DAMIAN LILLARD RETURNS TO PORTLAND!! | Blazer Fan Reaction

DAMIAN LILLARD RETURNS TO PORTLAND!! | Blazer Fan Reaction

Damen Lillard is a Portland Trailblazer once again. I cannot believe this, man. I I am on cloud9 right now. What’s going on? Welcome in to a live stream that I didn’t know if we were ever going to have. I didn’t know if we were ever going to seriously put Damen Lillard in a Blazer jersey in a thumbnail on this channel ever again. I cannot believe it. I cannot believe it. This is absolutely amazing. And I I am so excited for what’s next, man. I I’m still comprehending this. So, I’ll go into what this means and I’m I’m just going to share my excitement on the stream. We got the Blazers playing summer league in about uh what two and a half hours or so. We’ll probably be live until then. This is This is insane. I So, little backstory. I was in a work call. I was in a work call and I thought I was being trolled when I was told this news and then my phone started blowing up. I got a call from my guy Wardy who has called me the second anything has happened all off season for the Blazers. He always breaks the news to me. And then I get a call from the one and the only Eric Brandt. I had no idea what Eric Brandt said on that call. Sorry, Eric. But um I I’m just I’m just so stoked, so excited. I cannot believe both Drew Holiday and Damen Lillard are Portland Trailblazers after the debacle that was the 2023 offseason. But Damen Lillard is returning to the Portland Trailblazers on a three-year $42 million deal with the full mid-level exception. Joe Cronin actually used it and he used it in a way I never would have thought. I never would have thought. I did not think I don’t know. I had given up all hope that Dame was going to return to Portland. We did a stream a couple of weeks ago right after Dame was released by the Milwaukee Bucks so they could go all in on Miles Turner. And we had a live stream talking about the possibility of Dame returning. But it was more so the thought of, okay, you can sign him to a one-year deal. He’s going to be injured, but he can mentor guys on this team, and then if he wants to go ring chasing at the end of the year, then if he wants a buy out, the Blazers can buy him out. and it probably wouldn’t be a long-term thing, but just bring him back so he can rehab with the Blazers, mentor the young guys. That’s what I thought a potential Dame return to Portland would be. I did not think it would be a threeyear deal. $42 million. I mean, even if he returns at 50% of his old self, that’s still a bargain of a contract. And I just cannot believe he’s back, man. Dame Dame means so much to me. If you followed the channel, if you followed the channel the past five, six years, you guys know that I Dame’s my favorite athlete ever, my favorite Blazer ever. In the summer of 2023 when he left, when he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks, when he requested that trade, that was such a painful off season. That was such a painful off season for myself, for Eric, for a lot of you Blazer fans out there that are also huge Damen Lillard fans. It was a very painful off season. This is just like insane. Insane that it happened this quickly. Later on in the stream, once once my voice starts to wear out and my my energy starts to wear out, I’ll start to talk about what this means going forward. But right now, man, this is just super super cool to see Damen Lillard returning to the franchise that he took to playoffs after playoffs. Now, this franchise is trying to get back to the NBA playoffs. He had that Western Conference Finals run in 2019. And it was sad when we basically had to recap his tenure as a Portland Trailblazer in 2023, but his tenure, it wasn’t over. He’s back and he gets to continue to build upon probably next year. We’ll see when he returns from this Achilles tear, but he gets to continue to build upon his franchise record for points scored as a Blazer. He gets to come in. He gets to mentor guys like Scoot. Gets to mentor Sharp. Of course, Dame was here when Sharp was a rookie. Gets to come in and even though he’s hurt, he’s going to provide very valuable locker room leadership. And then next year if he returns at the end of the season, that’s the offensive punch this team needs is they have rebuilt their identity as a defensive-minded team after trading Dame bringing in guys like Tammani Kamara, Denny Odia drafting Donovan Cllingan. They also have Matis Thyel on the roster. Drew Holiday they traded for this past off season or this this off season. Uh bringing Drew who’s a great defender. It’s kind of funny that Any Simons leaves and Dames Dame comes back and just so many storylines because of course if you don’t recall the initial Dame trade to Milwaukee, the Blazers got back Drew Holiday for Damen Lillard and then they flip Drew Holiday to the Boston Celtics and then they trade for Drew Holiday back and bring Damen Lillard back. It’s just insane how everything comes full circle and it’s it’s amazing that Dame is a blazer again. Shout out to PDX papermaker member for 37 months says we are so back. The king has returned. Let’s go. Thank you Carson. Appreciate you. Shout out Rip City Brady $2 donation says Dame is back with plenty of heart emojis and happy crying emojis. Man, I I teared up. I teared up when I saw the news because Dame Dame means a lot to me and it’s just super cool that he’s back here in Portland. Shout out to Elias with a $5 donation and the hype sticker. Thank you, Elias. Shout out to Con and Dune. $10 donation says, “I’m crying. I’m crying.” I can’t blame you, man. I can’t blame you. I teared up as well. Appreciate the donation. Shout out Ethan Pettit seven uh Canadian dollar donation says, “This has to be the best defender wings and bigs around Damon Portland, right?” Yeah, man. This is this is the type of team that Dame could have done some real damage with uh back in the day. And then shout out to Sundo Hayes Davis, the Nigel Hayes Davis stand himself with a $2 donation says, “Good for y’all. Happy for you, Brody.” Thank you, Sundo. Appreciate you guys supporting the channel. Hit the like button. Hit the like button. And I’ll get into some of your comments, maybe some of your questions. Unfortunately, Eric is not here to share the excitement with us right now. Um he is he’s working and uh luckily luckily I was able to boot up this stream man because this is just super super super cool. Um anyway um wow wow. So three years $42 million deal. That’s 14 million a year. Let me go like let me go look at Sham’s tweets because I just need to calm down and like read read all his tweets cuz I skimmed it. I saw he was coming back to Portland and it was just euphoric from that point on. Brookfield deuce Dame’s cousin says dust them jerseys off Portland. Wow. So Sham Shirania broke the news initially with a tweet that said, “Breaking ninetime NBA All-Star Dame Lillard is finalizing a three-year $42 million contract to return to the Portland Trailblazers services to ESPN. Deals expected to include a player option in 2027 and 2028 and a no trade clause. A no trade clause.” So Dame after requesting a trade a couple years ago going to Milwaukee obviously that failed but he tried to ring Chase wants to come back home and doesn’t and he wants a no trade clause. Funny how that happens. Shams called it a storybook reunion home for the 35-year-old. Of course there was a rift between Dame and the Milwaukee Bucks because Dame wanted to rehab in the Portland area and some members of the Bucks organization did not like that. They did not want him to rehab back home in Portland. I guess they wanted him to rehab with team trainers, doctors around the organization. And then they ultimately buy him out and stretch his money over five years. It’s $22 million of dead money the next five years for Damen Lillard. The good thing for him, he still gets paid that money. Now, he gets paid that money the next two seasons. Um, even though the money was stretched over five years, he still paid according to his original contract, which was, I believe, 54 million this season, then 58 million next year. So Dame is still getting his money, and he’s getting every single penny of it, and he gets to come home to Portland on I mean, a steal. You’re getting a guy that was an allstar starter last year. You’re getting a guy who I think is the greatest player in franchise history and you’re getting him on a mid-level exception. The last time the Blazers used the mid-level exception, they got GP two weeks, otherwise known as Gary Payton, who was injured, didn’t seem to want to be in Portland, just took the money. And since then, the Blazers have never used an MLE. They just let it go to waste or they’re too close to the tax to use it. Now, they bring back Damen Lillard. I don’t know if he’s going to play next year unless the Blazers make the playoffs at his age returning from an Achilles injury. That’s very, very tough. But I do think his veteran mentorship around this young Blazer team, especially with some of the things he can help out with on the offensive end is going to be a real legitimate asset to this organization next season. I mean, you have the ultimate trio of guard mentorship. And I had a tweet about this. Let me see if I can find it. But I basically tweeted out after Dame got cut, bring Dame back to Portland because you’d have Dame as the offensive mentor for the guards. You’d have Drew Holiday as the defensive mentor. And then of course you have Chanty Bips as head coach. I mean that’s that’s the ultimate trio in terms of mentorship for this young team. And I also think Dame is Dame is a more vocal locker room leader. Uh Drew is seems like he’s more a lead by example. I think those guys are going to be huge for this young team as they try and progress out of this rebuild. Shout out to Tyler Smith $5 donation says Dame could have chosen pretty much any team, but he chose us. Never forget. I mean this is we always talk about stars don’t want to sign in Portland. Portland can never sign stars. They just signed a star. And of course, it’s the one guy who always wanted to be here. Now, I’m not going to go back into the summer of 2023 and debate anything from that. We’ve had our time to do that. We did that all summer in regards to the way that whole situation played played out and whose fault it was. And, you know, the Blazers drafting a 631 19year-old point guard to replace Dame in 2023 as they try and progress into a rebuild and this and that. They didn’t want to maybe didn’t want to pay Dame his contract. There was a lot of nuance to Dame requesting a trade out of Portland. I don’t I’m not even here to debate that with anybody. If However you feel about that situation is however you feel. He chose to come back to Portland. He chose to come back here. He could have probably signed with the Boston Celtics or the Los Angeles Lakers or maybe even the Golden State Warriors. He chose Portland. And for how many times we’ve sat here as Blazer fans saying stars don’t want to be in Portland. Stars, the Blazers will never sign a star. And yes, it did take some circumstance of course with Damen Le having the torn Achilles and then Milwaukee buying him out. Regardless of that, this dude has always had a soft spot for Portland and Portland has always had a soft spot for him and and it it just means more than basketball to a lot of fans, including myself. Man, the Blazers drafted Dame when I was what, a just I was a sophomore, junior in high school. Well, I guess it was a summer in between my sophomore and junior year of high school. I remember watching Weber State tape, Damen Lillard tape, and begging the Blazers to draft him at six. Begging the Blazers to draft him at six. I remember being super excited when the Blazers drafted him. I was ecstatic when the Blazers initially got Damen Lillard. I am just as ecstatic, probably more ecstatic now that the Blazers got Damen Lillard again. Anyway, hit the like on the stream. Easiest way to support the channel if you’re new to the channel. We do postgame live streams all year. We do video content all year. And this season is going to be a movie. I have not looked forward to a Blazer season as much as this one. Maybe ever. Maybe ever. It’s an exciting time in Portland. This off season has been crazy. You have Damen or you have DeAndre Aton getting bought out. You have Anthony Simons randomly get trading getting traded for Drew Holiday in what was a very surprising trade. You have the Blazers trading down from 11 to 16 getting an unprotected future first and then drafting Yong Hansen who has looked pretty decent in summer league. I feel better about this about that pick right now. I do. I do. Yong’s a fun player. I’ve liked what he’s shown in summer league. He has a ton of upside. And then of course you have the news about the Blazers being sold. And I think that the timing of this with like the Blazers being sold is is interesting. I don’t know if there’s anything to read into there. But um yeah, you know, this Joe Cronin and company bringing Dame back. So, shout out to Joe, man. And shout out to Dame because it seemed like there