NBA 2019-20 thread.

Blazers do a salary dump, the local Pac-12 team has pretty much conceded a tourney berth - no hockey up this way for another couple of years.

Bring on the XFL.

 

The Blazers need to dynamite the operation but they won't. Today's deal was actually pretty good for them -- Bazemore for Ariza is a wash, the others are just warm bodies and they save money.

 

I think they announce a sale sometime this year. Seahawks too.

 

That Oubre for Ariza swap has worked out pretty well for the Suns, I have to say.

 

Blazers fucked up by not taking Durant 12 years ago.

They've been irrelevant for too long. NBA is better when Portland is strong.

 

Portland was in the Western Conference finals just last year. Sure, they got swept, but I wouldn't say they've been irrelevant.

 

OK, how about boring then.

 

Do you ever watch that team? With Lillard and McCollum, they're hardly boring. They knocked OKC out last year on a Lillard 35 footer at the buzzer.

 

Yes, they scrapped together a good 6-week playoff run for the first time since anyone remembers including a 35-footer at the buzzer to advance to the 2nd round. Yes, great for that. The bigger point being that since that Game 7 loss to the Lakers, the Blazers have been some run of the mill program for the last 20 years with a few blips of success in the playoffs.

Edit: in other words, this Lakers guy wants the Blazers to be strong again a la the Adelman years.

 

Here's the thing with Portland: they've got the highest payroll in the league and they're not going to make the playoff (and the 8 seed in the west is wide open). Even healthy this is not a competitive team. Going forward they've got more than half their payroll tied up in Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. Lillard never met a terrible shot he didn't like and McCollum is streaky as hell. They are not the core of a championship team. Even with a healthy Nurkic and Collins they are no threat.

Last year's playoff run was wonderful and inexplicable. From that team they've lost Al-Farouq Aminu and Mo Harkless, who were solid players and very good defensively. Rodney Hood's Achilles exploded. They added Hassan Whiteside, who they will be dumping before the break, and Carmelo, who has been a nice surprise but isn't helping their defensive liabilities.

They have two reasonable choice, I think:

1) Trade Whiteside to Cleveland for Kevin Love, who would be a tremendous fit offensively, and hope you can be a factor again. The downside: Love is old and fragile and bad defensively and has an enormous contract going forward.

2) Blow it up, see what you can get for your star players and start over.

My guess is they'll go with (3), keep Lillard and McCollum, keep shifting the small parts around them and act perplexed that it isn't working. There's absolutely no pressure to be good in Portland -- those fans are perfectly happy scribbling "Dame Time!!" on a piece of paper and waving it at a game when the Blazers lose by 30.

 

Yeah, most of us were saying from the beginning that the Suns won that deal.