Event 2025 NBA DRAFT LOTTERY, COMBINE, AND DRAFT (1 Viewer)

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I agree. Which is why I said I would love to have any of the top players. They should all be will be very good. But for many on this board, tanking seems to be the only way to get lucky and land that rare superstar who can lead us to an NBA championship. I think some of these guys have a chance, but Flagg does not seem to be the type of dominant player who can take over a playoff series. He does seem to be an excellent piece though. But not getting him is not as bad as losing out on Wemby IMO.
Well yeah, Wemby might have gone #1 over any prospect in the last 30+ years so thats a pretty high bar. I see Flagg as the ultimate team glue guy doing all the little things that lead to winning games/series with excellent BBall IQ combined with better then average skills, size & athleticism. Pretty sure he'd have gone #1 in a whole lot of past drafts

STOMP
 
Nothing is guaranteed in life, but baring injury I'll be surprised if Cooper doesn't make some All NBA teams. He isn't the flashiest or a tip top option as the clock is winding down but he's pretty good at those things too and brings so many winning basketball traits to the table. I see him potentially as the Tim Duncan of small forwards.
That analogy occurred to me as well.
Suppose we get lucky and draft Cooper, though. Here's our projected "maximum potential" lineup at present:
Clingan
Camara
Avdija
Sharpe
Scoot

Who sits for Cooper? Better not be Toumani, is all I'm saying. And does Cooper patch over our current deficiencies or add to what we're already pretty good at?
 
That analogy occurred to me as well.
Suppose we get lucky and draft Cooper, though. Here's our projected "maximum potential" lineup at present:
Clingan
Camara
Avdija
Sharpe
Scoot

Who sits for Cooper? Better not be Toumani, is all I'm saying. And does Cooper patch over our current deficiencies or add to what we're already pretty good at?

That would be a pretty good 3-man rotation at forward. Yes, we would have to put up with the constant posts about who is starting and who is not, but regardless if it was either
Ace or Cooper, you can make it work just fine. Plus Deni can always get "some" minutes in the backcourt.
 
That analogy occurred to me as well.
Suppose we get lucky and draft Cooper, though. Here's our projected "maximum potential" lineup at present:
Clingan
Camara
Avdija
Sharpe
Scoot

Who sits for Cooper? Better not be Toumani, is all I'm saying. And does Cooper patch over our current deficiencies or add to what we're already pretty good at?
Avdija slides to SG (he has the skillset for it), Sharpe moves to the bench. And yes, adding Cooper improves our current deficiencies. That would be a lineup with 5 plus defenders, and 4 average-or-better offensive players. I'd be shocked if that team wasn't a contender by 26-27.

Though I'm sure people would complain about the lack of 3-point shooting. Just turn Clingan into Meyers and we're all good...
 
That analogy occurred to me as well.
Suppose we get lucky and draft Cooper, though. Here's our projected "maximum potential" lineup at present:
Clingan
Camara
Avdija
Sharpe
Scoot

Who sits for Cooper? Better not be Toumani, is all I'm saying. And does Cooper patch over our current deficiencies or add to what we're already pretty good at?
If Portland lucks into the #1 pick, my guess is regardless of who starts that Clingan would receive the fewest minutes. A frontline of Deni Camera & Cooper would be a nightmare for teams to try to match up against. I do not think Toumani would be the guy off the bench as he's the team's top on ball defender who you'd want as the primary cover on the other teams lead guard/wing from the get go

STOMP
 
Who sits for Cooper? Better not be Toumani, is all I'm saying. And does Cooper patch over our current deficiencies or add to what we're already pretty good at?

Cooper addresses shooting, rebounding, playmaking at the 4, defense, and reliable scoring. Short term, Sharpe comes off the bench. Long term, Deni comes off the bench.

Toumani is a specialist defensive role player but his limitations on offense will probably relegate him into a role similar to Trevor Ariza where he'll start on a contender but sort of take a backseat in the playoffs as he compliments various rotations and targets the opposing star player.

By that, the kicker is that you don't win championships with a Toumani Camara as your primary 3 or 4 unless he adds another facet to his game like playmaking or all time rebounding.

Anyone who says, otherwise, hasn't actually watched winning basketball for the last 17 years. Since 2008, the 3 and 4 both requires a player who can score 17ppg at some point in their career, within recent memory (the exception being a defender with all-around skills like Draymond). Whether that's Pierce-KG, Gasol-Odom, Lebron-Bosh/Love/Kuzma, Kawhi-Siakam/Duncan, MPJ-Gordon, Middleton-Giannis, or Wiggins/Barnes/KD-Draymond. Even in the 80s and 90s, that was kinda Bird-McHale/Maxwell, Pippen-Grant/Kukoc/Rodman, Bobby Jones-Dr J, Magic/Worthy/Thompson or McAdoo/Wilkes.

That'd be Flagg and Deni, in this case. Toumani would back up Sharpe-Deni-Flagg as they rotate in and out.

Either way, that'd be a good logjam to have and Flagg would make this current Portland squad into a 15 year contender
 
Supposedly Marang said something to the effect POR thinks they can get a star without the draft ie trading this years pick for a guy to go along with Ant Grant and Ayton.

I could see Joe doing something like this but POR has terrible trade assets in terms of picks. They really cannot trade multiple picks. So who could they get for the 2025 pick?

Our own MM was discussing the scenario as well. I think it’s time to put it on the table as a possibility. PHX needs a pick, so does PHI.

not a Cronin fan if you couldn’t tell
 
Cooper addresses shooting, rebounding, playmaking at the 4, defense, and reliable scoring. Short term, Sharpe comes off the bench. Long term, Deni comes off the bench.