were some hard feelings after the summer of 2023, but obviously they’ve buried that. And I’m ready to bury that as well. I’m ready to bury that as well. So, props to Joe. Props to Dame, man. Huge props to Dame. I I just cannot believe he’s back. And as somebody that covers the team, too. When Dame left, there was a lot of fans and a lot of people in chat that are probably in chat right now or watching right now where people checked out from the team. They didn’t like the way the Dame thing went down. They missed Dame. The Blazers have been a losing team, a struggling team for a while now. And it was always kind of sad just to see a section of the fan base kind of kind of just give up on the team after trading day. And now he’s back. If you’re coming back to the channel, welcome back. It’s good to see you back. And I can’t I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I’ll start a Q&A if you want to ask me any questions about this signing. I won’t necessarily read all of them off, but I do want to group them in all one place. There’s a Q&A feature on YouTube. I just started the Q&A. Uh I’ll try and answer some of the good questions to guide our conversation here. Obviously, since we don’t have Eric Brandt here. We do have Eric in chat though. Good to see him in chat. Bring Terry’s thoughts back, too. I mean, at this point, Sure. Go ahead. Um, man. Shout out to Smog member for 54 months says, “I can’t stop smiling. We’re so back.” Liam said, “Tory, do you forgive Joe for everything now? I was very critical of Joe Cronin in the 2023 offseason when Damon requested a trade.” Listen, what I said earlier is I’m not going to go rehash that. If that’s forgiveness, you can call it forgiveness. I’m not going to go rehash that. Obviously, Dame Joe, if they had a riff before, they have buried that hatchet. I I’m I’m with that. I am absolutely with that. Now, we just look ahead. We get more Damen Lillard basketball in Portland. We have a fun team going into next year. A solid young core that I think a guy like Scoot is only going to benefit from having Dame’s mentorship here. Now, how does it sort itself out when Dame is healthy next season? And can you still have Drew and Scoot and Sharp and give Scoot and Sharp a fair chance? I don’t really know how that sorts itself all out because obviously that’s four guards, two your two young core guards that you’re building around and then two vets that should be playing a lot of minutes. I don’t know how they figure that out in a year from now, but they have a year to figure it out. They have a year to figure it out. And when you have the opportunity to get a talent like Damen Lillard, who I think is going to return and be still a very good player, maybe even a starc caliber player because he’s one of the greatest shooters ever. That’s not just going to go away. He’s one of the greatest shooters ever. His last season in Portland, he averaged 32 points per game and eight assists. And in his games without Giannis, he kind of played like Portland Dame. He he was right around those numbers, I believe. and and with Giannis, that duo did not work as well as I and a lot of people thought it was going to work there in Milwaukee. So, of course, with him being 36 years of age coming off an Achilles injury, I don’t expect him to be 32 and8 again. I don’t expect that. I don’t know what to expect. But here’s the thing. You’re taking a you’re you’re using an MLE on a guy that was a star last year, a guy that’s been a star, one of the greatest shooters ever. This team needs shooting. This team needs offense, especially somebody that can orchestrate things in the half court. Dame doesn’t have to come back and average 30 points per game on this team. I don’t, you know, I think the Blazers will have to probably move on from Drew Holiday and then maybe Dame’s a sixth man next year or maybe he returns to stardom and I don’t know. But I think this is the year for Scoot Henderson to truly take that leap. If he doesn’t, then you re-evaluate things at the end of the year. you. This is going to be a big year for Scoot, a big year for Sharp. They’re giving these guys great mentors. I think Drew should be the sixth man to be honest and come off the bench behind Scoo Henderson and Shane Sharp and just give those guys the keys and just see how they can take off, right? Like just give them a great opportunity this year in year three for Scoot, in year four for Sharp. And at the end of the year, you just evaluate Scoot. You evaluate Sharp. evaluate where Drew’s at and you have Dame in hand and then you make your decisions at that point, right? I never view bring Dame back as like, oh, now it just creates issues cuz they they got time they got time to figure that out. Dame’s likely not going to play this year and if he’s close enough to returning for a stretch run somehow, like maybe he has a miraculous recovery, then maybe you take offers for Drew Holiday at the deadline. And there was a report from Jake Fischer that the ninth pick might have been offered for Drew Holiday and the Celtics for some reason wanted Any Simons instead, even though they’re rumored to be trading him. I don’t really know what to make of that report, but if that report is true, then Drew Holiday does have trade value. So, it’s just you you accumul Cronin has made comments like just about accumulating talent. Well, this is the the best accumulation of talent getting a star on a mid-level exception. And huge props to him, man. Huge, huge props to him. Um, shout fun $2 donation says Tori and Eric B. Thank you for this awesome news. Thank you Fun P. Appreciate you. Shout out to the upper as a member for three months. Says, “Do you think Eric cried? Be honest. Let’s go.” GI Joe Cronin, man. I teared up, man. This This was emotional. This was emotional. Does that mean we keep Grant? Yeah, Jeremy Grant’s still on this team. I mean, at this point, they’re stuck with his contract. I think this is likely just going to be the last meaningful move of the offseason. That’s That’s fine. That’s fine. I’ve always begged for Joe Cronin to do something in free agency, to do something in July. There’s been so many offseasons where he makes a trade around draft time. He then drafts a player and then does basically nothing the rest of the offseason. And the the only two free agent signings Joe Cernin has made for a player that wasn’t on the team already was an injured Gary Payeyton the second who just took the money and ended up being traded back to Golden State anyway at that next year’s trade deadline and Moses Brown. Those are the only two players Joe Cronin has brought in via free agency over his four years. With the DeAndre Aton buyout that opened up the Fulman level exception for the Portland Trailblazers, which was ultimately used to sign Dame to this deal. It was frustrating on the first day of free agency to hear Jake Fischer report that the Blazers were likely not going to use the full mid-level exception in free agency. they were likely just going to take it into the season and use it as a trade exception. It was just very very frustrating because it was much of the same of what we’ve seen before with Joe Cronin not doing a single thing in free agency. Well, he brought back Dave Lillard. So, this is this is just a different off season, man. This is a different off season. This has been a bold off seasonason from the Portland Trailblazers. Like I respect it, even if I don’t necessarily agree with the value in certain moves. And you know, Hansen, Young Hansen was not the first player on my board with the 16th pick. I didn’t really understand the pick at the time. The Drew Holiday trade had some upside and some downside. I mean, you’re paying a huge contract over the next three years to him when you have Scoot and Sharp. So, there are some question marks, but I do like the defense. I do like the mentorship. I do like that the Blazers are going all in on defense seemingly, but doing that Simons for Drew trade was pretty bold. Bringing in Drew on that contract. The Yon Hansen pick was very, very bold. Bringing back Dame is very, very bold. buying out DeAndre Aton. I know he wanted a buyout, but I don’t think the Blazers knew that Dame was going to be waved when they bought out DeAndre Aton and opened up the full mid-level exception by doing so. I think it was, you know, we have Donovan Klingan. He’s our future starting center. He’s our rim protector. We just drafted Yong Hansen. We have Robert Williams III still on this roster. And if Aiden didn’t want to be here, yeah, like maybe they could have gotten a second round pick for him, but just just cut your losses at that point. That was a pretty bold move as well. So, I I love that Cronin is having his boldest off season ever. I love that the way he’s committed to the defensive identity, but then you need some shooting. We’ve been begging for some shooting. The most frustrating part of this off season was the Blazers trying to be good next year, but they still don’t have enough shooting. and Dame isn’t really going to help with that next year, but at least the year after, you’re adding one of the greatest shooters ever to the rotation. You’re adding a great leader to the rotation. Do we get a Cronin interview? Oh, the damn signing press conference. I am so ready for it, man. They still haven’t announced Drew Holiday either, which was kind of weird because Drew was at the practice facility before summer league and normally when a signing comes to the practice facility, they’ll do their introductory press conference and all that and they never did it. They never did it, which said to me like either they’re going to make another move and they just want to do one introductory press conference. I did not think that was going to be the move. So, I don’t know if we’re going to get a press conference for each of them or one press conference for both of them, but I mean, what that would be the most insane like introductory press conference for two acquisitions maybe in Blazer history if you got Drew on one side of the table and Damen Lillard on the other side of the table. That’s insane. That’s insane. But like Dame’s comments, I I’m just I’m thrilled. I am ready for it, man. Andrew Bone, $2 donation says, “This means we don’t sign Caleb Love.” He is signed. He’s just on a two-way contract. And I did not think he was going to be put on a regular contract. And it’s he’s fine on a two-way contract if he plays really well in the G- League and maybe gets some spot minutes for the NBA team and play as well. You can always sign him to a normal contract. Then the Blazers still have an open roster spot. They now have 14 players under contract, which means they don’t have to sign anybody else, but they could sign a 15th player. They could sign a 15th player. Watch the Blazers trade for LeBron. Now, of course, there’s been LeBron trade rumors, but uh yeah, I’m I’m I’m pretty much joking, but I don’t know. There’s been some weird stuff with LeBron. Like, if I’m kidding, I’m I’m not going to get ahead of myself with that. Shout out to Fun P. $2 donation says, “Welcome back, Dame.” He has another $2 donation. says Dane and Yong is going to be so good for PDX. Thank you, Fun P. Yeah, we’ll talk about Yong and the Blazer Summer League game. We’ll tip off here in a couple hours. It’s going to be really interesting to watch that broadcast and and hear the comments and all that. Man, I this has been the most surreal like past hour as a Blazer fan. I I I still I this feels like a fever dream. This doesn’t feel real. This does not feel real. Like I I’m I’m kind of in shock. I really am. I’m shook. I’m shocked. All of the above. Stan says, “I hope Dame hires a film crew to document his rehab and his retirement and contribution to the team.” Absolutely. Absolutely. Let’s do a chat poll. Eric called me to tell me, says Charlene, Eric’s mother. Yeah, he called me as well. And I was in a I was in a work call. I was having multiple people call my phone. It was uh it was wild. It was wild, wild moment. Chat, let me know what you were doing when you found out Dame was returning to the Blazers. Let me know your first reaction in the live chat. I’ll get to the Q&A questions here in a little bit. I think we pro we should have a few in there. Let me let me check. Yeah, we have a ton of questions. I’ll I’ll get to them in probably 15 20 minutes or so. Michael J says, “Scrolling YouTube.” Tonja says, “I’m in sorry if I messed up the name, but says I’m in tears at work. I’m so freaking happy.” Yeah, I uh that’s what my girlfriend said, too. My girlfriend’s super excited, man. And that just that’s just the cherry on top. Like, she’s super excited. I’m super excited. We just started dating when the whole Dane thing went down. And and now he’s back. Now we now we live together in this beautiful house. And man, I’m happy. Man, I’m happy. For all the people that says I don’t like a move Cronin ever makes, I’m just gonna I’m just gonna spam this link at them. The link to the stream. I’m just gonna Nobody can say that, man. I am as happy as as anyone about this. And I know a lot of you are over the moon. Over the moon. Let’s