The Miami Heat Dame Lillard Saga: What is Portland doing? | Five on the Floor

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All right, welcome back to Five on the Floor. Here's today's floor plan. I got Greg Sylvander, you can follow him at Greg Sylvander. Alex Toledo, you can follow him at Tropical Blanket. And we go straight to the source out in Portland, Aaron Fentress at the Oregonian. He covers the Blazers as well as the Oregon Ducks out there. And he's become quite a Twitter celebrity in South Florida over the last 24 hours. So drinks are on us. No, but actually, I just think you're telling it like it is right now. And that's why we wanted to have you on here. So let's get to the latest on the Dame Lillard situation. First thing, Aaron, we appreciate you joining us. Wait, wait, we're not talking about Mario? No, we can talk about Mario too. Well played. I thought I was coming out here to talk about my man Crystal Ball. What are you talking about? We'll do that on Six Rings Cades. I'll just say this. The recruiting's been good. I'll just leave it at that. The recruiting's been good. The results, not yet. But that's year one. It was year one. Come on, that was a rebuild. Give the man a chance. We're giving him a chance. But everybody else in South Florida is thriving right now. So every other team. So that's the one that's kind of been the outlier here. But obviously, we're going to talk Dame with you. And as we record this, it's around 9 o'clock on Sunday night. It seems like things are moving in a certain direction, but they're not there yet. So the latest that we've heard on our side, again, Miami Heat still fully engaged in this. Tyler Hero believes he's going to get traded. I can say that. That's what he's been telling people. He's expecting to be traded. We don't expect it to be a two-team trade. If it ends up happening, there's going to be a third team involved. We thought it would be the Spurs. Everything seems to be leaning towards the Nets more as a more legitimate possibility right now. They did sign Lonnie Walker, but I heard that won't preclude them from doing anything as far as going for Hero. And I know Ian Bagley's been recording a lot of that stuff out of New York, among others. From your perspective, before we get to your opinion on why things got to where they are and where they should go, in your view, where are they right now? How pressured do the Blazers feel to move on this? On Miami specifically or just trading Dame? Anything at all. Well, 100%, they have to trade. There's pretty much zero doubt about that. And as far as I'm concerned, they have to trade them to Miami. The NBA is a player's league. It's a star's league. All this talk, and there's a lot of talk in Portland about, I will just trade them to where I get the best deal. And it's kind of nonsense. Here's the deal. Let's say a team stepped up that won a Dame and they were just offering a boatload of pigs and a star player, a Go-Bear type thing, or a Durant type pack. And Dame and his agent tell that team, dude, we're not coming to play for you. It would be franchise suicide for that team to make that trade. You're going to give up a boatload? It's almost like some people think that these players are not human beings and they're just robots and they're just going to show up. If ever there was a league where you know that a dude could just mail it in, it's the NBA. Now, I'm not saying Dame would necessarily mail it in. But the last thing you want for any franchise is to give up a bunch of assets to obtain a 33-year-old point guard who's due $216 million over four years, and has told you he doesn't want to play for you. It doesn't even make remotely any sense. So to me, you can scrap all those teams that he doesn't want to play for, which is pretty much close to the league. And also, why would a mediocre team want Dame anyway? There's no point in taking on that contract to be just a little bit better. So you're only dealing with a few teams where they have a chance to contend. And to me, the only two blatantly obvious teams where anything would kind of make sense would be Philadelphia and Miami. Now, back in March, I actually wrote an article on what the offseason could look like. And in that article, I had two locations. And that was Miami for Tyler Hero, Salary Filler, and maybe three to four first round picks. And then I had Philly for Maxie in the same thing. But I don't think Philly even has any picks. So for me, Miami's been the thing. I've been on Miami, Hero, and picks for two months now. Because number one, he needs to play the game someplace where he can contend. And I know a lot of people don't understand that, because they sort of think, well, the GM and owners are in charge, and they have him under contract. No, that's not how this works. He needs to go somewhere he can contend. And Miami is the perfect spot. It's like the perfect trio, isn't it? Dame, Butler, Bam. It's a thing of beauty. So it has to happen as far as I'm concerned. And he's made that his pick. And they've told the Blazers, we want Miami. Not we want this, that, or the other thing. No, we want Miami. So the pressure's on Portland to make this happen. Now, that said, just because it's like that doesn't mean that Miami now has the green light to just absolutely jack Portland open, right? You can't just