That squad with LaMarcus, Wesley, and Batum felt like it was solid and they could’ve done better. LaMarcus isn’t talked about enough, he was so nice.

Nope. Garnett

That Nurk injury really fucked them in 2019. That was a good ass team, wonder how they would have looked in the playoffs with a healthy Nurk

Edit: I remember the ref kicking his fractured leg and just squirming

Carmelo Anthony Knicks is worse. Amar’e is paid more at times and plays 10 games a season and his second best player is either young JR Smith or Raymond Felton.

2016, we paid Meyers Leonard, Allen Crabbe, and Evan fucking Turner. Absolute malpractice. I can’t imagine what happens if Dame had OG, Mikal, and KAT the way Brunson does.

Imagine we sell the farm with the #3 pick and Shaedon Sharpe, there’s a real world where we get OG and Siakam instead of shipping our guy to the Bucks, and we spend the last few years of Dame’s prime with the best Blazers roster in 30 years. Fuck Masai for dragging his feet on their rebuild, dude was so desperate to win all of his trades and ended up with terrible packages for those guys.

Bernard King and Dominique Wilkins had worst supporting mates

To many fans, John Wall probably doesn’t count as a superstar, but Washington’s roster construction was awful during the same time period.

I think not.

2006-07 Minnesota Timberwolves

The bubble year should have been the last year of that iteration of the team. I get maybe running it back after 2019 since they made the WCF and the Warriors were injured but CJ should have been traded after 2020. Instead we got Dame dropping 55 in a loss

I’ve come to terms with the fact that after the warriors in 2015, no team actually knew how to build a team anymore. “Oh good we got more shooting guards. is that enough? do we need size too? what’s a center?” etc.

Go look at KG in the early 2000s or even TMac on the Magic. Absolutely brutal. I feel like the blazers continuously tried to get Dame solid pieces the main problem was they took too long to jump off the CJ and Dame backcourt.

I can tell you are sick to your stomach writing this, I’m crying 😭

Generational scorer is kind of silly to say when you’ve got a contemporary like Steph who’s a better offensive player than him in almost every way.

Damian Lillard is probably the only star in the nba who doesn’t have it count against him for playing no defense and not winning. Maybe other stars should think about hiring his PR team.

As a lakers fan, no opposing player scared me in the clutch as much as prime Dame did

We’re using the word “superstar” pretty loosely here, dont you think?

Lillard was great, but you’re misusing the term ‘generational.’ He wasn’t that. 

Lillard only knew hero ball

Pete Maravich would like a word.

See Mitch Richmond and the Kings

for what it’s worth, the first half of the guard duo overperformed imo. 51 wins, 1st in division in 2015; second round exit as the 5th seed (beat the 53 win clippers in 6), with CJ going from a 6ppg scorer in 2015 to 20 ppg in 2016, winning the MIP (lol Steph was also in the discussion for MIP somehow). Then CJ signed his extension. Had it not been for Lamarcus leaving, that team is legit and prob doesn’t get swept in 2017 by the dubs.

CJ had to be extended that season, he was the MIP. They went to the playoffs until like 2021. Dame, while a superstar in his prime, was never gonna be an MVP caliber player.

Damian Lillard PR team on overtime huh. Dude was a first round merchant lmao look at dude stats after the 1st rd. This dude just Portland version of Tmac that at least got out of the 1st rd

So many opportunities to move off McCollum and pair Dame with an All NBA forward like Paul George, Jimmy Butler, KD, Kawhi, Anthony Davis, or Pascal Siakam, who have all been available - some of them for very reasonable prices.

Instead they went out and overpaid for guys like Jerami Grant, Robert Covington, Allen Crabbe, and Evan Turner. Just ridiculous mismanagement even at the time, but it’s even worse looking back.

Before you start bashing the Blazers team building it’s important understand that despite their efforts they’ve never been able to obtain stars through any means aside from the draft. Their best free agency pick ups are Pippen, Wes Matthews, and Carmelo Anthony after being out of the league for half a season.

It sucks, but it’s the life of the Trailblazers (and other small market teams)

You should take a look at the teams Glen Taylor constructed around Kevin Garnett in his prime. They were awful. Plus, the wolves were penalized heavily while he was there for trying to pay Joe Smith under the table.

The one year KG had a good roster, they made it to the WCF, and were a Sam Cassell injury away from beating the Lakers and advancing to the finals.

