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Asked Friday in Tokyo about the Trail Blazers” moves in free agency, star leader Damien lillard suggested the team missed some of their primary targets, as relay Joe Vardon of The Athletic.
“You never know where the guys are going to end up and why they’re going. You’re just trying to have conversations and convince the guys to be part of our team ”, Lillard said. “And obviously, that go-around, we couldn’t go out there and just get some of the guys we would have liked.
“(So) you go down the list and go through the guys that are out there that you like who haven’t committed to a team or were part of your free agency plans and you get the ones that want to be a part of. of what you’re doing, and I think that’s what we did.
Trail Blazers free agent additions include Cody zeller, Tony Snell, and Ben mclemore. According to Jason Quick of The Athletic, the team was also interested in Nicolas batum, and makes an effort to attract Kelly Oubré in Portland with the mid-level taxpayer exception. Oubre found himself elsewhere even though Damian Lillard pitched him at the end of the regular season.
“It wasn’t anything deep other than ‘Would he be open to this?’ and he said he was, Lillard told Quick. “I liked Oubre as a complement to the other guys I thought I could have. We didn’t have them.
As Quick points out, the “real” Blazers’ offseason will begin when Lillard finishes her run at the Olympics and returns to Portland to assess the roster and weigh her options. According to Quick, there are three routes the rest of the Blazers’ summer could take: Portland convinces Lillard that rolling him back and being patient is the right approach; the team makes a major exchange that changes Lillard’s vision of the Blazers’ trajectory; or the All-NBA goalie asks to be traded.
Learn more about the Blazers:
- Quick confirms that the agreements signed by Zeller, McLemore and Snell are all worth the veteran’s minimum. The Blazers still have the mid-level taxpayer exception available, but don’t aggressively pursue remaining players in the market and will likely hang on to that exception for now, Quick adds.
- The Blazers have 13 players screened for the regular season roster at the moment. They plan to enter the season with 14, but they are keeping that 14th place open for now to maintain flexibility, according to Quick, who notes that the place can be useful for a trade in which Portland picks up more players than it does. he does not send. .
- While CJ McCollum may be the most obvious business candidate on the Blazers’ roster, it doesn’t look like he’s actively sought after, says Quick. Quick isn’t sure other teams just don’t like McCollum the way the Blazers do, but says the club won’t move him just to shake the roster – a deal should improve the roster. So far, no opportunity matches this bill.
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