I call what Portland is doing now a result of the absolute necessary dismantling of the team that was locked into the dead-end purgatory of where Portland was when CJ was around. That's not all on CJ of course, and the blame that is resting on CJ is really resting on Olshey and his massive overrating of CJ. Those Dame/CJ teams were going nowhere. They were on the boring treadmill of 1st round exits and poor 1st round draft picks. Worse is that the Blazers didn't even get the long-shot benefit of poor first round picks because Olshey was busy wasting them or trading them away for more treadmill players
making the playoffs with the realistic hope of advancing is worthy. Making the playoffs with the near certainty of losing in the first round is not
you're pining away for CJ. How did Portland get CJ? It was with a top-10 draft pick. They got Dame with a 6th pick; Aldridge and Roy with top-6 picks. When Blazers drop out of the top-10 they might draft a player like Meyers Leonard or Zach Collins; two more treadmill players. They drop out of the lottery and it might be players like Luke Babbitt or Eliot Williams
I am absolutely convinced that if Portland ends up with a top-6 pick this year it's a much better outcome than losing in the play-in and adding a 14th pick; or losing in the first round and adding a 19th pick. The last time Portland was in the playoffs they were healthy; and they had CJ, Powell, RoCo (the 3 players guys like you keep pining away for) as well as Nurkic, Kanter, Ant, Melo. And the Blazers got curb-stomped by Denver. Dame averaged 34 & 10 on super efficiency, but his treadmill teammates couldn't give him any playoff help and they lost to the much younger Nuggets. Really bad sign
I enjoyed the run to the WCF that one year. But I wasn't fooled about what it meant. Portland played 9 playoff series in the Dame/CJ era. They had the fluke win against the Clippers because Blake Griffin and CP3 got hurt; set that aside with a giant asterisk. And they had the wins against OKC & Denver when the Blazers went 8-4. But in the other 6 playoff series, the Blazers were 5-24. That's a .172 winning percentage. Those 6 series defined the Blazers a lot more than a rather fluke run to the WCF. You may miss that kind of end to the season. I sure as hell don't