do a chat poll though. How ex how do you feel about Damen Lillard returning to Portland? Shout out to Fun Pee with another $2 donation. Says, “Oh, hell yeah. Thanks Eric B and Tori for this news.” Thank you, man. All right. What are the What are the options, chat? We’ll do super excited. We’ll do disappointed. We’ll do happy. But how does it work? And we’ll do meh. Those are your options. Vote in the chat poll. It was crazy just just the the text the texts I got. Man, I’ve I’ve I’m I’m privileged to know a lot of NBA creators now. Um just just through my day job and just getting the texts from them is is cool as well. This is this is it’s always cool when Portland is the center of the NBA universe, even if it’s just for a day. And Portland’s the center of the NBA universe today. The last time they were the center of the NBA universe, it was for the worst reaches and it was for Dame requested his trade in that whole saga. So, it’s super cool to see them in a positive way at the center of the NBA universe. Multi-gun says, “Happy, but how does it work? very worried Cronin is about to trade all the young guys for 35 plus year old dudes. I mean, here’s the thing. Cronin never are we going to get super duper aggressive mode now to build around Dame? Is that back? Uh Cronin never really did anything to build around Dame when he was younger. So, I don’t think he’s going to be shortsighted. I I think this move just makes clear sense is this is the best talent you can get with the MLE. This is a star that wants to be here. even though he’s hurt next year, he provides value anyway next season as a leader, as a mentor. Um, and then the seasons after that, he provides them exactly what they’re missing. If you just pretended like Dame was never a blazer, I would still be super excited about this move just because it’s it’s worth it. The type of player they need, the type of shooting they need, the leadership, the vet mentorship, a guy that’s been a star, a guy that will be a Hall of Famer. If that was somebody that had just played for other teams his whole career and was injured next year, I I would still think it’s a very very very good move. It’s just obviously awesome because it’s Damen Lillard, but this is a good basketball move regardless. A good basketball move regardless. They will have to figure things out in a year from now. But that’s fine. They’re always having to figure things out. Joe Croen has always got to put this roster in weird places where it’s like, “Okay, now you have Jeremy Grant on this massive contract. How do you figure it out?” Well, they might not. I think Grant is probably happier about being here now that his guy Dam is back. Um, the the guard situation was always a question, right? Like there there’s always questions facing this team and things they have to figure out with how they sort out their rotation. But guess what? When you have those questions, normally it’s a good thing because that means you have talent. That means you have talent. It would be worse to be sitting here like, “Yeah, we have our our fiveman starting lineup locked in, but the bench is so bad. Like, there’s no position battles and there’s no question marks about anything. We just have five decent starters and then the bench sucks and we have nothing else.” The reason why the Blazers have had these questions is because they’ve had both young talent and veteran talent at the same time. It hasn’t produced wins yet. It is part of the reason why the Blazers won 15 more games last season than the season before. But you got Damen Lillard, Drew Holidayiday, Scoo Henderson, and Shane Sharp in a back court. Like, that’s insane. That’s insane. Dame being out gives the Blazers the time to figure out how they want to progress. And it’s not going to be progressing without Damen Leard. He has a no trade clause. And the Blazers willingly gave that to him, which is completely fine. It’s It’s smart. So, if if Sharp still struggles next year and he wants too much money in restricted free agency, maybe he’s the guy to go. If Scoot struggles, like maybe he’s the guy to go. But I do like the idea of you give those guys as much opportunity this year to see what you have while Dame is out. You have Dame Mentor, you have Drew Mentor him, you got Chanty as a former point guard as head coach. You give them the greatest possible opportunity this season, the greatest possible opportunity. And then you reevaluate next off season and you just figure out how you move forward with Dame in the fold and those young guards and maybe Drew Holiday. That is completely fine. That is completely fine. That I I like that actually. I I like the way the timing of this all with Dame’s rehab lines itself up. Shout out to Nathan Rolf eight Australian dollar donation says, “I was in a McDonald’s drive-thru when I saw the shams the shams tweet. Then I was asked what I wanted from McDonald’s and I forgot my order. Yeah, you down there in Australia. You could have said Dame’s bag. They would have had no idea what you’re talking about maybe. Or maybe they would have. We have we have uh we have a lot of Australian Blazer fans which is pretty cool. So shout out to you Nathan. Shout out to you. Brady I can’t believe it either. Maul says, “Not your boy scooter.” I don’t know what that means. Dame coming home to win a title with Portland is the goal. I mean, that that would be the greatest sports moment ever. Like, I don’t know how you’d top that, man. I don’t know how you would top that. Definitive one says, “Tori, I can’t lie. I’m happier for you, Eric, and the channel than I am for myself, but I love Dave.” Definitive. I appreciate that, man. I appreciate that. Good to see you back here, man. Appreciate you as always. Yeah, it’s it’s a fun time to cover this team. If you’re new to the channel, like we do postgame shows for about two hours after every game, even when the team’s taking, we still work our hardest to put out entertaining content even when the team has made it tough in the past few years. And I’ve poured my blood, sweat, and tears into this channel. and just just having Dame back and having the young talent finally start to progress last year and improve like it’s just kind of like this is what we’ve been waiting for as fans of course but this is what I’ve been waiting for having a team that’s super exciting to cover that hopefully is going to play 82 meaningful games next year and maybe more and it’s been a long time since that’s been the case and we’ve we’ve kind of gotten used to it as a fan base and as somebody that covers this team. I’ve gotten used to games in March, games in April not meaning a single thing. I’ve gotten used to sitting there in March like, “Okay, it’s probably a good thing if we lose this game. Why are we winning? I don’t want to have that feeling. I’m done with that feeling.” All right. So, that’s why I am so so excited for this upcoming season. I am so excited for what’s to come with this team. So, Chris Haynes from a text from Eric that he sent me 20 minutes ago. Sorry if you’ve been saying this in chat. Let me go read the tweet. Maybe it was a tweet, maybe not. Chris Haynes said, Chris Haynes said this. He tweeted this 47 minutes ago. If you haven’t seen this, this is interesting. If you have seen this and have been trying to tell me about it, I apologize for not seeing it before. Chris Haynes tweeted, “Portland GM Joe Cronin met at Damen Lillard’s house weeks ago, and the two made amends and focus their attention on getting a deal done to give Lillard the opportunity to retire as a trailblazer. Shout out to Joe Cronin, man. A lot of guys in this industry, a lot of GMs, players have too much of an ego to make amends. I don’t think that’s particularly normal for a GM and a star that had a fallout the way Dame and Joe Cronin did to be able to make amends. So, shout out to both of them for being able to bury the hatchet. This is why I said I’m burying the hatchet. I I will make my own amends. All right. And just move forward. So, shout out to Joe for for being willing to do that because that whole situation was messy. I mean, that was a threemonth drama back in 2023. Dame requested a trade at the start of July, got traded at the end of September. That’s basically three full months. July, August, September. There was the whole thing with Miami. There was the the rumors that I mean, we talked about this. It wasn’t necessarily public. It was such a messy situation. So whether you believe this or not, it’s up to you. But there was the talk that Cronin promised he’d trade the third overall pick and then didn’t. There was the talk that Cronin told Dame that if he wanted out that he would trade him where he wants to go and then Dame requested out and requested Miami and then that of course didn’t happen. I don’t know if we’ll ever know the full extent of the summer of 2023 and what went down in the leadup to that and then after the trade request. It would make for a great 30 for30. I’ll tell you that I don’t know the full extent of it. I like I don’t think anyone knows the full extent of it. I think there’s probably truth to both sides of the argument and there’s probably stuff that’s maybe not true or overexaggerated. I’m not sure. And that might be from my own side of things. Regardless, it was a super messy situation. So, I’m just going to give Joe Cronin props for being able to bury that hatchet and for getting this done. It shows some character to go to a guy like Dame and make amends. It shows character for Dame, too, man. Funp says, “Dame involved in keeping the Blazers in Portland.” Listen, thank you for the $2 donation. I don’t think the Blazers are going to move. I think it’s leverage to try and get him a new arena. NBA wants him to have a new arena. I think renovations could be suitable enough to to keep rolling with the Moa Center. I just think it needs some renovations. This can only help though. This can only help. I mean, the excitement around this team with Damian back and everything is is good is good. If there was ever a chance that new owners would want to relocate the support for the team, I think next year is going to be crazy. Shout out to TruthSpeak 503, aka Demani with the $2 donation says, “Boycott officially over. Cronin, you MF, you did it. I think a lot of people feel that way. I think a lot of people feel that way. Ready to support the team again. They’re going to have new ownership. They have Dame back. They just drafted Yong Hansen. They got a fun young core. This is all the things. This is all the things we wanted. This is all the things we wanted. So, like I I feel I feel good about supporting this team again going forward for a couple years. You know, I’m still always going to be a diehard Blazer fan as long as they’re in Portland. But for a couple years, it did not feel as good to support the team, and I feel like a lot of people can relate to that. It feels good again. Carlos says, “Once I heard the news, I yelled in my bus and my kids looked at me funny. I’m a school bus driver.” That’s that’s a great um that’s a great story. I would have loved to have seen what that looks like. Um it says Yodis will come. You guys remember when uh when I had that pipe dream trade idea at the start of the off season where the Blazers could trade for both Giannis and Dame. We got one of the two. We got one of the two. So, the Blazers have Milwaukeee’s picks in 2028, 2029, and 2030. If it goes south, man, if it goes south, it’s obviously a pipe dream, but Dame Dame’s a blazer today. Dame is a blazer in 2025. Dame is a blazer. That is a pipe dream in itself. So, we already got that. Listen, I’m not trying to get ahead of myself, but it could be a play. It could be a play. CH final boss Emperor Roy with a $2 donation says, “Time to bring CJ back. Blazer seed for 2025 2026.” I don’t really know. I I think the Blazers will be a playin team. I don’t know if that’s 78 playing or 910 playing. The West is super super tough. It’s super super tough and I think like Dame’s not going to play this year. They still have a shooting need, but getting to the plane would be good experience for this young core, I guess. And you know that that should at least be the goal. Play an 83rd game at minimum. But like the thing is is if you said this team was going to be an 11 seed, I don’t even think that’s necessarily being negative. That’s just the West is insane. I think in the East the Blazers would be a six or seven seed. I really do. I would feel very confident in them making into the first round of the NBA playoffs in the Eastern Conference. In the Western Conference is just a completely different beast. The teams in the West are insane, man. It kind of sucks, but listen, if you want to be the best, you got to beat the best. Shout out to Fun Pee with a $2 dish. Says, “Portland and the young are going to be pumped.” Yeah, it’s it’s going to be interesting to hear the uh what the young players have to say. You had uh Dame tweeting Tammani propaganda earlier this year, hyping up Tammani, even though Dame never played with him. He was in the trade going to Milwaukee that brought Tamonti Kamar to Portland. But like Dame