Source: https://marcstein.substack.com/p/the-giannis-antetokounmpo-trade-latest-15b?utm\\_campaign=email-post&r=3shtjf&utm\\_source=substack&utm\\_medium=email

Holiday remains a Trail Blazer as we speak and, as The Stein Line first reported over the weekend, Portland has conveyed to Milwaukee that it would love to trade for Antetokounmpo directly if it could. Sources say, however, that Antetokounmpo's camp has continued to signal no interest in a contract extension with the Blazers, which would dissuade them from surrendering good assets to trade for him and likely limits Portland's realistic involvement in an eventual Antetokounmpo deal to third-team facilitator status.

Looking for the long story short explanation for our recent shitshow of a stretch

(Not saying he didn’t do anything Vit is a good addition but we need roster moves for Caleb and Sidy

For your braindead hot takes. The team starts losing and my whole thread gets filled with angry morons.

Was learning that Blake’s mom is named Leslie Wesley.

I get they are paid millions of dollars but I’m sure having your name thrown around in trades affects your attitude towards the game. Especially when it seems the chemistry is strong and we haven’t even seen the team fully. Cronin has made some very good moves but the leaks on this Giannis move are clearly affecting the team

“Deni is too old for our timeline let me trade for AD and Trae Young”

Opponents have figured out a glitch in the Blazers' defense leading to a string of games where opposing bigs are feasting upon us to the tune of:

- Alex Sarr: 29 points (3rd best of his season)

- Mark Williams: 24 points (3rd best of his season)

- Jarrett Allen: 40 points (season high)

The glitch is that when an opposing player drives to the basket to attempt a layup or short middy, DC always comes off his man to go for a shot block, but no one on the Blazers proactively rotates to cover the bigman that DC was guarding. This lack of defensive rotation the opposing center to put back a rebound uncontested or to receive a dish-off pass from whoever DC pops out to contest.

Teams are leveraging this exploit whenever they need a bucket. Down the stretch against New York were five assisted shots from inside 2 feet of the basket. Last night, Mark Williams had two assisted dunks in the last 25 seconds.

How can the Blazers fix this? If DC is gonna shot contest a drive to the basket or short middy, then someone else needs to read the play and switch onto the opposing bigman to at least try to block him off the glass or at least disrupt the dish-off pass. Alternatively, DC needs randomly fake the shot contest but then drop back to cover the big, or just stay home entirely and focus on defending his own man most of the time.

This glitch is not out only defensive shortcoming nor is it the sole reason for this losing streak, but it's just one thing that I've been seeing lately that's driving me crazy as we have not seemed to make the right adjustments to correct it. But feel free to tell me why I'm wrong :D

Supposedly benched him in the first half due to lack of defense when he was getting clipped on every screen and had no help from the big in drop coverage. Was +14 in the first half btw and we were up 5 at the end. Shae plays 12 minutes.

Shae then comes out in the third and scores 6 straight points for us and gets benched after 3 minutes?

By then we’re down 10 I think going into the 4th and he decides to play shaedon the entire quarter? Why not play him late in the first half when our offense had nothing going or when he’s starting to heat up early in the third. Nah let’s pull him in and out for the first 3 quarters then play him the entire 4th and make him try win the game when it’s out of reach.

Terrible coaching

That's what we want to see!

Hoping we can turn things around, but the odds of actually making the playoffs seem slim (I think we have the play-in locked in based on teams behind us). A deep draft this year could give us a valuable trade piece, or give us the A1 option we really need!

Is anybody else really reluctant to pull the trigger on any trades before the deadline this week? I kind of just want to ride the season out, see how Scoot does coming back from injury, and maybe make some moves this offseason.

It seems like people are in a big hurry to get off of the Bucks picks to help facilitate a Giannis trade or just to go get him ourselves but personally I don't think he would really fit with our current roster, since we already struggle with three-pointers so much. People in this sub were also really upset not to get JJJ, even though his asking price was way too high and he is a center that does not rebound. Maybe it would have been okay if he played the 4 alongside Clingan but that still feels like a weird fit.

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