What’s Going On With The Blazers This Offseason? | Danny & Dusty

What’s Going On With The Blazers This Offseason? | Danny & Dusty

DeAndre Aton is now a Laker. Two-year $16 million deal. Blazers are going to foot the bill for $25 million. He’s gonna make 33 mil this year. That’s not bad for old uh DeAndre Aiden.
No, he basically is going to get back everything that he got. He’s going to lose ever so slightly a bit.
And that like I I think the confusing part still for me is all right, the Blazers opened up $10 million of cap room. They got the full MLE. No, they haven’t done anything yet.
No, I mean nothing. No. And it’s what’s kind of weird is not just the Blazers. Basically, since that transaction and Dame being bought out, the league has come to a screeching halt. Like there’s been almost no transactions done in the past 56 60 hours.
And this is where we we talked about except for Clint Capella and DeAndre Aiden. Um, but this is where you and I said this on Monday. If there is not a move that coincides with this, it does not make sense.
No, it makes some sense in the sense of their books. If you only look at from from from that standpoint,
but for this year because he was coming off the books at the end of the year anyways.
But but if they moved him, they were only going to do it for expirings and so it was just they couldn’t find that and so they didn’t go that path.
But you still have a log jam at center and you got rid of the guy who’s been the best one.
No, no, I get it. And like that one that just if if you are saying we are trying to improve and get better and compete that doesn’t make sense. And so this doesn’t make sense to sit here and say all right we bought out DeAndre Aton but we didn’t have a plan in place to use the money that we’re freeing up. It does in a sense of if you’re talking about you’re wanting your style, your sense, your identity. And again, this is not me like saying, “Oh, DA was perfect or anything like that.” There were times in short stretches where DA was very good and very bought in, but the problem was when he wasn’t, man, it it was bad. And they because of his status, because of his stature, because he’s a number one overall pick, because he’s making $34 million a year. It took a while for remember Chanty benching him two minutes into the second half of the game.
Yep. um for them to be able to like you know snap the leash a little bit and you know DA bounced back from that a little bit had a really nice run before he pulls the calf gets the calf strain. Yep.
And then he shut down. But I think if you’re looking at it from a, hey, you know what? If he’s not on the roster and we have the bodies to be able to do this and it fits more of our identity, it makes more sense for us than to trade him away for other expiring contracts that are going to keep us from making other additional moves this year or compromise the books going forward. And again, I’m not saying that’s the best course of action, but I that’s been the the general explanation to me is that that is in the books thing. That’s not new. I’ve been talking about that for a couple months that they they have prioritized the books going forward now is that you know people like oh it’s because of the sale. That stuff doesn’t matter for the sale. It doesn’t. Your books being great, awful, bad, no matter like we just saw the the uh the Aden’s buy the Mavericks with a superstar in place and green lit trading that superstar. Like the books don’t matter. It they just they just don’t. the for the sale of the team it it really doesn’t matter especi so far by the time new ownership comes in he’s gone anyways so that one doesn’t that one is a non-factor and they brought in Drew Holiday
whose books whose contract does extend out further so it’s like if you’re going to take that argument then explain Drew Holiday but here is where here’s where the biggest concern is it seems like right now with the Portland Trailblazers we went through this with Neil O’Shea, you overvalue guys so much and you just hold on to them and say we want more, more, more, more, more. Obviously, the return for I thought I still do believe the Drew Holiday trade was a fair trade.
It was a fair trade for Anthony Simons, but they tested the market with DeAndre Aton. No buyers.
No buyers for what you were looking for. That’s it. That’s the key.
Okay. So, you buy him out in 25 million. Now, if you do that with a plan in place, that makes a ton of sense because you’re opening up $10 million that you didn’t have previously.
Yep. I It feels like they’re running into the same problem with Jeremy Grant’s contract and trying to unload Jeremy Grant
because we know that that one is, if you’re talking about clean up the books, that’s the one that cleans up the books, not DeAndre Aton.
No, because he’s
This one will clean up the books. And what is that market looking like? And are teams gunshy? Because you mentioned this, we haven’t seen moves across the board because teams are up against the cap right now. It doesn’t look like I mean, as of right now, you would think that they would have some action on Jeremy Grant, but there’s not. And that is where the overvaluing of guys and not being able to cross the finish line on a deal comes in.
