stashing assets for the 2023 nba offseason

he should just be like listen i was wrong being on a super team is sick actually and also be wearing a hawaiian shirt while saying it and drinking a tropical cocktail

it's not like he's pushing to join the nuggets, or even like the lakers or clippers which have major headline star power. if he wins the title or even makes the finals he'll prob be the main offensive driver of whatever team he's on & no one will end up caring what he said years ago

whether the blazers should just trade him to wherever they want is a different discussion

A trade requires a willing partner on the opposite side. Dame's agent, on his behalf and probably with dame's blessing, is actively trying to discourage every team but Miami from pursuing him, so "wherever the blazers want" is chosen from a pool of one team, like a Bingo drawing where every ball is marked B-1. It's quite a heel turn from Damian Lillard, the Perfect Team Player.

if he wins the title or even makes the finals he'll prob be the main offensive driver of whatever team he's on & no one will end up caring what he said years ago

― J0rdan S., Thursday, July 6, 2023 12:08 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

uhh tell that to KD

yeah this isnt going away lol, unless he goes to pelicans

if dame really wants to be the peoples champ he needs to let me convince him to go to pelicans

uhh tell that to KD

― nobody respects the chair (Spottie), Thursday, July 6, 2023 3:11 PM (eight minutes ago)

you may have read the part where i said "unless you're KD"

on wait i deleted that part lol. KD is a diff case, dame isn't trying to get himself to the nuggets

before the books all adjusted their lines due to the possibility of a trade the heat were +1000 odds to win the east, which was the same as the knicks & behind the cavs and sixers. if they don't make a trade nobody will pick them to even get out of round 2. so the idea that dame is "ring chasing" by going there doesn't line up w/ what people seem to think about their team

if dame makes to miami hes gonna get some major blowback, the medias gonna go nuts with it the fans will be posting and so forth, on some level who cares it doesnt really matter, but on the other hand it is what it is

tho itll prob only really be remembered if the heat win a chip

outside of portland that is obvs portland will remember

its funny bc miami is not a "big market" but it IS the cocaine and bbl place which is kind of a market magnifier and plus rat piley just looks like a gangster which is also v big market plus you add the shaq years and the heatles and you're like whoa when did miami-dade county get 12.4 million ppl so yeah dame asking to go there is v suspicious

outside of LA miami is the place nba players like most seems like

was dame supposed to say "yeah i might not want to be here in a few years, so thanks for this extra $125 million but i can't in good conscience accept this contract extension" ... the blazers put themselves in this place by throwing money at dame when they didn't need to -- dame's response to that was completely rational (accepting the hundred million dollars). that he now is trying to dictate where he goes next... yeah i'd be doing the same thing too.

players take less money in exchange for more flexibility all the time. dame taking the money and then trying to force his way out after free agency already started is ‘rational’ and will probably be successful but it doesn’t make him a good guy and it doesn’t make the situation the blazers’ ‘fault’

well we know from the heatles experience that something about miami pushes ppl's buttons specifically, like the city doesn't deserve good players bcuz the rich ppl who have the seats you see on TV all amble into games 30 mins late

i think its both sides fault they were in a dysfunctional relationship and everyone saw it but them, they needed basketball therapy

the thing is, miami needs dame for a very specific reason, which is to push them over the top offensively vs the best teams. if they actually win the title, dame's skillset in particular will be an obvious driver in that, he's not going to be an incidental addition. ppl know how the finals just went w/ jimmy in that role. so it will be very obvious how dame put the team over the top. it's entirely likely if they won the title that he would win finals MVP. the fact that the heat have a team that has gotten extremely close to the title w/o winning makes the "ring chasing" thing pretty funny... it's really the heat who are ring chasing. they don't think they can win it w/o dame

they cant, but i dont think they can win with him either

4 me the best part of this is dame being like "yall are running from the grind" to paul george et al and then when the grind got TOO grindy (playing with children) he was like "im not running from the grind (i am powerwalking) but if u do not send me to miami i will be sad :("

its shakespearean (nb: i have not read shakespeare's plays centered around the nba yet)

It would be Coriolanus ftr.

players take less money in exchange for more flexibility all the time. dame taking the money and then trying to force his way out after free agency already started is ‘rational’ and will probably be successful but it doesn’t make him a good guy and it doesn’t make the situation the blazers’ ‘fault’

