Trail Blazer fans are none too happy with the results of Thursday’s trade deadline. A trip through Twitter will reveal a mouthful of tweets that Kevin Calabro won’t be reading anytime soon during a game broadcast. (In fact, asking a Hall of Fame broadcaster to read tweets during a game seems to me something akin to hiring Ving Rhames to do voiceovers for Arby’s commercials. Oh well.)
But back to the issue at hand, I’m afraid this is an issue that’s been going on for several seasons now. And frankly, to expect anything else is probably pointless. For about a decade, Portland has been searching for a sidekick for Damian Lillard. You know the refrain – “Dame needs help. We have to surround him with better players.”
That’s true, of course. Michael Jordan didn’t get that first ring until Scottie Pippen showed up and LeBron James has served as his own personal player personnel director for years in order to find the right fit alongside himself – sometimes with great success and sometimes the Los Angeles Lakers. It hasn’t happened here to this point, but not for lack of trying. All sorts of drafts, deals and even free agents have failed in that role.
The fact is, for you to acquire that player in the draft, a team must either stink enough to get a top draft choice or get lucky or smart enough to stumble onto a great player later in the draft. Denver and Milwaukee can tell you all about that. Or, of course, you can sign a free agent – which hasn’t been much of an option for the Trail Blazers. It rains a lot here, the state taxes are high and really, nobody has ever found the right sales pitch.
Phoenix has the luxury of throwing away draft picks in trades because it is a free-agent destination that features beautiful weather to go with its beautiful people and tax rates monitored by people even richer than hoopers.
And by now, we know that the Blazers need to do more than just play around the edges of acquiring players. Journeymen and specialists need not apply -- this is a job for another all-star. And it leads me to wondering how long the search will continue. The clock is running out on Dame Time.
At that point, everyone is going to have to come to grips with the idea that it just isn’t going to work here. Unless they get extremely lucky in the draft, there will be no championship as the team is now constructed – maybe even no playoffs.
And, it’s going to turn out that he’s going to be making a lot of money soon and may not be as tradeable as he is right now. And it would be better for the team – and Damian Lillard – to trade him while he still has value. And still has the skills to help a team win the championship he so dearly desires. That would certainly be the end of an era here but make no mistake, it would be the beginning of a new one.
A trade package would bring premium draft picks – not second-rounders that this franchise has always just bought when it needed them. Multiple good picks. And at least one good player to go with what is already on hand, which appears to be the start of an outstanding young core.
I know, that’s so hard for fans to swallow. But it’s the right and smart thing to do. You cannot allow this team’s biggest asset to sit on the shelf so long nobody wants to own it.
Around the league, people call the Blazers, “Wizards West,” comparing the franchise to Washington, which has held onto Bradley Beal long past his optimum value. While not ever rising above mediocrity.
Lillard is on his way to perhaps his best season. This summer will be the time to let him go It’s the right thing to do. For the team and the player.
---