ago it was Wemby. I guess last year was just practice for next year. Yes I’m just messing with you…