has shown love. Of course, the Blazers drafted Scoot and then traded Dame. So, Scoot had to answer questions about like the whole Dame saga when he was coming into the league as a rookie. Now, he’s a little more seasoned. The Blazers have done a good job lately of uh bringing back former players and showing them love. And I’m talking about retired players. And now they extended it to uh now they extended it to active players which is super super cool. Chris Haynes tweeted out a video of the Blazers locker room. All the name plates. all the name plates. And at the end, Damen Lillard already has his name plate up at the practice facility. His His locker is next to Scoot Henderson’s. It’s next to Scoot Henderson’s. That’s cool, man. That’s cool. I remember there was an edit. Shout out to Chris. Chris made the thumbnail for me as I rushed home. I was at a coffee shop when I heard this news. I rushed home. Shout out to Chris for making the thumbnail for the stream, allowing me to go live as soon as possible. I remember a Chris edit with Dame and Scoot together in Blazer uniforms. And obviously that never happened. Never thought it was going to happen. Now, I mean, assuming assuming Scoot’s still on the roster a year from now, it will happen. It’s just absolutely crazy. All right, I’m going to read off your questions in a second. Appreciate the love for the channel. Appreciate the love for the channel. We have officially reached 12,000 subscribers on this stream. So, appreciate you guys helping us reach 12,000 subs. It was a goal of mine this year. Accomplished it in July. Appreciate you guys. If you’re new to the channel, welcome in. We stream all off seasonason twice a week, Mondays and Thursday nights. There’s going to be a lot of streams talking about what next year could look like because this season’s going to be different in a good way. I’m just scrolling scrolling Twitter and stuff right now. So, let me see let me see if Eric’s going to be back anytime soon. I got too many tabs open. All right. All right. Let’s pull up the questions here. I’m just I’m not going to answer all of them because we’ve got a ton of questions. So, if I skip yours, I apologize. If this chat summary would get out of the way, that would be great. Let’s view the AI chat summary. Oh, no. It’s gone now. When I was actually going to read it. Do you think Yong is in the trade or what is the deal exactly? It’s a free agent signing. Dame was a free agent. Will this affect Scoot? I think it will affect Scoot in a good way this year. I think Dame will be a good mentor for him. On a scale of 1 to 10, how are you rating Cronin now? I mean, this off season, I mean, this move is going to like be 95% of the grade. Thoughts on Adam Silver and needing a Moenter replacement. Um, like I said earlier, I think renovations will hopefully hold this arena over. I mean, yes, it’s 30 years old, but I don’t think it’s a bad arena, man. I don’t think it’s a bad arena. I just think the NBA of course would love to have a fancy new arena to play NBA games in and Silver by saying it’s our preference to keep him in Portland. If he just said, “Yeah, we’re keeping him in Portland for sure.” Then the new owner has no leverage for a new stadium. So I think Silver is trying to keep that door open for leverage. Sean Hiken had a good tweet kind of explaining it. I’m not worried. I’m not worried. They fought like hell to keep the Kings in Sacramento. I think they would do the same for Portland, the same for any team that has that level of support. What do you think our rotation would look like next year with Dame? I have a feeling they’re going to flip Drew next off seasonason. I think he’ll still have some value and I think it would be a three-g guard rotation with Dame, Scoot, and Sharp. I don’t know which two start, but if Dame returns to form, man, like it’s a good problem to have. You have your you have your star. And the thing is, if Dame returns close to form with all the assets and stuff, if a true number one star becomes available, Portland has a chance at trading for them and then maybe actually contending, which would be really cool. If Scoot has a most improved type season, what’s Dame’s role next year? I don’t know. I mean, we don’t know what Dame’s going to be. We don’t know what Scoot’s going to be this season. There’s still so much to figure out. Like, if Scoot is a true star and Dame returns to being a true star, like, that’s a good problem to have. You have two star point guards, you know how they figure it out. I don’t know, but that’s a good problem, not a bad problem. Lots of questions about our guard rotation. Those were my thoughts. Can you describe the moment you found out? Um, yeah. I was in a work call. I was in a work call and the guy I was in a work call with has trolled me before by like coming up with like fake trades and like freaking out like it actually happened. So, I didn’t believe him. I said, “If you’re if you’re trolling me, I hate you. And there’s no there’s no way.” And then, “No, no, check Twitter. Check Twitter.” And then I start getting calls. And that’s what I knew. That’s what I knew. Alex says, “Is there potential for a consolidation trade for a proven all-star caliber player next year? Go Blazers.” Absolutely. That’s the thing. When you have depth, it sets you up for a consolidation trade. But I think before we get to that point, it’s like give Scoot and Sharp the keys this year with Dame being out and see what they look like and then make that decision on how exactly you want to consolidate and move forward. Do you think this leads to more aggressive moves? I believe so, but I don’t think the Blazers will be aggressive in terms of like trading half their young core for a star. I think you got you got the 2028 and 2030 Milwaukee Bucks swaps. The Blazers have the best 2029 first round pick between their own pick Milwaukees and Boston’s and they also now have a 2028 unprotected Orlando first round pick. You hope that like Yon Haun and Klingan have good years. They can’t really play together. So if both look like they should be starting, then you kind of have a a Nerkage Jokic situation. Hopefully that would be amazing. But then you can use one of them as a trade chip because they can’t I don’t think they’ll ever be able to play together, right? So I think like the Blazers, if they get aggressive, it’ll have to be in a smart way where you’re not sacrificing the future for the present. I think they can they can I think they could potentially make moves depending on who’s available to maximize this team the year that Dame’s back. Maybe maximize is the wrong word, but like make this team legitimately good the year Dame’s back as well as giving them a window far into the future and balancing that. The thing is they’ve done this two timelines thing and it’s like they’re not good enough in now and the future looks iffy. Now it’s more so 2026 2027 with Dame back and the young talent on this team like they look like they’re going to be pretty damn good and then the future is looking looking better than ever. So it’s definitely better. Do you think Dam will ever be a starter on this team again? I don’t know, man. I don’t know. Like we can speculate. It’s hard to speculate about a 36-y old returning from an Achilles tear other than like I think he’ll still find a way to be very effective. What does this mean for the team sale? I think the value might have went up. You drafted Yong Hansen and you brought back Dame. So, if anything, the value should be going up. Rip City says, “I just got life injected into my effing veins, bro. Let’s effing go. Are we back?” We’re so back. Docui says, “Will you agree to come off the bench if all the stars align?” I mean, I’m sure as part of this agreement, like they discussed hypotheticals and how it would look moving forward once Dame’s healthy and ready to play again. I’m sure they discussed it and like if Dame’s on board for for whatever. I love that. I love that. Isaiah Garcia says, “What does this mean for Scoot? Do you think he’ll ever start?” I think Scoot should start this year. I think Drew should be a sixth man playing 30 minutes a game off the bench. And I think Scoot should start. If he comes off the bench, then it’s like, yeah, I don’t know. And then Dame returns the year after, it’s like, yeah, I don’t know if he’s ever going to start for us. But if that’s because you have you have Dame, Dame’s like really really good still. That’s like the easiest way to stomach that if that makes sense. Tori Rianer signed Tammani Kamar. They will extend him. Yeah, they’ll extend him at some point for sure. Kobe says, “Do you think this will affect the team if they play like Dame is coming back? I feel like they need to play like it’s their team and he’s not there in order for them to continue to get better.” I mean, Dame’s basically probably out for the year. Scoot and Sharp should not be sitting there like playing differently because, oh, Dame might be back a year from now. If that’s in their head when they’re playing, then they’re not mentally strong enough to be as good as we hope they can be. If that makes sense, like if they’re given like you give them the keys this year and you give them every opportunity, you give them great mentorship, you give them, you know, 32, 33, 34 minutes a game, there is no excuse left. There’s no excuse left. Sharp needs to be more consistent. He needs to make more threes and he needs to give consistent effort defensively. Scoot just needs to improve the way he did last year. still cut down on his turnovers, improve his efficiency a little bit more, improve his decision-m a little bit more. I think Scoot will, but like just give him every opportunity this year. There’s no excuse. And Dame coming back a year after is definitely not an excuse for them. Do you think Dame retires after this contract as a Blazer? Yeah, may I mean, we’ll see how good he is after this contract, but I don’t think he’s going to I don’t know if he’s going to play anywhere else after this. I think he retires as a Blazer at this point. I mean, if we’re somehow really bad and he has one year left and then wants to ring chase again, I don’t even blame him. I don’t even blame him. But like, he already did that and it went about as poorly as it possibly could have gone. So, maybe this is just like, yeah, see, that’s not for me. Do we get to have a homecoming party for him as a city? I Yeah, if we never get a championship parade, I’ll throw a parade for this. I’ll show up to the parade for this. We can put an injured Dame on the float and just parade him around town. I’m I’m there for that. What do you think his role is going to be next season due to his recovery? I think as a vet mentor, he’s going to be great. Tory, do you think Dame would have stayed if we drafted a manic scoot? No, definitely not. Do you think Portland has a real chance of contention under the three years of Dam’s contract? I think it’ll take a big swing of a trade, but I think they’re in a position to do that. Chris S, do we trade for Drew for Dame knowing the move was in the pipeline? Sorry if I missed this being discussed. Already just joined. I feel sorry for Scoo, but happy he’s back. I don’t think the Blazers knew Dame was going to be available. I don’t know if Joe Cronin going to Dame and burying the hatchet and meeting with Dame was for anything more than just to do it. I think Dame was surprised when he got bought out by Milwaukee. I think the Blazers didn’t see that coming. So, if they buried the hatchet before that, I don’t think it was to sign Dame. I think it’s most likely the Stars align, but I’m not sure. I would love to hear the reporting of like the the timeline of all this, but I I don’t think the Drew trade coming before the draft was for Dame. What do you think was Dame’s market value salary wise? I think this year like nothing. Next year probably 2530 million. I mean you see what Emanuel Quickley’s making. You see what Anthony Simons is making like Dame I think will at least be that sweet says. So just how hard did we finesse Milwaukee in the Dame trade? Yeah, really really hard I guess considering since we got Dame back. Let’s just follow the asset trail. All right. So, we had Dame and we turned Dame into Dame Drew, two Milwaukee swaps, a 2029 unprotected first from Boston or Milwaukee, Denny Odia and Tammani Kamara. You could really You could really make the case that You could really make the case that Portland just basically manufactured assets out of nothing. They got Damen back, right? So, it’s always funny to follow like the the paper trail of what certain assets traded like turn into. Um, but Shams had a tweet about an hour ago that says, “Port traded Dame Lur for Drew Holidayiday to money assets in 2023. Then Holiday to Boston for Robert Williams third, Malcolm Brogden and assets. One ones that led to Denny Odia. Now the Blazers have Lillard Holiday plus Odia Williams Kamar a 2029 first and two Milwaukee swaps. And then Shoms also reported that he had multiple mid-level exception and minimum offers from NBA contenders and he chose coming back to Portland. He chose coming back to