Toumani is a specialist defensive role player but his limitations on offense will probably relegate him into a role similar to Trevor Ariza where he'll start on a contender but sort of take a backseat in the playoffs as he compliments various rotations and targets the opposing star player.

By that, the kicker is that you don't win championships with a Toumani Camara as your primary 3 or 4 unless he adds another facet to his game like playmaking or all time rebounding.

Anyone who says, otherwise, hasn't actually watched winning basketball for the last 17 years. Since 2008, the 3 and 4 both requires a player who can score 17ppg at some point in their career, within recent memory (the exception being a defender with all-around skills like Draymond). Whether that's Pierce-KG, Gasol-Odom, Lebron-Bosh/Love/Kuzma, Kawhi-Siakam/Duncan, MPJ-Gordon, Middleton-Giannis, or Wiggins/Barnes/KD-Draymond. Even in the 80s and 90s, that was kinda Bird-McHale/Maxwell, Pippen-Grant/Kukoc/Rodman, Bobby Jones-Dr J, Magic/Worthy/Thompson or McAdoo/Wilkes.

That'd be Flagg and Deni, in this case. Toumani would back up Sharpe-Deni-Flagg as they rotate in and out.

Either way, that'd be a good logjam to have and Flagg would make this current Portland squad into a 15 year contender

He would have. But blazer fans had to get excited about winning 10 games in an 11 game span, failing to understand how that fucked us for at least the next 4 years.

People are too myopic.
 
Supposedly Marang said something to the effect POR thinks they can get a star without the draft ie trading this years pick for a guy to go along with Ant Grant and Ayton.

I could see Joe doing something like this but POR has terrible trade assets in terms of picks. They really cannot trade multiple picks. So who could they get for the 2025 pick?

Our own MM was discussing the scenario as well. I think it’s time to put it on the table as a possibility. PHX needs a pick, so does PHI.

not a Cronin fan if you couldn’t tell

You should never listen to marang either. He's worthless in sports.
 
Getting Avdija and his contract for assets — but not an overpay at all … IMHO — as a result of months of setting it up to get it done last summer. Strong move. Something no one saw coming, apparently. [Same thing originally for Grant and then a too friggin’ long contract.] Getting the Dame trade done that defied media done-deal-expectations-with-Miami.

This is a long way of saying I wouldn’t put it past Cronin and Schmitz to make a long play that few expect. Trading this year’s lottery pick would be a shock. I’d love to hear that conversation.
 
The 2025 will convey to CHI if it’s 14and up. Certainly possible it goes to CHI the way this team is beating teams that decided to tank. I guess that is why I favored a hard tank in this good draft year. Only a few games separate POR from being out of the lotto all together.
 
The 2025 will convey to CHI if it’s 14and up. Certainly possible it goes to CHI the way this team is beating teams that decided to tank. I guess that is why I favored a hard tank in this good draft year. Only a few games separate POR from being out of the lotto all together.
The only way Chicago gets the pick is if we make the playoffs and if this team makes the playoffs I'll be happy about it. There are only two good outcomes now: make the playoffs (this ain't happening) or get obscenely lucky in the lotto not as long of a shot as the playoffs since the team with the 9th worst record has a better than 20% chance to move into the top 4.
 
They pretty much shit the bed this year. Too good to be bad, and too bad to be good. It’s basically the story of this franchise since before the Olshey era.

Not taking the opportunity to play our young guys because our GM didn’t construct the roster so the Conductor had no choice
 
Pretty cool how we’re going to be the 10th pick this year because Joe or Bert or whoever the fuck decided we needed Simons and Grant and Ayton to stay all season and play big minutes

 
Pretty cool how we’re going to be the 10th pick this year because Joe or Bert or whoever the fuck decided we needed Simons and Grant and Ayton to stay all season and play big minutes


Truer words never spoken.
 
I could see Portland going in the direction of Edgecomb if they aren't sure about Shae. He might have the highest ceiling.
I would support that choice
 
Would have to get into top 4 to select him.
Yes--the post to which you were replying was in response to one showing the Blazers taking Bailey at 3 if they jumped to that position. So it was more, "If the Blazers got the 3 pick, I could see them valuing Edgecombe over Bailey due to the uncertainty around Sharpe's will to improve."
 
He would have. But blazer fans had to get excited about winning 10 games in an 11 game span, failing to understand how that fucked us for at least the next 4 years.

People are too myopic.

I'd rather Portland have focused on Flagg, too, while developing Sharpe and Scoot.

On the flip side, Portland could trade down to OKC or the Spurs, depending on what pick they get. Could be a way to acquire either Demin or Essengue next to Rasheer Fleming, so as to test out future Grant replacements.

Then, trade for more picks using vets. Let Scoot, Sharpe, & Clingan develop during an actual rebuild and try to get Dybantsa next year. Deni and Toumani have obviously proven themselves that Portland isn't as far away as we might think. Must acquire draft capital that would be spent trying to acquire depth and another forward, heading into the future.
 
I'd rather Portland have focused on Flagg, too, while developing Sharpe and Scoot.

On the flip side, Portland could trade down to OKC or the Spurs, depending on what pick they get. Could be a way to acquire either Demin or Essengue next to Rasheer Fleming, so as to test out future Grant replacements.

Then, trade for more picks using vets. Let Scoot, Sharpe, & Clingan develop during an actual rebuild and try to get Dybantsa next year. Deni and Toumani have obviously proven themselves that Portland isn't as far away as we might think. Must acquire draft capital that would be spent trying to acquire depth and another forward, heading into the future.
I love the idea of us getting Flemming to be our small ball 5. He would be a great complement to Clingan.
 
I've decided that I'm going to throw my weight behind Ben Saraf (if we don't move up in the draft). I will not be taking questions at this time.
 

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