All Things Ayton

[Superbone]

Whether we win a championship or not this season is the wrong metric. Of course there was no guarantee we were going to win one with Ayton so you can't make that assumption. I agree with Split. Depends on how we look on the court. However, there is no good metric. We never saw this team on the court with Ayton either. At least it's good fodder for making it to 200 pages.

[iLLmatic]

19 more pages fellas.

How’s Jeremy coping with his loss? Has he moved on or will we forever hear the what ifs about his laidback love affair from the islands?

Ayton is going to go to Portland and put up the most meaningless 20/10 you’ve ever seen.

[TOO]

Not gonna lie, it kinda feels like you’re establishing an excuse in case we do win the title without a certain someone in the paint.

We did win, but it’s only because of Vogel

With this “excuse” talk, it sounds to me like what you want is, if the Suns win the championship, for me to admit that the trade was the right move.

But if we don’t win the championship are you going to admit that it was the wrong move?

If you're a title contender, every year you don't win it's a failure.
The players will tell you the same.

You can try to spin your weird Ayton web, or think it's all coach, whatever, that shit doesn't matter. This team will go as far as Booker takes it.

[specialsauce]

What do you think we could have done to get a better haul? I think we definitely could have done better if we traded him last summer or even before that, but we chose not to. Every team in the league knew Ayton was available…there was no better offers or we would have taken it. Dallas was offering THJ and Holmes…

We had no leverage with Ayton. Is what it is, it’s not a great trade if you’re playing 2K, but this is real life. Sometimes the options aren’t what they are. He needed to go and I’m glad we got 3 potential playoff guys. Hard to ask for more out of a guy who didn’t even show up last playoffs(I’m not going to debate this point, yes I know some people think he did in fact show up, I don’t, simple as that).

Traded him before we had to resort to matching his max deal.

Once he got his max and started off the year the way that he did, everyone knew finals 2021 Ayton was a mirage long gone

[Split T]

That’s fair I would’ve signed and traded him for Turner and change

[JeremyG]

19 more pages fellas.

How’s Jeremy coping with his loss? Has he moved on or will we forever hear the what ifs about his laidback love affair from the islands?

Ayton is going to go to Portland and put up the most meaningless 20/10 you’ve ever seen.

There we go, the excuses are already here. If he's better in Portland, it's "meaningless." Just like Booker's stats were "meaningless" when we were winning 20 games. Just like Dame's stats were "meaningless" in Portland, too, I guess. Everyone's expecting them to be a bad team, but I think the Blazers have a great shot at the postseason (at least the play-in if not playoffs).

[Split T]

I think Portland could be sneaky good if they tried, but they won’t. They’ll ship out Brogdon and Grant as soon as they can. There’s very few teams not trying to win in the west…I’d be absolutely stunned if Portland ends up in the play in

[TOO]

19 more pages fellas.

How’s Jeremy coping with his loss? Has he moved on or will we forever hear the what ifs about his laidback love affair from the islands?

Ayton is going to go to Portland and put up the most meaningless 20/10 you’ve ever seen.

There we go, the excuses are already here. If he's better in Portland, it's "meaningless." Just like Booker's stats were "meaningless" when we were winning 20 games. Just like Dame's stats were "meaningless" in Portland, too, I guess. Everyone's expecting them to be a bad team, but I think the Blazers have a great shot at the postseason (at least the play-in if not playoffs).

If Scoot is good that team may surprise. Gonna be asking a lot from the rookie though.

[Flagrant Fowl]

What do you think we could have done to get a better haul? I think we definitely could have done better if we traded him last summer or even before that, but we chose not to. Every team in the league knew Ayton was available…there was no better offers or we would have taken it. Dallas was offering THJ and Holmes…

We had no leverage with Ayton. Is what it is, it’s not a great trade if you’re playing 2K, but this is real life. Sometimes the options aren’t what they are. He needed to go and I’m glad we got 3 potential playoff guys. Hard to ask for more out of a guy who didn’t even show up last playoffs(I’m not going to debate this point, yes I know some people think he did in fact show up, I don’t, simple as that).

Traded him before we had to resort to matching his max deal.

Once he got his max and started off the year the way that he did, everyone knew finals 2021 Ayton was a mirage long gone

I think the rest of the league knew this too.

I remember a lot of people crying about a potential Jakob Poeltl trade, but I'd rather have him than Nurkic right now.

[Split T]

Ya I once suggested Poeltl/Vassell/Jones or something very similar and everyone thought I was crazy…that would’ve been incredible

[Kryptonic]

Ya I once suggested Poeltl/Vassell/Jones or something very similar and everyone thought I was crazy…that would’ve been incredible

Would have been interesting to see what Pop would have done with Ayton. Just don't think Ayton had it in him to be the next Duncan or Robinson which is probably why it never happened.

[specialsauce]

Ya I once suggested Poeltl/Vassell/Jones or something very similar and everyone thought I was crazy…that would’ve been incredible

I said you were crazy and boy was I a fucking idiot

[iLLmatic]

19 more pages fellas.

How’s Jeremy coping with his loss? Has he moved on or will we forever hear the what ifs about his laidback love affair from the islands?

Ayton is going to go to Portland and put up the most meaningless 20/10 you’ve ever seen.

There we go, the excuses are already here. If he's better in Portland, it's "meaningless." Just like Booker's stats were "meaningless" when we were winning 20 games. Just like Dame's stats were "meaningless" in Portland, too, I guess. Everyone's expecting them to be a bad team, but I think the Blazers have a great shot at the postseason (at least the play-in if not playoffs).

No excuses. Just extrapolating data from his history and forecasting it for future performances.

[Drewsprocket]

Ya I once suggested Poeltl/Vassell/Jones or something very similar and everyone thought I was crazy…that would’ve been incredible

Would have been interesting to see what Pop would have done with Ayton. Just don't think Ayton had it in him to be the next Duncan or Robinson which is probably why it never happened.

Lol. Ayton would not play well under Pop. He flipped out under Monty. Coach Pop would have traded his ass to Toronto.

[JeremyG]

[rhylek]

Spoiler: show/hide

[Mori Chu]

I hope he's happy there. I hear Portland has some of the highest quality weed in the nation.

[Kryptonic]

I hope he's happy there. I hear Portland has some of the highest quality weed in the nation.

Do tell!

Hakeem shoulda played there. We all know Spliff Robinson loved it.

[Kryptonic]

Ya I once suggested Poeltl/Vassell/Jones or something very similar and everyone thought I was crazy…that would’ve been incredible

Would have been interesting to see what Pop would have done with Ayton. Just don't think Ayton had it in him to be the next Duncan or Robinson which is probably why it never happened.

Lol. Ayton would not play well under Pop. He flipped out under Monty. Coach Pop would have traded his ass to Toronto.

That fair…. I’m working on my “glass half full” approach with ayton. My bad.

[JeremyG]

Split:

Jeremy, take the C position out of your decision…do you think this team improved from last year?

CP3 to Beal
Shamet to Allen
Craig to KBD
Ross to Gordon
Warren to Yuta
Landale to Eubanks
Biyombo to Metu
Payne to Goodwin
Ish to Little

To me that’s 5 obvious upgrades and 4 either washes or slight upgrades.

And some of those upgrades are massive.

Yes, if you can get our 82 opponents to agree to remove the Center position from their lineup, then I'll happily concede your point.