Portland. He wants to be around his family, wants to be around his kids. He’s a family man. I respect the hell out of that. I respect the hell out of that. Shawn’s also tweeted that Lillard and the Trailblazers both deeply cared about the comeback in recent weeks with multiple meetings among the Portland franchise icon general manager Joe Cron and head coach Chanty Phillips to bond together and move forward united on a new deal. What’s funny is Chanty a couple days ago was being asked questions was like, “Yeah, when you when you were started your tenure as Blazers head coach, you know, Dame was here and there’s been a lot of turnover.” And I wonder if Chanty knew that Dame was coming back when he was asked that question on that summer league broadcast. If you know what question I’m talking about, did Chanty uh did Chanty react any type of way that might have tipped that this was coming? Le now will have a 2025 2026 set salary of 70 million between his Portland and Milwaukee deals and a salary of 141 million over the next two years. That have an opt out in 2027. So yeah, it’s like two years and Dame has the option to opt out in 2027. Yeah, that’s crazy. Blazers officials and Aaron Goodwin are finalizing terms this week. I just can’t believe it, man. I can’t believe it. I just want to read Twitter. Like, I just want to read Twitter. All right, let’s see if Eric responded when he’ll be back. He said he’ll call when he’s driving home, though. I Yeah, once we get Eric back, I will probably bow out for a bit. I’m going to be here for the first half of the game and then I’m gonna and then I I have a wreck game. The cool thing about my wreck league, though, is a lot of them just ask me Blazer stuff. They know what I do, so that’ll be fun. Um, and then we’ll pro we might stream tonight as well. I I just got some I do have some work things that I definitely need to attend to. So, balancing that in this is uh going to be interesting. But yeah, just absolutely insanely insane day. So, six rings of steel aka Matt says, “So, basically the Trailblazers loan Dame to the Bucks for two years and got to Monica Kamar, Robert Williams two bucks swaps and a Bucks first in return.” Well, also Danny Avdia, don’t forget Danny Avdia also tweeted, “Dame Lillard return to Portland might be the best story from this off seasonason. This is dope. All right, let’s go back to the live chat. Thank you guys for your questions. Shout out to Defend One says, “Welcome home to the king with a $5 donation.” Thank you. Defendive says, “Welcome home to the king. I’m calling it now. 40 foot Dame dagger in the Knicks eye for the 2027 championship. Beautiful day to be a blazer.” Good job, Joe. I’m here for it, man. I’m here for it. Shout out to Conor Messing. Ninemonth member message has felt like Christmas morning seeing this news. Yeah, man. It’s uh it’s been just the the Drew trade seeing that tweet after getting calls so I knew the Blazers did something but didn’t know what and then seeing the Dame tweet just just surreal. It’s absolutely crazy. Shout out to Emerson new starter level member. If you guys want to become a channel member, click the join button below. Damon Drew press conference would be comedy. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yo, hear me out. Let’s get Cory Kasper to the Blazers. Thing is, Blazers would have to trade salary for him now. But like I would trade Thyball for him just to add more shooting given that you have a ton of defense. I mean, if Cronin did that, then I mean I’m I’m a crony. I would be officially a crony. Call up Pat Riley and see if he wants to trade us Tyler Herro for Dame. No thank you. No thanks. Still don’t want the Dame package. All Dame wanted was the Blazers to build a championship roster around him and they couldn’t even do that. Why are we focused on the past, man? Why are we focused on the past? The future is exciting. Imagine we are Damen Lur on the bench today watching the Blazer summer league team. That would be that’d be sick, man. That’d be sick. Like just there’s just going to be so many cool moments about his return that I’m really looking forward to that I’m really looking forward to. And oh man, this kind of makes me emotional. There was there was times on streams where especially Dames last season here where I never really thought he was going to ask out until that off season, but just with him being like 32 or 33 or whatever he was, it was like, you know what, I’m just going to really try and appreciate every game this dude has left in a Blazer uniform because you don’t know when it could end. You don’t know when his last game in a Blazer uniform will be. And I really just like try to cherish it just as a huge damn fan. And um you know just trying to live in the moment as a fan, right? Like we’re always worried about what this what is this team going to do in the future? Are they on the right track? And our channel I stress about that a lot. Are they doing the right things to set themselves up for the future? Will they ever be able to contend in the future? And sometimes I just have to slow myself down and just try and enjoy things in the moment. Try and enjoy things game by game. And Dame’s last season here, I kind of got around to that point where like, man, yeah, this season is not going the way we wanted, but I’m just going to enjoy every time this dude steps on the floor in a Blazer uniform because you never know how it could la like how it could end or when the last time will be. And then of course he got traded that off seasonason. It was like, man, see, you never know when the last time could be. We also never know when the next time could be. I guess while Cronin is cooking, can he just get rid of Chris Murray already? Maybe Dame can treat Maybe Dame can fix Chris Murray. You know, we were hoping he could fix Cam Reddish. Cronin Masterass. Yeah, I mean this was this was just I don’t know. I don’t know when the timing set up with like Cronin knew he was going to become available so he tried to make amends. I feel like he did it before because who could have seen this damn thing coming and if he made amends in June like that’s just making amends to make amends which is commendable. But like this signing is just pure like relationship repair and it’s a master class. It’s a Cronin master class. This was luck. It worked out in our favor for once. Lol. Yeah. This is the type of thing that doesn’t happen for the Blazers, man. This is the type of This is the type of stuff that doesn’t happen for the Blazers. You know, we don’t win the lottery to get Cooper flag. Could you Could you imagine? Dam is at the practice facility with Tammani and Klingan. Josh, where’d you see that? I’m gonna so I’m gonna soak it all up, man. I’m going to soak it all up. I never heard Tory say Cronin and Masterass in the same sentence. Yeah, I mean, I’m a crony now. What can I say? I am officially a crony. Maybe now I can go on Reddit and get upvoted. That’s my sole goal in life. Austin Hastman says, “12K subscribers. Let’s go.” Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that, man. It’s It’s super cool to see. Super cool to see. You know what’s funny is like last night I spent um like two two and a half hours just planning my content for next season. And now I’m just so excited for like for like what we’re going to do, what we’re going to accomplish. I’ve gotten injury updates since injury on Damian. Um, he’s just recovering. He had a surgery. He’s recovering. There’s likely not going to be any meaningful updates until like middle of the season next year. Emerson says, “Finally, I am so back and never leave. Miss this fan base except for Whoa, Emerson, that’s one guy that’s maybe not happy about this news, but it’s good to see you.” City says, “I’m super stoked.” Michael asks, “Are we a playoff team?” I hope so, man. I hope so. I miss the playoffs. I hope we’re a good enough seed to not have to deal with OKC in the first round as well. That’d be great. This helps the Blazers and the fire. Dame is just good for Portland. Yeah, you got the fire cut. You got the Blazers getting a WNBA team. There is a lot going on with basketball in Portland right now, man. There’s a lot going on and I love it. And I love it. And maybe this is what new ownership, you know, team or ownership groups looking at buying the team. Maybe it’s a good thing for them to see the way this city embraces Dame and his return. Maybe that’s a good thing because it’s special. It’s special. And a new ownership group might not understand that at first. Shout Austin Irwin. I think that’s a euro. We don’t have Eric here to check currencies for me because I always forget current what types of currencies different signs are. But shout out to Austin Irwin. I’m just going to say it’s a euro. A five euro donation. Says return to the king, baby. Let’s go. Thank you, Austin. Sorry if I butchered your currency, but I appreciate the donation. Hey Tori, how much are we actually playing Dame? I would not expect Dame to play next season as he recovers from this Achilles injury. I don’t think there’s any reason to rush it, especially when you do have Drew scoot sharp. Move Grant and call this off seasonason a wrap. You know what? Grant being here’s like whatever at this point. Just bring him off the bench. Okay. Like they they they’re not going to be able to trade him. They probably have to attach assets to trade him. That’s probably not the right move. They were kind of stuck with him. They just brought Dave back. Like just bring him off the bench. At least he can shoot. Trading Grant and getting nothing back, I guess, would further worsen the shooting situation here for next season. So, it’s not great to have somebody making that much money on a negative contract coming off the bench, but that might be the best the best solution at this point. Casey Park says, “Is this all leading up to Giannis coming to the Blazers next summer? Holiday is Giannis’s favorite player.” Oh, I didn’t even make that connection. Shout out to Casey. Holiday is Giannis’s favorite player. Giannis only trains with Dame. Blazers own all of Milwaukeee’s draft capital. Ooh. What if Dame returned to to lure Yiannis here? I talked about that pipe dream earlier this off seasonason. if it actually comes true. I don’t want to hear anybody ever say, “Tori, that’s too unrealistic.” Ever again. I mean, like, yeah, Blazers need a superstar. Dame has always tried to recruit stars to Portland. Now he’s back and he played with Giannis. And of course before Dame ended up with Milwaukee, Dame and Giannis had conversations about Dame playing with Giannis in Milwaukee or Giannis playing with Dame in Portland. They had those conversations before Dame ever got traded. They tried it in Milwaukee. It didn’t work. Milwaukee I don’t think is going to be good in this this year and they have no way to get better. It’s a play. It’s a play. It’s definit It’s definitely not impossible. I don’t want to play it up as like, oh, they’re going to be able to get Yiannis, or it’s unlikely possibility to get Giannis, but it is absolutely a play that they could try and make. And if Cronin if this is Cronin’s master plan, it is like genius. Trade for Drew, amend things with Dame, bring Dame back to Portland. So you can convince Giannis to want to come here. If that happened, I I just I’d be the leader of the cronies. I’d be the leader of the cronies. Shout out to Jeb Warf or Warl says 5D chess. Absolutely. That’s 5D chess. Shout out to TruthSpeak503. $5 donation says, “I don’t know the ungodly things I would do to make sure Giannis became a blazer.” Oh, dude, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if Giannis is only requesting like port, is there a chance Giannis could only request Portland to come play with Drew and in Dame? And it’s like, all right, you probably trade one of Scoot and Sharp. You have the other as a third guard or whatever. Yes, that back court’s old, but like you’d still have Denny, right? Like a package of Milwaukeee’s picks back 2028 Orlando unprotected first. like maybe a couple future first from Portland built around like Scooter or Sharp and then one of Klingan and Yong and then you have a starting lineup of like Dame Drew maybe Drew’s six-man you have Sharp I don’t know you just have a three guard lineup of Dame Drew Sharp or Dame Drew Scoot although I think Sharp would make more sense because Dame and Drew are more point guards and then you had Odia Kamara Giannis with clinging as a Yeah. Anyway, I’m dreaming, man. But I was dreaming when I when I brought this up a couple months ago. So, I’mma keep dreaming. I’mma keep dreaming. You talk Kevin Knox into existence. Can you talk Yiannis into existence? I talked bringing Dame back into existence, I guess. So, I’m just going to keep I’m going to be uh talking about Yianis for however long it takes to get him, man, because that would be uh amazing. Like, we would be a contender. We would be we would be contending for championships. Why sign Turner if they’re trading Giannis though? Signing Turner, buying out Dame and signing Miles Turner was a lastditch effort to make the team as good as possible with