The Dagger: Dame Out
I’m feeling a lot of emotions right now after news of Damian Lillard’s trade request from the Portland Portland Trail Blazers.
Anger. Proudness. Relief. Sadness. Disbelief. Disappointment. Joy.
What can I say? I’m not him. I’m just a fan. And as someone who’s on the outside looking in, he looks tired.
He’s sick of mediocrity. He’s sick of wasting his best years. He’s going nowhere, doing nothing and losing.
He’s a winner. Winners want to win. Here we are in year entering year 11 and all the Blazers front office have added to the roster is Scoot Henderson.
Scoot is nice but he doesn’t make them championship contenders next year. Play-in, at best.
The Blazers re-signed Jerami Grant. Hooray.
I’ve seen enough. Grant’s not a team’s second-best player, a cornerstone. Yet, he was paid cornerstone money yesterday– five years, $160 million.
Dame’s seen enough. The rumors are over. He’s done. After Portland gave another rotation player big dollars, he’s done. If he wants to win, he’s got to go.
The Miami Heat and Brooklyn Nets – his top destinations – aren’t legacy-damaging moves. Both teams need help to get over the hump.
The hump for Brooklyn is the Eastern Conference Finals. It has some dogs in Mikal Bridges, Patty Mills, Cam Johnson, Spencer Dinwiddie, Nic Claxton and Dorian Finney-Smith. Dame can work with that. Granted, they would lose some of those guys to get Dame but keeping the core of Dinwiddie, Bridges, Claxton and Dame would be special.
The hump with Miami is a championship. Its title chances would improve significantly. Give up whoever as long as you keep Jimmy Butler, Dame and Bam Adebayo together.
It’s time to start winning. It’s time to start competing for titles.
A part of me is saddened that he didn’t figure it out. That he didn’t try to get the best out of the team Portland put around him. Maybe he did. Ten seasons says that he did, right?
I’d like to think he did. I’d like to think like Jordan, he’d figured out how to find the best versions of his personnel and win.
Maybe he never did or wants to do that. Would I have after 10 seasons? My heart says yes, but I’m not him. He’s not Jordan.
I didn’t have to go through 10 seasons of no Finals appearances. He didn’t have a Phil Jackson or a Scottie Pippen.
A part of me is disappointed because he squandered the Blazer’s best years to win a championship. The years when Anthony Davis and the Pelicans and the KD-less Warrior swept them. He had chances. They had chances. He wasted them. It sounds like he’s running.
Maybe he knows that and regrets that. Maybe he realizes if he had a chance to do it all over again, he would’ve capitalized on those opportunities. If he had, maybe he wouldn’t be trying to force his way out now.
No time for regrets. It is what it is. This team is what it is: Not a winner.
Dame, now with a fresh set of eyes and an understanding of making every moment count sees that this team is not a winner. He needs a winner. He needs to win. I can’t be mad.
It’s time to go.