Okay. Why?
Here's where I disagree: no player is a franchise (except maybe Michael Jordan for the Bulls - but even then they've had the Thibs-Rose years since).
Here's where I SORT of agree: it would be pretty much a first to trade a franchise player who wasn't asking to be traded. Players like Drexler, Barkley, Kawhi, Anthony Davis et. al. had all asked to be traded. Maybe DeRozan is an example, but even then, he was traded for a better player.
Now, I'm pretty sure that if you found out we could trade Dame for Giannis or Doncic or someone like that you wouldn't say that it "ruined the franchise," even if you still disapproved because of Dame's all-round-great-dude-ness.
Because none of those players indeared themselves to the city and franchise like Damian did. He was willing to sign extensions immediately, whereas I think every player you mentioned above, wasn't.
This isn't a franchise that will ever attract a player similar to Damian via FA. They absolutely lucked into Damian via the draft.
Players like Davis, Kawhi, Harden, Westbrook, KD, Zion, etc, would never ever demand to be traded to Portland, or sign with the Blazers via FA. Players like Damian are "best to ever play for your franchise" type players (DeRozan isn't btw). Players like Damian are "HOF" players who don't exactly grow on trees, nor has Portland had a ton of them (you could count *3* hall of famers who had their best years in Portland).
This isn't a case of a player who was traded to Portland and played there for a while and wanted out. This isn't even a case of a 2nd tier player (like CJ) playing in Portland wanting out or getting traded.
Damian is arguably the best player to ever play for the Blazers.
Damian also makes an insane amount of money and is going into his 10th year and has 4 years and almost 200 million left on his contract (!). The chance of them trading for a player of his caliber is really small and I'm not so sure that they'd be able to get as many picks for him as the Thunder or Rockets got for Westbrook and Harden (both times Westbrook was traded).
Both Harden and Westbrook's contracts are over well before Damians too, which makes his contract harder to swallow for other teams, and thus, they'll probably not be as excited about trading away multiple picks.
so like I said, it would ruin this franchise. They'd be trading away the one player that has showed them insane loyalty, has connected with the city and the state stronger than *any* player before him, and probably any player after him. As I said earlier, this is a franchise that hasn't exactly been full of superstars playing for them, will to play for them, and wanting to play for them.
It's not like when they traded Drexler, because Drexler was clearly on the downside of his career and he never showed that he was loyal to the city, or team (not even taking into account the contract issues the team had with him).