the rumors rumblings that you heard about Giannis, right? Potentially wanting out. Um he ended up wanting to stay, but that was like their only way they could add a meaningful starting caliber player. If it doesn’t work, they’re even more screwed than they were this off season. They have even less recourse than they had this off seasonason. The recourse they had this offseason was $22 million of dead money the next five years. Guess what? That’s going to make things even harder. They have no picks. They have like no young talent. That’s worthwhile. So, if they’re not good this year, they have no way of getting better. And if you want to seize the writing on the wall and you got Drew and you got Dave in Portland, like that’s that’s the dream. That is the dream. and Portland has Milwaukeee’s picks back. So then Milwaukee can at least have their draft picks back 2028, 2029, 2030 and they can rebuild with probably top draft picks. But yeah, I don’t know exactly what that what that looks like trade package wise because that’s just such like an insane hypothetical, but it’s looking a little less insane right now. ESPN notifications. Faux notifications. If Eric gets back here, I’ll probably just put him on solo so I can tend to things. The Blazers summer league game will start soon. Um, I just want to keep the stream rolling. Maybe we’ll make a separate stream for the summer league game. Or should we just do it on the same H? Probably make a separate stream for the summer league game. You guys are going to have content all throughout the evening. All throughout the evening. I’m so happy. This is This is amazing, man. This is amazing. The next the next week we got two more fun summer league games. We get to watch more Yong Hansen, whatever the intro in introductory press conference is going to be. This is going to be it’s going to be really fun. Just just enjoy the moment. Soak it in. Soak it in. We don’t get good things like this often as Blazer fans. like we’ve had a pretty cursed existence. So, just enjoy it. Just really, really enjoy it. Like, I’m going to remember this day forever. I mean, I still remember the day the Blazers got Carmemelllo and I rushed home to stream that, you know? Shout out to you if you were there for that stream. But yeah, I’m, you know, this is going to be a a sacred memory as a Blazer fan forever. No Jeremy Grant Locker in Dame’s video. Interesting. Defendive one says, “Dame so solid. It takes a real one to put the past behind you. Most couldn’t do it. Salute that man. Cronin 2 for opening the door for it.” Absolutely. Salute to both of them. You’re 100% right. kind of just makes me fully willing to like put the critiques of that off season and all that behind him, behind me. Heat fans crashing out. Yeah, we got dame before they got dame. Guys, 100% Damas told Yiannis not to ask out. Grass is always greener. And now we see the proof. That could very well be the case. That could very well be the case. But like it did make sense for Dame to ask out. It did make sense. The team was bad and they were just getting younger and they just drafted his replacement. Like everything that happened made sense and like everything that happened happened for a reason. And I don’t think Dana is the type to like tell Giannis what to do. Like Giannis is is a guy that can make his own decisions and I think I don’t know man like I think Dame would want Giannis to be a Blazer. Shout out to Shout out to 503 on Twitter. Our guy 503 said, “Let’s try this once again.” And tagged Yais and has the the jersey edit of Damon Yiannis and Blazer jerseys. I’m just reading through Twitter source. Heat weren’t interested in signing Damen Lillard. I mean, the Heat aren’t interested in doing anything. Oh, we got a Dame tweet. Oh, man. Yeah, like I said, there’s just going to be small little cool things. Dame uh tweeted the video that Chris Haynes posted of the locker room with his name plate with Rip City. Yeah, it’s this is sick. This is so cool. Yiannis’s wife went live on his Instagram account after the Dame Portland news. I’ll have to watch that after this this stream. Fun P2 $2 donation says all local TV is leading and ecstatic about Dame. Thank you for the donation. Shout out to Boom aka Tyler member for eight months says, “Bro, what a huge day. Our boy is home. Congrats on 12K. Enjoyed being a part of the cult over the years and watching this channel grow. Let’s finish this fever dream. Get Yonis and get a chip.” Absolutely. We deserve it, man. We deserve it. Thank you for being a channel member. I’m looking forward to hearing Eric Eric’s thoughts on this because I haven’t I haven’t had the chance to actually talk to Eric about this. I know he was in the chat. I have not I just saw his name. I didn’t read off any of his comments. I have not had the opportunity yet. You guys will find out when I find out. But you guys know Eric’s crash out over the Dame situation. So if you were around at least a couple years ago. So, it’s going to be super cool to to hear from Eric soon. BB Blazer says, “Call in.” Maybe if we do a stream tonight. I like I’m down to do another stream tonight. Eric will will carry the watch party. Um, child David Cy member for 32 months says, “I can’t believe it. My childhood hero is back.” Yeah. Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing with Dame is, you know, I can’t speak for other people, but he like if if you’re younger than I am, there’s a really good chance that if you’re a Blazer fan and fell in love with the Blazers, it was due in part because of Dame or partly because of Dame. Like the player that made me fall in love with basketball, made me want to play it, made me want to cover it, was Brandon Roy. His rookie season, that was the first year I started watching the Blazers when I was like 10 years old. And the excitement of him being a rookie and the way he played, I I watched college basketball the year before that as like a nine-year-old because my grandfather was always watching college basketball. So, I was always watching like Gonzaga with Adam Morrison and Washington with Brandon Roy and also Washington State. I don’t remember anybody on that team. But so then Brandon going from college to being a Portland Trailblazer. I was like, “Oh, that’s cool, man. That’s cool.” So I start watching the Blazers. Um, you know, like and I’ve watched them religiously ever since. And Brandon Roy made me fall in love with the Blazers. Made me fall in love with basketball. So if you’re, you know, maybe six, seven years younger than I am, you probably have a similar experience. Eric’s first thoughts were, “Let’s effing go.” Did he tweet that? I have not looked at Eric’s Twitter. If you don’t follow us on Twitter, links in description. Eric’s tweet. Credit to Cronin for making his screw up right. Oh, he’s got to take a shot at Joe, man. Um, but I mean, he ain’t lying. He ain’t lying. He said hopefully he’ll be honest with Dame this time. Dame must think so if he was willing to resign. I mean, here’s the thing, like Cronin might not have made any promises. And if he didn’t make any promises, it’s fine. The problem was like the way he talked about building being super aggressive building around Dame and potential promises he might have given in the past. Like that’s where a lot of our criticism has come in. But um you know like if if he didn’t make those promises they wanted to come back like all right then then he’s kind of off the hook if that makes sense. Demani says, “Bro, we cried when they traded Dame.” I kept it in, but yeah, Eric was really upset. I know a lot of people were really upset. That was uh the stream where he demanded a trade was was a really rough stream. Really, really rough time. Was like the toughest thing to go through as a fan of like any sports teams. And I’ve watched the Niners lose Super Bowls. I’m too young to have seen them win Super Bowls and I’m a freaking Mariners fan. Shout out Cow Raleigh. But now we just need Au Haneo Suarez to come back just like Dame came back. You know, I’m not saying Suarez is Dame, but if you’re a Mariner fan, you you understand. Do you think the Blazers new ownership will move them? Adam’s words were concerning. Adam’s words are not concerning, man. He said their preference is to keep him in Portland, but they probably need a new stadium. Like if he says, “We’re keeping them in Portland, but they also need a new stadium.” He has no leverage for a new stadium. The new ownership group has no leverage for a new stadium. Like, they fought like hell to keep the Kings in Sacramento when they they had major issues with a new stadium and had a super long playoff drought. And I think, you know, the Blazers bringing a lot of money through the economy. Like, they’ll find a way. I’m not worried about it. Now, I think Dame would be the type of guy to like try and throw as much weight around as he could to keep them in Portland if that ever became something to legitimately be concerned about. You also have the jock tax that they passed that was initially for an MLB stadium. Maybe that comes into play for a new NBA stadium. But listen, I know a lot of people won’t agree with this, but you can tax me while I live in Washington, so you know, but like I I’ll put my taxes tax payments towards that. And I’m like, like zombie says in chat, I’m okay scrapping MLB. I can remain a Mariner fan and they could have another 20-year playoff route themselves if the Blazers stay in Portland because of it. But yeah, I’m not worried. I don’t think like just enjoy this is what I was talking about earlier. Just enjoy the moment. Enjoy the Dames back. Soak it in. Don’t worry about the team moving. There’s nothing to worry about. If it becomes something to worry about, you will know. But like the speculation and stuff and people speculating and coming in chat say they’re going to move the team like every there’s people that’s going to say all sorts of stuff and you can go down that mental spiral that mental rabbit hole worrying about it but it’s a bit overdramatic like it’s it’s not something to to worry about right now. Darius mouse is why I fell in love with the Blazers. That’s a that’s a bit of a unique one. Shout out shout out to Josh Dro says, “Tory, jock tax for mob is different. Blazers don’t need that. They have been here for decades with the real money coming in.” The jock tax is a tax that’s on the the players. Basically, the players would normally pay state income tax, but instead of their income tax going to the state, it goes directly to um building the stadium for MLB. So, I’m not 100% certain, but I’m pretty sure they could take those taxes and the way that tax would be set up and apply it to a new NBA stadium. Maybe Medford could afford an arena for the places. Medford talking about Medford. Okay, I’m gonna get Eric to call in through Let’s do it through a Google Meet. We won’t have the webcam up because he’s driving. Well, let’s see. How long until you’re home? depends on traffic. I’m downtown. Should I have Eric just call in once he’s home so we can get the face cam, the full reaction, all that, or should I just have him call in now, chat? multi-gun. The plan with those would not be no depth. You don’t trade all your depth for Giannis. You have their picks. You have good young players. And if he demanded to come here, then you have leverage. And you also have assets that Milwaukee would really want. So, it’s not just Giannis, Damon, Drew, and nobody else. She’s should probably be able to keep Denny in that trade. I don’t know. Like maybe Milwaukee would be stingy and it wouldn’t happen, but it’s it’s not like they should have to trade all their young players and all their depth. We want to see Eric’s excitement. Worth the wait. We got to see that face. Yeah, I know. I I’ll tell them. I’ll be like, just just call in once you’re home. People love your face. Maybe he’s listening. Maybe we Let me see what Crushables is up to. Do you think Chanty will get interviewed today about getting Damon? I mean, he’s already done two interviews during summer league games. Normally, they don’t have a third, but he is cool with with ESPN guys because he did do some work for ESPN. So, maybe. I mean, whoever gets interviewed during this Blazer game is definitely going to get asked about it. Cory Edwards says, “I’m crying. Love me some dame time.” Yeah, this is a this is a super cool day, man. The game not on ESPN. Um, I’ll check. I’ll check. It’s on NBA TV. Yeah, this is the game to have on ESPN right now. Although, they got Lakers, Celtics, the rivalry. Bronnie James verse, I don’t know, Drew Peterson. Or I guess they got Hugo. My guy Hugo Gonzalez. But yeah, like if you’re worried about, oh man, what if we have Damon Drew and Giannis and the team’s not good enough? Why are we sitting here worried about what if we got a superstar and a top three player in the league? As if it’s a bad thing, you know? As if it’s any more than a pipe dream anyway. Like, come on now. Come on now. But I’ll do a poll. I’ll do a poll. I asked Crushables if uh he can hop on any streams. I’d love to get his thoughts as we wait for Eric. But um what version of Eric do you