Allen Iverson

AI had Eric snow

How is the answer anyone but Iverson? Dude dragged a team of 6th man energy to the finals in an era where small players and big players alike were beat to a pulp legally. I’m sure AI would take CJ or a sunsetting Aldridge over….every teammate he had. Dame’s support was miles better than the talent AI had.

Name a more overrated or talked about player than Damian Lilliard.

the Blazers absolutely wasted Dame’s prime. Surrounding a small guard who doesn’t play defense with even more small guards who don’t play defense? Criminal roster building.

My team in 2k mycareer but I carry them bums because i’m built different.

So you are not familiar with Timberwolves Garnett, huh?

I think it’s AI.

Tim Booth has entered the chat.

Neil Olshey doesn’t get mentioned enough as one of the worst GMs in the 2010s decade.

Agreed.

CJ is a hooper but a bad match for combined skillsets. Nurk was a legitimate center before his injury, too. We had a couple wings that showed some promise or were on the wrong side of their career but yeah outside of the last LMA year it was rough.

Young lebron

Brother. Your photo even has CJ in it. He ripped these -most recent- playoffs. He was the best player on the only team to take the arguably most dominant playoff running team to 2 games and actually lead (their series vs the Knicks in case you actually don’t watch ball).

What you talkin? I call bullshit on this holistically.

I fucking hate Neil Olshey

Not worse than the 2007 Cavs, the first team LeBron made it to the Finals with. 

Not a single 3 point shooter in the starting lineup playing alongside the best rim attacker/passer in the league. 

It was a different era, but still. 

They had LeBron James and they were running their offense through Eric Snow, a journeyman PG who who played 82 games and didn’t make a single 3 pointer. 

Second leading scorer was Larry Hughes who shot 40% FG and 33% 3PT on the season. 

I’m not even a Cavs fan and it makes me angry how badly Cleveland squandered the first 7 years of Lebron’s career. They could not possibly have done a worse job building around him. 

This sub uses the word generational far too often.

Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t this era of blazers pay Allen Crabbe a (near) max contract?

I don’t think you understand the emotional attachment there was to the Dame + CJ combination.

Someone clearly has never seen the KG Wolves

Only got him because of a dumb Billy King trade.

80s Jordan. Those teams were uncarriable.

Nah. Prime Kobe in 2005.

Check out the 20-21 rockets.

Not sure I’d consider Dame a superstar, was he ever even a consensus top 10 guy? To me he was just one of many prolific scorers over the past decades, but short of a superstar.

And there have been plenty of guys like that who weren’t on great rosters at least in their primes/peaks.

Cade right now has never had as good of a roster around him. Same with LaMelo, lower rated player than Dame, but point remains.

Then if we are focusing on primes, guys who had peaks of near 30 point scoring, without any intense research I thought of Iverson, McGrady and Arenas, and some reaches ….Kemba, Beal and IT4.

Bruh LeBron had 4 role players

No noo, not the dame lillard fans/community got that “If’s Man” syndrome too..

LeBrons first time in Cleveland would like a word

They should have kept Aldridge for longer. That guy was a poorer Tim Duncan, but not by a lot.

idk man kg’s wolves were pretty bad

I think if you believe LeBron peaked in 2018 (statistically he did) then he might be up there too with dogshit rosters.

Hindsight is ²⁰⁄₂₀ you gotta remember this was the start of the 3 ball era so at the time having two good small shooters didn’t look like a terrible strategy

You forgot Dirk literally had nothing for 20 years.

I wonder ifnthey we’re just trying to get talent for a trade, but even that doesn’t make sense because while those guys are valuable, players that would actually complement dame would be pretty expensive and rare vs there are a lot of undersized scorers at a non-elite level

At least they got Al-Farouq Aminu 

Maybe getting 100m less could be the answer. I heard some small dude won against my team and won the championship with it. 

After looking at OKC and the Knicks this year you gotta think teams will realise that having volume scorers who play ineffective defence rarely works. You need guys like OG, like Caruso. You can have a lights-ouy volume scorer like Dame but you better give him some help on defence. I know its easier said than done but Golden State made sure to surround Steph with defence and shooting. Even the Mavs realised that with Luka.

Hypothetical question: how many wins does a team with 7 Damian Lillards get?

How about Orlando Tmac? I remember his best supporting player is a young mike miller. Or an injured grant hill. Man, I remember troy hudson, pat garrity, bo outlaw, derek strong, andrew declerq on that team. Not a really good roster