say, well, we're going to give you a Duncan Robinson, Lowry in three seconds. Take it or leave it. Well, they're going to leave it. So that's where it gets to the point where Dame and his agent can tell other teams, we don't want you to be with you. Then Dame and his agent can also tell Miami, stop tripping and make a legitimate deal, right? Or bring in a third team. Portland doesn't want Harrell allegedly, which you got to tell me all of this. I like Tyler Harrell. I don't understand the hate for Tyler Harrell. We do too. Do you? We do, but I think it's more going back to you on that. And then I kind of want to have you expand on something. And then I know Greg's itching to get in on some stuff. So, so I'm going to, I'm going to cede the floor to him, but, but my understanding on the hero thing for Portland would be you have sharp, you have scoot and ostensibly you would still have Simons on a similar, but slightly lower contract than hero at relative similar age and experience. So what's the need for Tyler? I mean, that's kind of, it's not that Tyler's not a good player, but he makes more sense in San Antonio with a young growing team there that needs a guard like that or Brooklyn, which, you know, on the marquee in New York, actually Tyler might succeed. And that team, you know, was a playoff team last year, even after what happened with Durant and Kyrie. So just throwing that back to you, it seemed to me like that was more of the issue. Not that he's not a good player. Right. Okay. I totally agree. A lot of people have said that, but for me, when you're, when you're trying to complete a trade, you can tell Miami, we don't see a fit for hero. Let's bring in a third team where maybe hero can go somewhere else and you can get someone that fits you better. That makes total sense. But if you can't find that, you just go ahead and take hero and worry about it later. Now the Blazers are saying, I've heard from people that they don't, they're not going to view this as an instant rebuild, but they kept Grant, you know, who knows what happens with Nurkic. Two years ago, when Dame had his surgery and was done and Nurkic with a bunch of dudes went out there and won a lot of games. They weren't supposed to win. It got to the point they went four in a row before the all-star break. And then all of a sudden everyone started coming up with phantom injuries because management was like, what is going on here? And I called, I called Nurkic a poor man's Penny and Shaq, which people made fun of me because I was half joking because Anthony was named after Hardaway. And those two were actually playing like a poor man's version of Penny and Shaq, the way they were winning games without Dame and even without DJ. So I think there's a mentality that we can still be pretty solid if we get some more assets and some players who can play. And yes, they have Sharpe, but is Sharpe ready? Like is Sharpe ready to play 35 minutes? Maybe not. Maybe you end up starting Hero at the three. I don't know. But regardless you take him and if you can't flip him now, you can trade him later. But he's still someone you maybe can pull off a deal with later or you might trade someone else later. Who knows? I'm just looking at Hero as someone who's a solid young player who's playing 23. Like he's better right now than CJ McCollum was at 23. He's more taller. I sort of feel like he has a lot of room to grow if he has to work at the mat. It's funny you mentioned CJ because as we've talked to Tyler throughout the years, that's a player he's mentioned as someone that he's kind of modeled his game after. And I agree with you from a talent perspective. Why not just pick up as much as possible? I think Portland is overthinking that to a degree. As much as I want to continue talking about this current transaction, I think it's probably prudent to back up further. And you tweeted about five hours from when we're recording this, a 39 second clip that I thought had more explanatory power than basically anything else I've read from anyone related to how the heck we got here. And it was a clip of them talking about how creative, I think it was Joe Cronin actually, about how creative he was going to be and how aggressive he would be in putting pieces around Dame. And that just didn't come to fruition. And not that everything needs to get out there, but there wasn't even really the scuttle that you would hear about a big, huge player ending up there of any kind. I'm interested just to pick your brain. Going back to this whole situation with Dame, how have they not, as a small market that knew that free agency was probably not going to be the path gone all in around the top 75 guy in Dame. What's your thinking on how that's kind of fumbled throughout these years? Leading up to Cronin's era, you mean in the past? No, basically from Cronin's era on. That's kind of what's put the tipping point here, I guess. Yeah. So Cronin took over for OSHA after he got fired and he made it clear that their goal was that was the stated goal. And the first steps they took were moving C.J.'s contract, because C.J. was redundant anyway, and moving Norman Powell, who was also redundant. So two, six, but three guys. You already had Dame, right? So they got rid of those guys. And they ended up maneuvering the C.J. trade into a trade exception and a Buck's first round