want? Car Eric or home Eric? Yo, when do you think the Blazer will announce Dame? I’m not I’m not sure. They have to officially sign the contract and all that. I don’t think they have to do any physicals because it’s like he’s already hurt. I mean obviously like they signed him knowing at dessert like Yeah. All I said was I was not a fan of the idea because it felt like it would take Denny Scoot/Sharp and all the picks. I mean, listen, it might and the Blazers might be wise to say no, but but the hope would be the hope would be if there’s any chance that Giannis, it’s like, okay, having Dame plus Drew here convinces Giannis to want to go to Portland, leverage his way to Portland. Portland already has leverage with having Milwaukeee’s own picks and Portland could minimize the amount of players going out to just like one of Yong and um Eric says, “What if I’m not excited? I don’t know. We’ll find out. Um, you know, one of Yong and Klingan as well as one of Scoo or Sharp. If that’s the case, you still have, you know, Klingan or Yong as your starting big. You still have Tammani, you still have Denny, you still have, you’d have Giannis, you’d have Dame, you’d have Drew, you’d have one of Scoot and Sharp. Like, that’s seven players. You probably trade Grant to match salary. like that. That would be the pipe dream, right? It’s it’s not the most realistic thing in the world, but it became a little bit more realistic this offseason as something the Blazers could try and pull off. And it’s something I talked about the start of this off season is getting Dame to try and recruit Giannis. Well, we all we got Dame and we got Drew. So, it’s already been kind of wild at this point. Like that’s the thing I’ve also realized in the NBA is like when we evaluate team building, we like to think of it as a bit of a linear path, right? Like you maybe take a couple steps back, but you get picks so you can gradually build accumulate assets, be positioned to like maybe take a jump if you have a star. But like that wasn’t the case with the Knicks when they signed Jaylen Brunson when he looks like a good role player but not a star and then becomes a superstar, right? like they basically signed a superstar on a good contract, but like nobody saw that coming. So, it just completely changes the trajectory, right? And certain situations can happen that fall into your favor that can completely change trajectory where you’re able to make a trade for a star or get a star without giving up a whole lot. And like that yawn is hypothetical would be something like that. And the thing is it always seems unrealistic. I mean, trading for Luca is the most unrealistic thing that has ever happened in sports history basically, but it changed the Lakers whole trajectory where now it’s oh, they’re building towards the future and they’re not even seemingly valuing LeBron enough and now maybe there’s a greater than 0% chance that LeBron gets traded for the first time in his career. Right? So, that’s the thing. Things happen. Things just happen. Those things never really seem to go in Portland’s way, but maybe they could. Maybe they could All right. Um, let’s see here. City of Sweet. That’s If that’s true, that’s wild. People were saying ran back to the grind. That’s kind of funny. NBA Central tweeted out my thumbnail. What? That’s crazy. NBA Central tweeting out one of my thumbnails was not something that I expected today. That’s crazy. Oh, I had a tweet. I quote tweeted uh Kevin on Twitter. He said, “It’s such a shame Damon Tobani never got to play with each other.” And I quote tweeted it and I said, “Yet on April April 10th. We love some foreshadowing.” I have a crystal ball. Actually, I have I do have a crystal ball. Okay, so when I predicted Kevin Knox, when I predicted Dame, I predicted somebody else. I forget. But I do have a crystal ball. I I need to I need to polish it off because it doesn’t fail me apparently. So, we love the crystal ball. I still don’t think Portland is done making moves. I mean, this off season is just insane. So, I’m not ruling anything out at this point. Who knows, man? Who knows? Monetize your predictions. I mean, we we got we got monetization on the live stream. Yeah. The crystal ball is actually like a the solar system. Yeah, there you go. It’s a solar system. I’m I’m a low key I’m an astronomy nerd. So that’s why astronomy nerd. I play chess. I’m I’m good with spreadsheets. I’m secretly a nerd. That’s why Eric is called Hoops jock. He’s the jock. I’m the nerd. Did you see the Bucks tweet? They look pissed. Lo, no, I did not. What buck? Their official account or just like their fans. How’s your chess elo now? I almost reached 18,000 blitz. 1,800 blitz. And now I’m down like hovering above 1,600. I’m just super streaky. Depends on if I can focus or not. Is Pluto a planet? No, it’s an exoplanet, right? No, not an exoplanet. It’s a dwarf planet. Not representing myself well there. Anyway, if you’re just tuning into the stream, it’s been a wild, wild day. It’s been a wild, wild stream. This might be my favorite stream ever. I can’t believe Dame is a Blazer again. I can’t believe it. We’re going to cover Summer League. Eric will be here soon. I’m going to bow out once Eric is here for a bit until the Summer League game starts. Actually, I don’t even know if he’ll be here before the Summer League game starts. But yeah, super excited for this move. Pluto’s neither. It’s a KBO Kyper belt object. Guess there’s bigger astronomy nerds than me. I respect it. because I did not know that you learn something new every day. Um, you did predict the norm trade. Oh, yeah. That’s what Yeah, I predicted the norm. I predict the Blazers trading Rodney Hood and who was the other salary that was attached? Was it Wade Baldwin? No, he was traded for Rodney Hood. Um, Gary Trent Jr. and I forget who the other player was, but yeah, I predicted the Gary Trent Jr. for Norman Pal trade. Bring CJ and Trenton home. Yeah, Trenton Trenton signed with the Sixers. He might play for them. They’re kind of weak at the four. I mean, we Yeah, we’re going to bring CJ home to to play the four. LMFAO trade Drew. Yeah, maybe that’s why they haven’t introduced him yet because they realized, oh, wait, we can get Damn. No, I think Drew will be here and then maybe at the deadline if they’re not in playoff position, they’ll cash in on his value and then have Dame. I just can’t believe it’s a three-year contract. Of course, it could be two years. He has a player option. So, we’re at least going to get one year of Healthy Dame, though. Bring Nick Batum back. Yeah, Nick Baton is the only player left in the NBA off that off that starting lineup with Aldridge and Wesley and Rolo. Dude, he’s retiring here 1,00%. I I’m inclined to believe so as well. It could be a player option to like opt out and make a little bit more money if he’s like returned to form. The Blazers would have early bird rights on him, which means they could sign him to 175% of his contract. Pelton, Kevin Pelton on ESPN grades the signing. Dame returns to the Trailblazers. His grade is an A minus. Nice. Says Lillard’s return to Portland is a feel-good ending to an unhappy chapter with the Milwaukee Bucks that culminated in Achilles injury and Lillard’s release with two years remaining on his contract. Given the opportunity to pick his destination as a reagent for the first time in his career, Lillard opted to go back to where he starred over his first 11 NBA seasons and where his family and children still reside. In basketball terms, Lillard will be an interesting fit for a Blazers team that found a new identity without him during the second half of last season. Portland acquired Tammani Kamara as part of the Lillard deal and turned the players and picks acquired from the trade into Denny Odia, the two leading contributors to the Blazers going 23 and 18 in the second half of last season. Now Portland has both Drew Holiday and Lillard along with the young talent those trades produced with more Milwaukee first round picks and swaps still to convey. Given the timing of his Achilles rupture in late April, it’s unlikely Lillard will play a significant role for the Blazers this season. No NBA player since J.J. Berea in 2019 has returned from an Achilles rupture faster than 10 and a half months after the injury. A timetable that would put Lillard back in mid-March at the earliest. Still after striking a buyout with center DeAndre Atron. Still after striking a buyout with center DeAndre Aton, another part of the Lulard I can’t talk. Lillard deal on the eve of free agency. Portland could afford to use its non-t taxpayer mid-level exception to pay Lillard on top of his 54 million guaranteed salary from the Bucks without going into the tax. This deal was really about having Lillard back for 2026 to 2027 when a healthy version would have potentially commanded more than the 14 million the Blazers will pay him. Mhm. By then, Portland should have a better idea of how its back court shakes out. The Simons trade should create more on ball opportunities for Scoot Henderson during his third season, while the Blazers will know how much Holiday has left in the tank and the long-term future of shooting guard Shaden Sharp. Sharp can be a restricted free agent next summer if he doesn’t agree to an extension before the start of this season. This is exactly what I’ve been saying. Exactly what I’ve been saying. Kevin Pelton echoing my sentiments. I like that. It’s good. It’s validating. There’s still work for Portland to do, particularly if the team wants to be a player in for agency next summer. With older salary on the books, plus a $25.2 million cap hold for Sharp, the Blazers might be better off staying over the cap as things stand. Portland can get out of the final two years of veteran forward Jeremy Grant’s contract. However, it’s possible the Blazers could open cap space for a run at another contributor. This is interesting. Like say they got off Grant’s contract, got off Grant’s contract for expiring somehow and then let’s say they cashed and Drew for maybe a pick and expiring at the deadline. The Blazers could have max cap space next off season with Scoot and Sharp and Tamati and Denny and Klingan and Yong. And damn, of course that could be another play. There’s just options. There’s just options going forward. I mean, it’s a tough option to pursue with Jeremy Grant’s contract on the books. That’s why it’s a problem. Do you feel like part of the conditions for Dames return was moving Eighton? Not on Dame’s end. They needed to buy out Aton to open up the Fulman level exception that they used to sign Dame. Yong/Cllingan could both start if we trade Grant. They can’t play next to each other. Chanty’s basically said as much. They’re both drop bigs. They’re not perimeter defenders. Also, you’re starting Offia and Kamar at the forward spots. I want to hear the calls between the front office and Dame. Yeah. to be a fly on the wall during Dame and Joe Cronin’s meetings. The Dame saga with 2023 to now needs to be turned into a 30 for30 like where it just goes into depth on what these conversations really were like because it’s I’m so curious and it’s fascinating the way this has played out. If you’re new to the channel, hit the subscribe button. We do postgame shows all season long. After every Blazer game, we go in depth. We break things down. We have a lot of fun. We’ll also do mock drafts during postgame shows, big boards, trade ideas. We’ll react to your trade ideas. We’ll take calls, all sorts of stuff. So, it’s a fun time. And it’s going to be a fun time this year with this team. hopefully be in a playing team at least. Also planning on dropping more video content this upcoming year. What was I going to look up? Oh, I was going to go to ESPN and see if this was their top their top story and it’s not which is annoying. At least it’s not on their website right now. Mount Hood, I get your point, but I mean, Yong has has star upside. If he does pan out, it could be a genius pick and it’ be something that I was wrong on at the time. So, at this point, it’s kind of just like, let’s see it play out. But I I understand I understand the opinion 100%. Best blister offseason I can remember. Yeah, it’s it’s been a made it a really good offseason. Before this is kind of like questionable. Fun piece says I like having two bigus better. Yeah, I mean you hope that one of them separates themselves. I mean if they’re both just solid though, it’s like they can’t play together. So, Bill Orum of the Oregonian had an article before Shams broke the signing. Had an article at 2:15 and Shams broke the broke the news at 218. And it was basically about um the Blazers are moving towards a stunning reunion with Damen Lillard and Zack Low or Bill Orum had a tweet at 213 as well. So they were kind of on it before Shams. This the this first local Portland guy to to actually kind of break something interesting. Zack Low had a tweet at 212. Anyway, Dame said he would be back. Yeah, he did, man. Yeah, he did. Now we have an all-star again on our team. Cool. Yeah. And we have a guy that was an all-star two seasons ago. We finally got the stars we