Making Sense Of The Massive Damian Lillard Trade And What It Means For Everyone Involved
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HOOOLLLLLYYYYYY SHITTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!
It happened! It finally happened! Our national Dame trade nightmare is over and WOW. You wanted fireworks? This my friends is fireworks and then some. There's a lot of information coming out right now as I blog this in real time, so let's try and make sense of what just happened.
First off, what a fumble by Pat Riley and the Miami Heat. No other way to say it. They had Dame BEGGING to come to MIA and the Heat for whatever reason thought there was no other possible option so they never put their best offer on the table. Whoops! Not only was there another offer out there, but it's your direct competitor in the East. That's a tough look. He tried to call the Blazers' bluff and it ultimately blew up in his face. You can add Dame to the long list of stars who the Heat never seem to be able to bring in, and add in the fact that they lost Gabe Vincent this summer, their starting point guard is a very old Kyle Lowry.
Alright, now let's talk about the Bucks.
I think it's safe to say THIS is the exact win now trade that Giannis was pressuring the Bucks to make. This tells me the team probably wasn't thrilled about the potential of paying Jrue Holiday his next extension, so they cashed that asset in. Who cares about the rest of what they gave up, they just brought in DAMIAN LILLARD to play next to Giannis. Given Holiday's offensive shortcomings in the postseason, I'd say this is a pretty legit upgrade. You may lose something defensively but you still have Giannis/Lopez etc for that.
Next up we have the Blazers. The picks aren't all that great but landing Holiday and Ayton (who is signed long term) is certainly not a terrible return. It's certainly better than whatever the Heat were willing to offer. You can always flip Holiday to a contender at the deadline or something. At least now you have a young center to pair with your young perimeter players as you prepare for your rebuild.
Now the Suns confuse me a little bit. Maybe they were just done with Ayton at any cost, but I don't really see the appeal of that roster swapping Ayton for Nurkic. I guess the appeal was additional wing depth? I dunno, but Nurkic's rim protection bump doesn't really make up for the fact that he cannot play in space, he's too slow. What good is rim protection if you can't stay on the floor? I guess maybe they think he could be a better P&R option as well, and given the Suns outrageous cap sheet they basically turned one guy into a couple cheaper contracts which does make some sense. I just don't think Nurkic is better at basketball than Ayton.
OK, my head is spinning a little at the moment as we wait for more details. After all this time we finally have our solution to the Dame drama, and it's something that I don't think ANYONE saw coming.
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THIS LEAGUE amirite?