pick that they turned into Jeremy Grant. Great move, because Grant and C.J. are pretty similar in terms of value, in terms of their all-around talent. But you need a 6'8 guy who can do certain things that C.J. can't on this roster. So great move. I thought, OK, wow, they're off and running. This is cool. Then you come into the trade deadline, or excuse me, on draft day last year, they had the number seven pick. And many of us thought they were going to move that pick, but they didn't find a trade that they liked, and they really loved Sharpe. That turned out to be a great move. One of the things they were trying to do was turn that number seven pick into OG on an OB. But in hindsight, great move not to do that, right? I'd rather have Sharpe than OG. So then you move into this year, and they think they're going to be pretty good. Things kind of fell apart with injuries, and they're back to tanking again. And 100%, the stated goal from every source I talked to was they were going to take again and take that pick and trade it. Now, he knew at that moment, he didn't say it because they were still pretending to try and win that season, but he knew where they were headed. And that's when he said all those things about we're going to be aggressive, we're going to move all in, we're going to push this. We might even overpay. That was a key thing for me. They were going to overpay for something. And I thought, OK. And I gave them a complete pass for the trade deadline. Other people blasted them, which I didn't think makes sense because you couldn't name the trade. The only real marquee star of that move that could have helped you was Durant, and I still think Durant's short, but that's another story. But anyway, so what were you really going to get? So, fine. I gave them until this draft. Then they went and won the lottery. It was perceived to be a three-player draft. Now, I thought, foolishly, that that meant, oh, man, they're really going to be able to go out and get someone. Instead, what it did is it shrunk the teams they were willing to work with and the players they were willing to trade for because they valued Scoop so much. They've called him transcendent, generational. He's going to be this, that, and the other thing. So, in their mind, it was going to take a lot for them to move off of him. However, the heat on the pick, no pun intended, was weak. They were not getting killer offers for that guy. And I raised the question then. I'm like, OK, well, hold on a second. If this guy's that amazing, and understand, I've been following the NBA for a long time. I get the hype around guys, but, man, 19-year-olds do not walk into the NBA and just dominate and light it up and help teams win and contend. This guy's not LeBron. He's not Magic. And Dane's not Kareem. Penny and Shaq, probably one of the youngest dudos to ever get to the finals. These guys aren't that. So, to me, Scoop's someone who's going to need a few years. And you look at his G League numbers, he shot 42 percent, 27 on threes, three and a half turnovers per game. He had 19 games. He had nine where he shot under 40 percent. He had a defensive rating of 118. And everyone's been talking about how great of a defensive player he is. There's not one player in the NBA right now going, oh, my God, here comes Scoop. So, the idea that this guy was built to be this guaranteed megastar, that there wasn't a line of teams around Moda Center waiting to get in to negotiate to get him was stunning to me. And what turned out to happen, according to sources, was that people were making offers as if number three was like a throw in. It was like, OK, we'll take number three their blood. So, they ended up keeping the pick. Now, regardless of whether they got lowballed, regardless of what happened, it doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, whether Cronin was right or not, he did nothing for Damien. And the stated goal the entire time was, we're going to build around Damien. And that's how we got here, because after the draft, Damien was pissed. They kept the pick last year, got sharp. Fine. He accepted that. He said, at the end of the season, I don't want to play with any more teenagers. So, what do they do? And not only did they draft a 19-year-old, they made a list of their needs, very last two 19-year-olds. After the game, Damien, and I asked Cronin about this at the press conference, Damien, Cronin, and Billup all said, we need more length, we need more size, and we need veterans. And the key addition was someone who gives you no length, no size, and he's 19. To me, that was it. That was it. You're done. Trade Damien now. Just get it over with. Instead, we're still trying to work. And he said, we planted some seeds for some trade. They still had Ant, they still had picks they could work with. Started free agency, nothing. And that was it, because they're not going to do anything. They want Damien to come back and just play with two teenagers and just let it ride. And he's not willing to do that. That's how we got here. So, Aaron, you made a lot of good points there. And I agree with pretty much everything you said. It really does. Pretty much. Just kidding. They gave him every chance, like you said. Yes. I kind of imagine that, at the very least, if they weren't going to trade Scoop, that they were going to maybe package the 