Portland Trail Blazers Trade For Ja Morant | Why Did They Do It and What Comes Next?

1. Bless up Locked On Blazers Nation

2. how does this stink of new owner stuff?? lol

3. Was draftin Yang Hansen new owner stuff??

4. What forwards should the Blazers target to build around Ja, Deni and Dame?

5. After having found out how valuable Deni is with the ball in his hands, what's going to happen with that with the Blazers adding two players, Dame and Ja who need the ball to be most effective?

6. The choices for second-best players that you could potentially trade a Grant & Murray for are:
   Trae Young, Darius Garland, James Harden, Khris Middleton

7. too many guards now? who gets the minutes?

8. We need one more guard

9. Derrick Rose came back and had a solid career after he lost his explosiveness. Ja could do the same. I am not a fan of his antics on the court.

10. Jaylen Brown is next.

11. This opens up a roster spot for Thanasis

12. How about giving Caleb Love a contract, He deserves one!

13. Sion is next

14. Oops, All Guards…..again.

15. The trade seems like:
    – Jerami and Kris were replaceable level forwards
    – They got an incredibly high upside player for minimal cost
    – The FO must have faith that the forward and Center depth can be solved in FA or more trade, with possibly using another guard as an asset.

16. Sidy is going to get some good minutes. I like his game.

17. Other than dame we've got no 3PT
    Now everyone needs the ball in their hands, and even less spacing
    If Ja stays it's a horrible trade

18. Pain.

19. Hello. First of all. Love your channel. Thank you for everything. Huge Avdija fan out of israel here. Been following him since he was 17. What does it mean for him? What does the blazers think qbout him? He is not their franchise player???

20. Lol at the bins. So Portland😂

21. Just don't show him the gun shops in town😂

22. How many people will post "The Jail Blazers are back?
    2.5 over/under

23. If there is likely a step 2, then the price is vicariously more than just grant and murray. It’s actually more with the necessary trade of a guard or guards in scoot, sharpe or Jrue.

24. Puke

25. Morant will destroy this team . Will destroy chemistry take minutes of young players this is the worst possible move . No team would take him for free even with draft compensation. Idiotic management

26. My problem with Ja has nothing to do with his talent…

27. How does this work?
    Even without his off court issues.
    He can't shoot from 3. (So he can't space the offense)
    He's another ball hog (so he takes the ball away from Deni and Dame)
    And he takes minutes away from Scoot/Jrue/Sharpe.

    With all of Grant's issues at least he helped mitigate some of those issues.

28. Not gonna work. Ja and Dame cant guard.

29. I remember listening to Locked on Blazers last off season and the general dialogue was “what does the roster or rotation look like now the dame is back? We will have to just figure that out next year”. The same question exists but I feel like it has now double downed on the uncertainty and confusion.

30. This is setting up another trade.

31. We should trade all non-guard players

32. Superteam Ja Dame Deni Camara Clingan and either Brown or Murphy

33. I agree with most of your takes, but I can't get behind this guarantee that Dame is gonna start. I'm not saying that I think he's NOT gonna start. I would bet he does. However, we literally have NO idea how he's gonna look upon return. We have no examples of NBA players who tore their achilles at that age & returned to anything more than a shell of their former self, w/ awful scoring efficiency.

    That said, multiple things are in Dame's favor. He is extremely driven, his game doesn't rely heavily on athleticism, & medical advancements to recover from this are better than ever.

    I'm JS though… If he happened to come back from this looking like post-achilles Kobe w/ like a 47.5% TS%, he would not be the starter. Or he would at least lose his starting job during the season, after it's clear that is what he is. Again, I don't expect that to happen… But it still absolutely IS possible that Dame returns & simply is not our best option as a starter. Anyone pretending that this is an impossible outcome is full of it, period. It is just yet to be seen that he will return to starting material. The 3 point contest is an encouraging sign, but doesn't prove anything in terms of actual game play.

34. Getting a Ja talent for a journeyman Jerami and a throw in Murray sounds pretty good but as a team fit, I think we just got worse. We lost a 40% 3point shooter on a bad three point shooting team and is 6’8 and can play some defense for a guy who shot like 23% last year from 3 and who doesn’t play defense and is only 6’2. Hope he can come close to his glory days or we’re in trouble.

35. I am also completely unbothered by Ja Morant's Instagram. I'm far more concerned with the fact that he now seems to be one of the very worst players in the entire NBA.

36. Biggest upside for Ja right now is that he may have a Marbury-like career in China, if he's lucky.

37. They may be thinking about another rebirthing star,
    Maybe like the Deni Abdiya deal…

38. I mean let’s be honest, it’s a miracle they got rid of JG without giving up a pick as well. I would love to know how many deals Cronin has proposed with him it and been hung up on over the years. I don’t think they do much more here this offseason trade wise because those picks are gold coming up here. By 28-29 Deni, Dame, Scoot (RFA), Ja, Jrue will all be UFA. Know that some will be moved or extended by then but food for thought.