need. He’s just kind of old. I really wish the fire will draft Juju Watkins. Isn’t she going to be like the number one pick next year? And won’t as an expansion team, won’t they have like the fifth pick by default? Multigun says, “Dame coming back. Yong, new ownership. Maybe a new arena or massively renovated MOA center.” They’re Yeah, they’re already making some res renovations. Um, I mean that might turn Portland into a media darling for a few years at minimum. Yeah, I I’m never gonna expect Portland to be a media darling just because the media just Boston and LA. Like LeBron would have to be here basically. But um, Demani, yeah, normally expansion teams get a pick like in the middle part of like the lottery in the NBA or like I think it was fifth in the WNBA. I’m not sure, but normally they don’t get a chance at the number one pick. They’re talking about Dame now on Summer League with Bobby Marks on ESPN. Yeah, we’ll tune in. Yeah, I don’t know where. Yes, ESPN. Yeah, they’re just covering the game. Anyway, hopefully Eric will be here soon. I have so much energy to start this stream in to start the stream. I’ll see if we have more good Q&A questions to answer. The the narrative that this is a Cronin masterpiece is kind of bothering me. He’s paid market rate zero for 28 for the guaranteed years. I don’t really understand that. Um for a guy that wanted to come home, that’s not KISS and makeup money, is it? I don’t really understand understand the uh the question. Who’s the next guy the Blazers should target? I mean, I still would be interested in trading for Kissird or just any shooter, especially one that could play the three. Like, I would trade Thyball for Kispird if it’s possible. If they just want an expiring because they seem to be valuing expiring contracts. They have Middleton, Smarts, and CJ McCollums. So, how hard do we finesse Milwaukee in the Dame trade? I mean, it’s a pretty good trade. It’s about the trade that you should get back for Dame, though. Like low key, it’s a player coming off a season where he averaged 32 and eight. So I don’t want to sit here and say like, “Oh, we absolutely finessed him.” Like it it was a good trade, especially considering it was a tough position for Joe to get value out of it. Whether you feel like that’s Joe’s fault or whoever’s fault, like I don’t blame you for feeling either way. What was your most memorable memorable day moment? I was there at his first playoff winning buzzer beater in 2014 against the Houston Rockets. That was one of the best moments of my life. That was insane. Um, that was the first playoff series I ever saw them win. I mean, 2019 was super special, too, but I wasn’t at that game. Uh, but like both those moments, of course. Blaze4825 with a $5 donation. Thank you, Blaze. Says, “All I can say, the prodigal son has returned. I’m still flabbergasted how we managed to pull this off. It still doesn’t feel real, man. Like, whenever a big move happens, I feel like I never get a chance to fully digest it until I’m done with the stream for it.” Because when a big move happens, like, “Oh my goodness, got to go live. Got to make a thumbnail. Got to make a stream. Got to go live.” And then I go live, talk about it, analyze it, but it’s, you know, read and chat. It’s fast moving. And then afterwards, generally, I’ll just kick back on the couch, relax, scroll on Twitter, just see all the reactions. That’s when it kind of sets in for me. So, I’m looking forward to uh to doing that here um in a second. But we’ll uh we’ll probably make a new stream for summer league. I probably need to prep that. So yeah, I need to prep that and then man, it’s going to be a late This is going to be a late night for me. Late night for me. Chat, let us know your favorite dame moments. I think we did that when he finally got traded. We had chat do that. Now we’re doing it cuz he’s back, man. Cuz he’s back. If you need to go, it’s okay. I um so like this happened in the middle of my workday. I was in a call with my business partner and he was just like, “Go live. Go live.” This has been a busy work day for me though. So I’m basically just going to be doing a bunch of stuff tonight. So, it’s going to be uh not much sleep for me tonight, but it’s worth it. It’s worth it. Like, I’m going to wake up excited tomorrow. You know what I mean? Even if I’m on three hours of sleep, four hours of sleep. It’s what I live for, man. Blazer game might start early. The one before it is almost over. Wow. The one time a game starts early. I mean, I gotta go at like I gotta go like 5:40 Pacific. So, Demani says, “Jason, I went to that game to the Paul George shot.” Yeah, that would have been super cool to be too. 100%. Him crashing out after that one go Bear goend in 2020. Yeah, you can find the stream for that, by the way. That’s the thing is anything 2020 and beyond, you can find a postgame stream for any game. It’s kind of cool sometimes to go back into the archives and go back in time. Hey Daniel Barry, sports highlights. Happy Thursday to you as well. Tori, don’t burn yourself out. I said this is a person who’s done it. You’ve got a whole season to prepare for. Go Blazers. I am I am so far away from burnout right now. Like honestly, I’ve been I’ve been having a good month of July. I’ve been having a good month of July. I’ve been enjoying enjoying my month of July. Um both with the channel with with just like everything in my life. I’m having a good month. This just made it a great month. So yeah, I’m not I’m not worried about burning out. I can manage burnout. There’s times I definitely do get burnt out. Like free agency week draft week was insane, but I grind through it. I’ve always been the type of person to to just figure it out, grind through it. Appreciate you, Sam. Smoke a bull. I I don’t smoke. I rarely drink. I don’t want to rely on I don’t want to rely on substances or anything to like make me feel the way I want to feel. Does that make sense? So, don’t drink and go live. We’ll do more shot nights on postgame shows. Jordan Hutcherson says, “I just got up in Australia.” What? What’s up, Jordan? Yes, it’s real. It’s so real. Are the Blazers hardcapped after this? Yes, but like who who cares? They’re not going to go into the tax anyway. And the hard cap is 7 million past attacks. I love seeing somebody just find out, man, and just go through all the all the uh joy of it. Are we in the apron? No. Like, we’re hardcapped at the first apron. So, there’s a luxury tax line. The boys aren’t going to go into the tax. It’s likeund 809 million or something like that. 188 million in salary. Then there’s the first apron which is at $197 million of salary. And when you use the fullman level exception, your salary can’t go past that mark. But considering the Blazers are still not in the tax and weren’t going to go into the tax, they weren’t going to get their salary past 188 million regardless this season. Being hardcapped at 197 million doesn’t matter. We use the MLE on Dame. That is We use the MLE. That’s the biggest miracle. We used the MLE. Shout out Joe Cronin. Joe Cronin a couple days ago. I’m joking, okay? So, cronies, don’t get mad at me, okay? But Joe Cronin a couple days ago, looked up uh looked up the CBA and then discovered a section called mid-level exception. had one of his assistants read into it, explained what it was, like, “Oh, we can sign a player for $14 million. All right.” Calls up Dame. Dame, we can we can sign you. We have this thing called a mid-level exception. Dame’s like, “Yeah, of course. Bring me home.” It’s probably how it went down. He asked chat GPT. That’s a better story. You saw people on Twitter talking about an MLE ass chat GPT what it meant. Then he was like, “Oh yeah, that’s how I that’s how I signed GP2 weeks. completely forgot how I signed him because he was injured and then he said he only came here for the money and then he didn’t want to play and then he wanted to go back to Golden State and then Tordal. You never want a sequence of events to end with and then Toridal. It’s not good. Finally. Finally, AI does something good. He won’t play, but he’s going to be coaching these guys. Where’s that tweet I had, man? Where’s that tweet I had? I need to retweet it when I can’t find my own tweets, man. I know some of y’all hated Aiden. Yeah, but Aiden gave us the cap space to bring back Dave. Nice job, DA. Yeah, he gave up 10 million. That’s the best thing DA’s ever done. Selfless. Shout out to Da. All right, I’m almost at 4,000 Twitter followers. Just go follow my Twitter link in description so you can see what I predict next. It’s going to be interesting to go back and watch the should the Blazers bring back Dave Lillard stream that I had on July 2nd. The thing is is oftentimes I don’t remember a lot of streams. I don’t even remember that stream really at all. Um, shout out to Nathan who gifted five memberships. Thank you Nathan. The memberships will be gifted to Secular Monk, TruthSpeak 503, Daniel G, Drow, and Beast Gorilla. Shout out to you guys for receiving memberships courtesy of Nathan. Shout out to Nathan. Thank you, Nathan. Oh. Oh my goodness. So, I had this tweet. I remember this. I had this tweet on July 1st, the day Dame got bought out. I said, “The Blazers need to do this. Imagine having Dame as an offensive mentor and Drew as a defensive mentor and Chanty as head coach. That’s the best guard mentorship trio in NBA history. This one I tweeted on uh July 1st. I had a response that said, “Quit playing checkers, bro. We need the open roster spot this year to facilitate more moves.” As if Joe Cronin is going to trade Jeremy Grant. He’s not. Um and I quote tweeted that. I said, “I don’t play checkers, bro.” And I had a screenshot of my my chess.com rating. And it’s it’s just funny. It’s just funny that it came true. That’s crazy. What is one area of astronomy that you find most interesting? Oh, just the hunt for extra terrestrial life. Exoplanets. Tori, you were right all this time that Dame would come back. I just a part of me had faith, man. A part of me had faith. And I didn’t know if that was like a delusionally optimistic part of me or or what. Demani, that’s possible. Well, also there’s the there’s the Jupiter moon that what in Claudius, however you say it, that has the ocean underneath the ice that they’re going to send a probe to in a few years. Kevin H says, “Why not? His career is done. Might as well be with his family.” Whose career is done? Kevin H. Are you KYDX on Twitter? That’s my question because I always think you are but I feel like he wouldn’t have that take Aiden. I’m not I’m not sure. Tori, in a world where the Blazers win the title in three years, what role would Dame play? He’d play the role of recruiting Yiannis. Kevin H says, “I’m not.” Okay. Well, that makes more sense now because if you if you think his career is done, man. All right. All right. Damon’s been doubted a lot and a every time it’s wrong. So, go ahead. Go ahead and doubt him. Eric said I’ll be here in a minute. I love it. Yeah. So, I tweeted out NBAs Central tweeting out my thumbnail was not something was not something I expected out of today. I had a typo, of course. I love typoing in tweets. Somebody responded, “How they even get it that fast?” I don’t know. I don’t I don’t know where they I don’t know how they found my thumbnail, man. What’s up, Connor? What’s up, Connor? Shout out to Eric. Why do you say that? Um, and shout out to Connor. He’s going through flight school. If he found out that the Blazers got Dame back while he was flying, he probably would have crashed his plane. So glad he’s here with us right now. It’s the third Google result when you search Scoot and Dame. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Shout out to Google then. Shout out to Google. Then I’m going to have to put a collab cam on this scene. My computer might hate me for a second. It’s slower. Oh, I guess we have to do a summer league watch party, so I might as well just switch it. Well, no. I’m going to make a new stream. Going to make a new stream. Thank you guys for watching. We’ll get Eric thoughts Eric’s thoughts on the Dame thing with the Summer League watch party that we’re going to boot up right now on a separate stream. Okay? So, make sure you turn tune in to that to get Eric’s thoughts and also watch the summer league game with us. And we’ll be back in like five minutes, 10 minutes because it’s probably starting right now. I heard it was going to start early. So, I I literally completely forgot about that. Um, so yeah, we’ll we’ll boot that up. Just stay on the lookout for the link. And I appreciate you guys uh hanging out with us for what has been just an amazing amazing stream. Amazing amazing stream. I can’t believe Dame’s back. This is surreal. This is surreal. So, you’re just tuning in. Just tune back in in five minutes. We’ll get Eric’s on the Dame thing. We’ll have a summer stream for you guys. This is awesome. This is awesome. We’re I’m out of here for for a few minutes. Dame’s a blazer again. Can’t believe I’m saying those words. Until next time, as always, peace out. Go Blazers.

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