23rd pick and whatever Ryan Rupert ended up going, something like that, with assignments, contract, or something of that sort to maybe get help in that way, even if it isn't a star-level player. I kind of imagine that he gave them every chance. And in that kind of direction, I wanted to ask you, do you think he could have been sold on something like that or getting sold on basically going to another team that isn't the Heat? Or do you think basically the way that they've handled it so far in the public, being like, oh, you know, we're not necessarily going to send them to the Heat. Do you think that makes that type of opportunity and that possibility? And do you think that's something to drag out through training camp? Yeah, so I think the ship has sailed on making a significant move that's going to move the needle for Damien. Like, he had it in his head that they were going to trade that pick, you know. And so that was their number one trade ship. And so he gave them a chance, and they didn't do anything on the first day. Like, to me, if you were going to do something, you had to move Damien. You had to have something in place. Here's another thing, too. They owe the Bulls a first-round pick, right? They could have given the Bulls a 23rd pick this year and then unlocked that whole situation. So then they had 24, 26, 28, and 30. They didn't even do that. They did nothing in the way of showing Damien they were going to be aggressive to do something. So that ship has sailed. And Damien's 100% right in all of this. Now, he could have done a better job keeping his mouth shut, not going on podcasts, not talking, even if it wasn't just about Miami or whatever. Like, that didn't help the cause. Like, he could have done a better job there. But at the end of the day, it is what it is. Now, as far as where he's going to land, I've been told it's Miami or nothing. Like, I shouldn't say nothing. It's Miami or Trump. If they try to place him somewhere else, there's going to be a problem. Now, things could change. Like, the Nets could do something. Because right now, if you went to the Nets, I mean, you're going to have to give up at least Claxton. You're not going to give up Damien and Bridges. I mean, you're going to need something else. So can they? Smells like a 60. Well, yeah. But they got a bunch of picks for Durant, right? So can they go out and add and do something else creative to add something else? So now, if you're starting with Damien Bridges, that's a good place to start. If you can maybe get Nurkic there, because Damien and Nurkic will play together well wherever they go, and then add a third star, then who knows, right? Philadelphia, like I said, why would he not want to go play with Indeed? That doesn't make any sense to me. Apparently, that's not high on his list. So who knows if something else can materialize? But his heart is set on Mayank, period. And that's where he wants to be. And so in the NBA, if the Blazers do wrong by him, just shut down the franchise. Well, think about this. The Blazers have had trouble getting marketing free agents, right? They've had trouble convincing guys to be traded here and then re-sign it. So I don't want Damien Lillard, one of the most beloved players in the league, right, leaving here pissed off, salting the franchise, insulting management, and maybe having some influence on two guys who look up to him, like Scoop Henderson and Shayna Sharp. Maybe I'm being dramatic here. I don't know. No, I think you're right. I like it. But five years from now, if those guys are stars and they have options, why wouldn't they be like, man, look how they did Damien? And plus, you have to bank on them wanting to stay in this market anyway. Right. Well, to that point, Aaron, when the Heat and Dwayne had their issues in 14, 15, 16, before he finally left, the Heat then had to go overpay players who weren't worth it just to prove that they were a player's organization again. And they're Miami. And that's a totally different situation than Portland. We really appreciate your time. I want to close with you with this, and then the three of us are going to wrap up the episode after that. But you said something that the only thing I guess I don't agree with. No, the one thing I don't agree with, because I actually think I actually think you're not giving him enough. You've been on this side the whole time, but I actually think you don't think you're not giving him enough credit in this case. But you said you think Damien could have handled it better. And my thing is, to me, this is the only way he could have handled it. Because for years and years and years, he has, he has said, obviously, I'm not going to run from the grind. I'm not going to do this. I think he had to send those signals publicly so that Miami would come get him. And we've talked about in our end, because Pat has said this repeatedly, like, we need to start to say Miami Bradley Beal didn't say my the only one who has said Miami Durant didn't say Miami. The only Mitchell didn't say Miami. The only one who has said Miami since Jimmy Butler is now Dame and Jimmy's here, largely as a result of that, because that's scared away other teams. Okay, because and then Miami ended up getting him for even less than they were getting for before. And now Dame may end up here in part because of that. What do you