― mookieproof, Thursday, July 6, 2023 3:32 PM (five minutes ago)

no, it's absolutely the blazers fault. they kept offering dame extensions when he was years out from free agency. dame wasn't offering himself any contracts. and actually, NBA players stopped taking less money for more flexibility years ago when the owners arranged the league so that they could offer their own players mega extensions years before any other team was allowed to negotiate with them. the entire concept of taking less money for more flexibility was based on the fact that the difference between offers from team x and team y weren't very different. but the owners wrote the CBA specifically to kill off the incentive to take less w/ your own team to preserve your flexibility. because, it turns out, owners don't like when players have flexibility. all guys like KD, beal, dame etc are doing is accepting money being offered to them & then continuing to exercise their power as star players. it is the fault of the owners plain & simple, and specifically in this situation the blazers for throwing money at dame when everyone was like "you don't need to be doing this and in fact it seems like a really bad idea"

yea I think the KD situation is totally different, Dame + Jimmy + Bam doesn't really feel like a superteam to me in the sense of what the Nets or Clippers or Mavs are trying to do, it's a fit that makes a ton of sense and only feels like "ring chasing" because Miami somehow made the finals as an 8 seed this year. like it wouldn't look so bad if they'd gotten waxed by the Bucks like they should've been

btw james harden turned down a max extension from the nets in order to preserve his flexibility as someone who didn't want to play with kyrie irving, then reduced his salary so the sixers could sign better free agents, and is now getting screwed on the back end. nobody is throwing harden any parades or hailing him as hero. so the incentive for dame to have taken one from the team is what exactly

staying on the grind

all about the grindset baby

on wait i deleted that part lol. KD is a diff case, dame isn't trying to get himself to the nuggets

― J0rdan S., Thursday, July 6, 2023 12:21 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

hes trying to get to the team that lost in the finals... just like KD (i realize its not the exact same but its really not that far off either)

the harden taking less money thing was funny cos really all he did was sign for basically his actual market value.

one thing with kd is people could really sense the weakness, thats a lot of what kept the narrative going so to speak

like the decision def hurt brons rep permanently but also he just carried on with his life rather than being weird and butthurt so its not a big deal at this point just another line in the bio

sort of cleansed the sins a la jesus christ the way he came back to the cleve (earth) and won a chip (gained eternal life)

teams looking to squeeze miami now

The Thunder and Nets are interested in acquiring Caleb Martin, per @EthanJSkolnick. pic.twitter.com/ERIfc2zgZY

— Ball Don’t Lie (@Balldontlie) July 6, 2023

yeah like i said yesterday i think the parameters of this deal are agreed on, the blazers telling woj that they're canvassing the league is kayfabe & all sides are just trying to squeeze the heat & the heat are taking the position of, he's ending up here so we have the leverage

i dont see what the rush is for portland, hes under contract for 4 years and they are tanking

yea if he hadn't gone back to Cleveland I think people would look at him a lot differently. also the fact that he was compared to MJ constantly gave my generation a constant need to dislike or doubt him, and The Decision gave us a reason

if u think abt when jordan retired the first time he was running from the grind, then when he came back he was ring-chasing

no one really has any rings

one thing with kd is people could really sense the weakness, thats a lot of what kept the narrative going so to speak

― lag∞n, Thursday, July 6, 2023 12:59 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah the burner account didnt help either. the timing was also peak twitter clowning (warriors blown 3-1 lead)

i dont see what the rush is for portland, hes under contract for 4 years and they are tanking

― slai gorgeous-alexander (m bison), Thursday, July 6, 2023 4:08 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah waiting it out is the obvs best move for them

we're getting into major revisionist history territory here about KD. let's remember some major events that immediately precipitated him joining the warriors

1. the warriors set the record for most wins in NBA history
2. the warriors directly beat KD's team in the playoffs in a series where KD's team was up 3-2
3. the warriors blow a 3-1 lead in the most embarrassing finals loss of a generation
4. the cap spikes for one season allowing leaguewide player movement that everyone understands going in is a one-time only anomaly

the idea that two sides (warriors and KD) that just suffered hugely damaging losses were able to use a fluke offseason to team up and vanquish their demons w/o having to actually overcome them in a genuine way is what irked, and still irks people, about that team. KD is never living it down bcuz of those specific variables. for several reasons it's a situation that will never be repeated. if dame goes to miami it bares only the most surface level resemblance to KD and the warriors ("team that loses the finals acquires a star player").

the thunder were up 3-1 on the dubs fyi

i dont disagree with you at all i just dont think it will be seen as that different by the avg nba consumer if he ends up on the heat

also the warriors won before and after kd so that hurts his legacy even more. plus draymond literally telling him to his face they didnt need him lol.

that was so rude draymond is mean

the kd sitch was special in a lot of ways but that doesnt mean dame isnt gonna get tagged if he forces his way to miami

idk the KD siutation was probably one of the most ridiculous things to happen in the NBA, big difference between a team that set an all-time win record and one that made the Finals through a series of fluke shooting performances and insane clutch time runs. plus there's the fact that the Dubs also exploited a loophole for Curry, the whole thing was so unfair and lame

i think what dame is giving up is his reputation as a great player who didn't win anything but was on a team that typically doesn't win anything and so we were recognizing his greatness without penalizing him for only making it to the conference finals once. which was a nice, low pressure place for him to be. now that he is setting the expectation of winning a title, there will be blowback if he isn't able to do that. he's putting himself out there.

but i think if he actually does win it all it will be all fair in love and war

the biggest problem is he shoulda done this 3-4 seasons ago

the warriors thing was a total blip but the basketball gods got their retribution in 2019