Well, it’s the 3rd of July.
Yep. The new league year does not start until July July 6th. at which point in time we’ll have a better understanding of where the books are going to be and where people are going to be and kind of how whoever misses out on who what and or when teams look at their transactions so far and go okay what else I’ve been at summer league uh what nine 10 times there’s multiple trades at summer league every year that happens because everybody’s in the building everybody’s talking all the GMs all the execs are all there you can well not as much now but back in the day they would literally just cidle up to each other in the stands and deals would done right there during games. I’m not saying the Blazers doing that. That will very likely happen again this year. Now, it didn’t happen two years ago after Dame requested a trade because everybody was waiting on the Dame trade before anything else would happen and then ended up going for three months.
Yeah, it was a problem.
Well, people are waiting for Giannis right now, too. People are waiting for Giannis. There’s a lot of smoke around LeBron. There’s still some out there about Jaylen Brown. Like, there’s there’s stuff that’s out there. I’m like, I don’t really believe it. If somebody believes it somewhere, they might be playing things closer to the vest. Right now, they have 13 players on the roster. I’d be pretty shocked if they went into the season with 13 players on the roster because they like 14 because it gives you the flexibility and you have the extra roster spot and you’ve got guys on your on your depth, all those kind of things, right? And that’s not counting any two ways. And so, if they if this is it, like if this is the team that they go into the season with, I have questions. I very real questions. They can’t shoot.
No shooters. They’re like, “Look, Drew Holidayiday is perfectly fine. Denny is perfectly fine. Jeremy, if he is on the team, is above average as a three-point shooter. Like, even though he couldn’t shoot twos last year, he still shot, I think, third almost 38% from three. They’re they’ve got okay medium volume three-point shooters. They don’t have a single high volume, high accuracy three-point shooter on their roster. Not one.
Not a one.
That is a problem. like they they might they might run into a worse version of the Orlando Magic offensively because of their just absolute lack of spacer.
Last year he was 36 and a half% from three.
Is that what he ended up finishing? So almost 37%. Yeah, that’s fine.
Yep.
Fine. And that was one of his worst years in probably the last five years, right?
Uh no. uh 35% in Denver
back-to-back years in Detroit and then no Denver 39% 39% in Oklahoma City.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean he’s been
he’s an above average three-point shooter. Yeah.
So um but I mean like
as it stands right now Jeremy might be your best three-point shooter legitimately.
Yeah. No. Yeah. on volume with consistency.
The numbers bearing out last year as a team that was the best.
Yeah,
he and Denny, I think,
and look, I I have faith in Denny. Like when they traded for Denny, I was like, look, there’s there’s certainly some indicators there from his corner three-point percentage going way up, but the volume was a little bit. It’s like, eh, but his above the brake stuff was great.
Hot dang.
But yeah, no, the shooting is a like a drastic drastic thing. And look, you can I I’ I’ve been plenty hard on Scoot with a lot of things. I’m fine with scoot shooting, but Shaden is a non-starter as a shooter from three right now.
He’s bad.
Bad. Not not like ah I could kind of see it. He’s bad. He’s a 31 and a half or 32% career three-point shooter.
That’s just that’s not you you can’t do that.
Yeah, because the guys are just going to play under and around everything and go, “Go ahead, dude.” So, he has to make a massive leap for teams that care about that. So, yeah, going into the season, I have very, very, very, very real questions about
And they don’t need just one. You can’t just add one. Look, you could add one to the roster if you add a god tier movement shooter.
Yeah.
You add one of those. Okay. And I’m not talking like a uh you know a Luke Canard or something like that and and another quiet like if you had peak Kyle Corver. Okay. You like you’re adding a guy that could just let it fly going left, going right, pull up just I mean just a diet in the wool top 15 three-point shooter the game’s ever seen. You had that guy. Okay, maybe you can talk me into that because you can you’ve got defenders lineup versatility and stuff that you could work around that. But they need a lot of shooting help.
Yeah, a lot.

Each move that Portland Trail Blazers made offseason make sense in a vacuum, but collectively it still seems off. Is there something else in the works?

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