what would you have done differently? Just not go on the time show, I guess? Well, okay, so so here's a problem. I think once he was, okay, you say publicly, you can't text bolster. And like, they can't contact bolster and Riley and say, we want to come there. They don't have to they don't have to do it publicly. I don't I don't buy that number to scare off to scare off the other teams to me the second part of it. Yeah, I know they can. Yeah, but you don't need to tell Eric and all that. But I'm just saying you don't need to publicly scare them off. That's one number two. I'm talking about the window leading up to the draft. I'm talking. Oh, I think we just cut his feed. Oh, no, we apologize for that. I think we just lost our we were having a little trouble with the audio there. But the information was so good that we wanted to we wanted to let it roll there. But I think you're back. Okay. Where's all that Eric? Just go back to your thought. Because I think one, we lost a little you we lost a little you there at the end. And you turn your mic on because you're on mute. What was the last thing I said? Last thing I said? You were saying up before the draft? Yeah. So before the draft, when they were trying to trade that pick, it hurt the team that he was out there even talking about anything saying a conversation like on Stephen A. Smith, we don't do something that conversation must be had. Reiterating that on the Showtime show and then being asked where would you want to go and him say Miami, like those kind of things did not help in negotiations because then teams are calling going, oh, they're spilling blood in the water. You got to make a deal to keep Dane because Damon said, if you don't make a deal, he's going to leave. So we're going to lowball you. That went on. That was the thing. Right. So that's what I'm talking about. Now, after the draft, when they did nothing to me, all bets are off at that point because I didn't think they were going to pull off anything anyway. So that's so for me, it's just the timing of it all. At the end of the day, I agree that once it was decided where he that it was over, then yeah, throw Miami out there all you want. I gotcha. Aaron Fentress, we appreciate you taking the time and we'd say next time we're bringing you on to talk about Mario and why he can't seem to get the most out of a quarterback, whether it was Herbert all the way to what happened last last year. Yeah. Bring me on about that. I got I got I got some information about Herbert that y'all would love to hear that. That thing is overblown. Don't feel like we could probably go five hours with you, Aaron. Don't let you on this. They were pissed when Mario left. You have no idea how much I went through. I predicted my my we get Mario the day Mario signed the day Mario became the head coach. I predicted it. I seriously, I swear to God that day I tweeted, you better watch out if the ducks do well and can't stay. Miami is going to get Mario. And so and everyone called me a dude. I was called all sorts of names and ridiculousness for four years. And then what happened? He left. And then after he left, it all sudden duck fans didn't like him. They're full of crap. Bring me on. We'll talk about it later. All right. We're going to bring you on. Give me Greg and I'll pop on that one as well. Aaron, we really appreciate it. Again, follow his work at the Oregonian. And I'm sure we'll probably have you on again here. If you feel. Thank you. Bye. Thank you, sir. All right. We're going to be right back. We do want to tell you about one more sponsor here. Friends over at you break. We'll fix. Check them out at you break. We'll fix dot com that you break. We'll fix dot com. Your complete solution. Refinishing repairs. We know the streets of South Florida can be unforgiving. Go into our friend Mark and all of his team. They show up at our watch parties. Again, huge Miami sports fans as well. Big Miami fans. Our guy, Mark Dela Cruz, they're based in Aventura, and they can get the nice colors for you going as well. They can do the polishing. They do everything for you there and get the heat colors for you. Also, check them out at you break. We'll fix dot com that you break. We'll fix dot com. All right. We got about three minutes to close this thing out here. I do want to mention prize picks. Use that code five. We always say that better edge use five RSN, but we don't have to go into a whole lot of depth on that because I do want to close this episode. I thought Aaron was fantastic. We apologize for some of the audio issues, but we just wanted to kind of let him roll there. I guess when you hear it that way and the information that we've been getting today is pretty consistent with this. Greg, this is leading to the conclusion I think that he fans are going to want, right? Like I cannot see the Blazers being this stubborn. I mean, with the exception of a few national NBA guys who are, who have Celtic sympathies and are just pissed off that he doesn't want to go to Boston. I don't, I don't see who could justify there's no trade out there for them to bring in a player to help Dame enough to be a contender in the West. And there's no trade out there that is so much better than what the heat can offer that there's justification for not just working out the best possible deal you can, and then sending