39. We suffered a lot of injuries last year.When deni and shaedon and scoot went down we didn’t have any creators.Ja is a dude that can crest his own shot.There may be times dame is out or deni is out and Ja has to be the creator. And kawhi kd Murphy and brown are still out there to trade for.

40. Someone call the cops, Feds, Ice … We got robbed.

    -Grizzly fan 🥺😡🤬

41. The next step is trading for Paolo Banchero. it makes sense and doable. It would be a big swing. Probably need to send 2 firsts and a swap. Jrue, Time Lord and Scoot or Sharpe.

42. Second best player…Zion?

43. Come home Tony snell

44. Bless up JAH Nation {Psalm 68}

45. I'm personally pissed off at this so freaking much. I cannot stand Ja, and there are ENDLESS reasons this is a HORRIBLE trade, not at all a positive trade. This feels like such a Neil Olshey type of move too, which does not help my feelings about it. But you may not be concerned or care about Ja's "social media decisions", or his clear ego, mentality issues, and horrific decision making, but that is easily the biggest, most negatively impactful reasoning as to why keeping him here is just not okay. He publicly slanders and fights with his own coaches because he also doesn't get whatever he wants? That's seriously not a concern, huh? Because that's just it – it is not merely some brandishing on social media bad decisions he makes, he's proven relentlessly he makes these exact decision OVER AND OVER AND OVER again in every part of his life on and off the court. And the influence he'll have on the young guys on the team and fans by setting the same example he did in Memphis cannot be understated. He is the postchild of a locker room cancer.

    That said, another major issue – we now have 6 dudes who are ball dominant and need the ball in their hands to play well – Ja, Dame, Jrue, Scoot, Shae and Deni. WTF are we doing, man? Like seriously! Also, Ja's contract is brutal for the horrid "value" he "gives". He's now injury prone too. Like again, what in the flying f**k are we doing here man? I said this in my own reaction I did live, but I genuinely would prefer to have traded for Zion over Ja if I were forced into picking between them. For all of the endless issues Zion has and brings to the team, if I'm picking, it's Zion every single time, without hesitation. And they're both horrific players to trade for if you're actually intending to keep them here and play them.

    There is always the chance Joe brought Ja in for cheap not to keep on the roster, but to instead use in another trade instead. I talked about it on my own reaction stream, but I genuinely do NOT believe for a second at all the Celtics want Ja at all. It is NOT at all the kind of player and move Brad Stevens would make, and Ja does NOT fit their culture either. Sure, the Blazers are supposedly determined to obtain JB, while Brad apparently wants to send him off too, and perhaps the negotiations with them haven't been enough to get him here. So theoretically, the Blazers may be looking to send him there to sweet the pot, but again, I guarantee Brad wants nothing to do with Ja. Hell, Joe Mazzula does not have a system or philosophy which fits with Ja either. So… who the hell would they even trade him for?
    And of course another issue here is that Memphis accepted the Blazers offer exactly because it was the best offer they had. They really wanted to hold out to make a trade with Miami, but they went for Giannis, and that made a trade with them no longer possible for them. We had the best return for Ja. HOWEVER THIS ALSO PROVES that Memphis wanted Ja gone that badly.
    It also shows how bottomed out the trust in Ja and his value is right now across the league, and justifiably so. Nobody really wants him, exactly because the risk is so incredibly high that it just is not at all worth the risk to try to bring him in and work on him psychologically (the latter of which HAS to be done).

    Obviously Ja also does NOT fit with the rest of the guys who are going to get minutes in the rotations on this roster. Not even close.

    Can I reiterate how expensive contract wise he is too?

    The list genuinely could go on and on with why this is HORRIBLE for the Blazers, not good. As I stated this morning in the comments on a previous episode of the pod, yes taking risks and making a big move is good and nice to do, however the risks HAVE to be balanced, they CANNOT EVER be swing for the fences, because doing that long term does NOTHING for you, and hurts you in the long term as a team. It's just plain moronic.

    As someone who is passionately into the cerebral coaching and GM side of basketball, and has a highly analytical mind, nothing about this makes a lick of logical sense. If that makes me someone who "doesn't know ball" and thus is "wrong" to most people, that's cool, I'll proudly die on my hill with this.

46. Reppin CR Chieftains, nice

47. Flashy video game highlights as a consolation for not scoring more points than the other team. Well, at least we got rid of Grant's terrible contract and Murray's terrible game. Thanks for the early release of this episode!

48. Getting rid of Murray and especially Grant is worth the trade. Ja, Scoot, Lillard, and Drew as your point guards. Two have to go, probably packaged with Shaedon. Deni is a point forward that needs the ball as well.

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