Let’s hope we know a little sooner. Two seasons more, with him starting and getting good minutes and of course staying healthy. After two seasons (more) I think we will have a pretty good idea if Scoot is the answer at point. I see some Terry Porter in his game - but Scoot has to learn to shoot more consistently from the outside. I like how he and Ayton were playing together (pick and roll) as the season was around 3/4 of the way done last season.
I think Scoot and Shae can show their potential without winning games but more so by playing winning basketball. There are a ton of players like Joker, Giannis, Steph and KD who all started out on losing teams for multiple seasons before working towards the playoffs and then being contenders.
Agree. But don’t forget that Portland does not attract free agent signings. Trades and the draft are the primary tools for building a Blazers roster.
one player is hardly a "team" ...takes 8-9 rotation players to contend at least. Grant is definitely talented enough to play for a contending team. The key is having a bench that can hold or build a lead...very few single players can carry a team on their own....Dame didn't win a title that way
A playoff contending team around:
I'd love to see the Blazers radically improve. I just watched a season of Vancouver Grizzlies basketball. The only vet that didn't quit was Ayton.
Grant being resigned was announced just prior to Dame demanding a trade in what seemed an effort to appease him. Had Lillard demanded a trade before that announcement, I would hope that Joe would have accepted the obvious short term low ceiling of the team and gone another direction.
This has been refuted - Blazers knew full well Dame was not committed and was not happy with their draft, and very likely to demand a trade. Now whether the Blazers gave Grant the contract from a prior promise or because they just considered it a good value is unclear.
Tons of stuff is said behind closed doors that never happens. Going public with trade demands is entirely different
The Blazers can recoup value on Grant by signing him, and I'm sure they were obligated to take care of him to get him to leverage his way to Portland. It only makes sense. I don't fault Cronin for that at all. I just hope we move Grant for draft capital or quality youth soon. It's hard to watch him with this team and this coach.
You're right, Cronin can never do anything, and expecting anything is unfair to him.
The fully intellectual answer is that "we kept bringing in his guys" as if we did a good job of building around him?
Yes you need other players, but the problem is we don't have that star, and it'll take time to get that star because we'll have to draft/develop them. Grants value on the open market should theoretically be greater now than his value to us in the future when we finally have enough in place to make a push. And when he can be flipped for assets that make more sense on a younger timeline, then thats what makes sense to me.
Good point about the timing, but my point is that the team has not been tanking, and that they re-signed Grant is evidence of that. Even if they decided to start tanking the day after signing Grant to a new deal, that's 11 months ago, so those who are tired of tanking already don't really know what tanking is
We'll see what we can get for him.
I don't think most GMs aren't that stupid. They know when a player is being held out for "end of season tank purposes". The only surgery I saw in recent memory is to repair ligaments in his thumb. I really don't think "injury prone" will be factor in their minds.
He hasn't just been held out at the end of seasons. He had multiple mid-season stretches where he missed three or more games in 2021, missed a big chunk of the middle of his last year with Detroit, and missed multiple games in a row a few times the last two years, too.
If we are we're headed for the exit in the first round every season. That team is never ever contending.
And then Mitchell leaves in a year and then we're screwed. No thanks.