him not, don't get cheated, but the best deal you can, and then send them on his way. Right? For sure. And I I'll just say this, like, they're in a situation where he's going to Miami because we talk about the media all knows it, or the fans all know it, or that front offices know it. You know, we talked more than anybody, this is a player's league and those players that's a brotherhood and Bam and Jimmy, they have been pushing for Dame. So I just, I think that this is too telegraphed at this point. They all know where his heart is. And those guys are going to look after a dude who wants to go where his heart is. And right now that's Miami. And that's what I think heat fans want to hear. Alex, final thought. Well, to add to what you guys are saying, the other thing that's especially helping out the heat is, unless I'm wrong here, not everything has to get leaked, like you said before, but it doesn't seem like the Nets are very much in this Dame game, because that would be the real competitor. That's the only other team that's really been mentioned from the people, from the reporters that are more or less connected to him or his camp. So that part is big to me because they do have more draft capital that they can theoretically offer. And like Aaron mentioned there, I thought that was a really good point he mentioned among many. They have enough to, they could theoretically trade for Dame and then have enough other stuff as far as draft capital and maybe contracts to go after somebody else, to add to Dame, Bridges, Cam Johnson. Because I was skeptical of like, why would the Nets go all in for that team? But it makes sense. It's like they would still have enough to go after help. Another piece. But it doesn't seem like that's, there hasn't been really a lot of noise. I mean, you guys obviously can attest to this way more, but it doesn't seem like there's a lot of Nets noise. So everything is kind of pointing towards the heat right now. And it's just really about figuring out a complex three or four team deal and how you get Portland everything they want without sacrificing everything that you want to keep. Right. And I'm skeptical that the Blazers are going to drag this out through September over, you know, haggling over Caleb Martin, who's going to be 28 when the season starts and is going to be 29 when you have to potentially pay him. So I just think like, at the end of the day, the way to close it, the heat might play a little bit of hardball because of the Miami or bus market. But I think they're going to go all in and try to give up everything they, you know, as far as young guys, I think they'll do it. If it ends up having to come to that point, they'll do it. I think you cannot miss on this move. And it feels very much even more so than last summer, like it's all or nothing, because others feelings may have been hurt along the way. Others feelings have definitely been hurt. This is about everybody's saving face at this stage and finishing a deal. That's what this is about. All the sides. Dame not feeling like he pissed people off on the way out the door, although even he tweeted today saying, what basically, what did I do wrong? Because there were Blazers fans defending him and saying that others are against it. By the way, it only seems like about 5% of Blazers fans. They just have to be a loud minority that's angry about this. But he basically came out. So that's sort of the next step now, where he's even more public on Instagram, posting stories of people thanking him. And then on the other side, it's the heat court of saving face where they don't have to give up too much. So maybe there's one piece that they can keep. But the big thing is the Portland trailblazers for an office saving face, because it looks like he gave them every opportunity. And look, as Aaron said, in the draft, he basically said, don't do this. And they did absolutely everything he told them not to do. So I said, it's so well, I don't know what the issue is. They got him totally different players than he said he needed. It doesn't mean scoots not going to be great. But you basically drafted his replacement, but not his compliment. That doesn't make any sense. One final thing on the Nets thing. And look, Alex, you make a great point on that. The Nets thing is about hero now. It's not about Dame. It's about hero. It's not about Dame. And also, and I put this on off the floor today, there is a very close ownership relationship between the Nets and the Heat. Josiah, I always mispronounce. Josiah and Mickey Harrison have a relationship from other business that they do. It's high level. I think they'll figure out a way to get something done. And the other option is San Antonio. And Pat Riley has very few close relationships among coaches in the NBA. One of them is Greg Popovich, who has been openly supportive of the Heat, even congratulated them for getting to the finals. So I believe between the Spurs and the Nets, one of those two things will actually happen. That's kind of where we're headed. We'll be discussing Dame Lillard in a Miami Heat uniform. I want to thank Aaron. Hope you stick through all that stuff, because the information was terrific. We'll be back as news breaks, playback, and all that good stuff. Have a good day. Have a good night, everybody. We're all on Dame time. Thank you for listening.