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Dame Time

If we had Donovan now the convo would be how he is leaving in two years

Absolutely. Hell, if we kept him and ended up in a play-in game he would likely demand a trade after this season then we get less because he has two years on his contract instead of three.
 
I agree shooting helps age (Steph is 34, Korver played well past age 35, etc.), but Paying a 36 year old $60MM will take away flexibility. If it put us in contention for a chip, then I'd do it, but I don't think Dame gets us there).

As far as the Chris Paul comparison, his defense has dropped a lot, but he plays really smart, and his elite passing, handle and midrange has sustained him, Dame does shoot better, but is not as good in the mid range or as good of a passer as CP3. And CP3 is making $30MM per, not $60mm! That is a big chunk of cap.

If dame was at $35MM per, I'd think it was great as they'd still have flexibility to get other pieces. $60MM makes it hard to retain current players and acquire new ones and he may be hard to trade for anything (think Conley).

That said, I would have preferred to pay CP3 $30MM a year vs Conley at $21MM.
 
We will never know everything. What we do know is that Donovan linked up with Coach Hardy AFTER the Rudy trade BEFORE Don was traded. I don't think he does that if he was pushing his way out. But we will never know everything.

Kessler and Mitchell while Kessler is making his current salary is a major difference. Kessler is part of a center rotation and not the entire center rotation in a system built around a limited center.

We should have never traded Donovan Mitchell without trying to build around him first. It will go down as one of the biggest mistakes in franchise history. I like Lauri and all, but we never even tried to build around Donovan Mitchell. Ever.

I say that in light of the fact that we are discussing Dame Lillard. Donovan Mitchell is better in every single way (age, ability, etc.).
There isn’t one thing Dame does better?

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I’m still not sure we’d have the resources to build a contender. A true contender. We were a contender two years ago just not a strong one.
 
This. It would've been constant drama and a team that wasn't fun to watch, just like last season.
If you mean drama in the locker room no, but as far as us wondering if Mitchell will eventually leave, yes but other than Stockton and Malone there has been drama for every star we’ve had. So not a big deal.
 
I agree shooting helps age (Steph is 34, Korver played well past age 35, etc.), but Paying a 36 year old $60MM will take away flexibility. If it put us in contention for a chip, then I'd do it, but I don't think Dame gets us there).

As far as the Chris Paul comparison, his defense has dropped a lot, but he plays really smart, and his elite passing, handle and midrange has sustained him, Dame does shoot better, but is not as good in the mid range or as good of a passer as CP3. And CP3 is making $30MM per, not $60mm! That is a big chunk of cap.

If dame was at $35MM per, I'd think it was great as they'd still have flexibility to get other pieces. $60MM makes it hard to retain current players and acquire new ones and he may be hard to trade for anything (think Conley).

That said, I would have preferred to pay CP3 $30MM a year vs Conley at $21MM.
A lot of good points. The league is so flat I am not sure who is a "contender" these days. It would also depend on what else we can put around him and the development of Kessler.

I'm probably less concerned with the contract than I should be... the rising cap helps a lot... I also would want the LARGE contract price to be one of the determining factors of the value given up. If he made say 35-40M we'd surely be giving up a lot more in assets to get him. If the bidding got higher than 3 firsts I'd probably have to walk away.

I also think the factor of "this is a star that would want to be here" is really alluring and would make me look past some warts or red flags (that maybe I shouldn't).
 
I love Dame but trading for him doesn't make a ton of sense. He's likely going to cost at least 4 unprotected FRPs plus all of our young talent outside of Kessler. So we'd have less draft capital to work with and essentially no talent on the roster outside of Dame/Lauri/Kessler which is definitely a very good trio but probably caps out as like the 3rd/4th best team in the West and wouldn't be a real contender.

If we were a Dame away from contention, screw it. But he's 33 years old and there's not a realistic path to contention with him, his contract also could look historically bad when he's 35/36 years old making $60M.
 
What do the Bucks and Lakers have to offer though? One pick ain't getting it done. LA moving AD to bring in Dame would be surprising to me... i think it would be their only avenue.

IF Dame did want out I think the Heat, Knicks, Nets, GS (maybe), NOP would be the most likely suitors that would have enough stuff to offer. Fitting that large of a contract is also going to be challenging.

I get the timeline thing though. I just don't know if there is any really great strategy there with how much player movement and things go on nowadays. Not sure you can build with a 5-10 year timeline anymore.
The Celtics could offer a package built around Smart, Time Lord, and picks or around Jaylen Brown + picks although I doubt they'd offer that.
 
No, we shouldn’t have. I would take Markkanen over Mitchell right now all things considered. Plus you add the fact we got Sexton, Agbaji, 3 firsts and 2 pick swaps all unprotected it’s not particularly close.
And that's why we will likely always be in the treadmill of mediocrity.

Markkenanen is a great guy and good player, but he isn't taking us anywhere. He's a 3rd option on a title team but we have to build around him like he's a #1 or #2.

We cleaned up on the Rudy deal and should have built around Don from there. We panicked and put all our chips into the draft basket.

It's quite likely that the Cleveland picks will never even be lower than #20, and just do some research on what picks #20+ end up being.
 
Not convinced there’s any chance of it happening or if it’s the right step to take, but man how cool would it be to see Dame in a Jazz jersey. He’d be the biggest star we’ve had since Malone and a universally loved one at that.
 
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