You saved me having to write a similar post this morning. I’ve stayed pretty much off of the board since the series ended, partly to avoid posting something stupid while my emotions were still raw and mostly to avoid reading all of the vitriol by people overreacting to the sweep.
With a few deep breaths under my belt, I remain convinced that there was exactly one team in the league that could have pulled off shutting down Dame as effectively as he was in this series. We just had the misfortune of having to play the Pelicans. As good defensively as the Warriors were last year, Dame and CJ put up big numbers against them. The Rockets aren’t a threat to shut down our backcourt. So the largest part of how bad the Blazers looked is attributable to the unique skills of AD and Holiday. Do you make drastic changes because the Blazers drew them in the first round instead of beating OKC? Olshey is right to say that overreacting on the basis of that series and overlooking the positives of the season is not the way to go. The team needs some upgrades, but not necessarily dynamite.
The problem with the perennial tankers around here is that you can’t fight their imaginations. In their minds the rebuild will always result in getting a better coach and GM and every trade or draft pick will be a success. It’s like Paul Simon said in Kodachrome, “If you got all the girls I knew when I was single, and brought them all together for one night, they’d never match my sweet little imagination, and everything thing looks worse” if we don’t blow everything up an start over again.