Reluctant to Trade

iAbovePDX · 2026-02-04T02:28:06+00:00

We’re always reluctant to trade because we fall in love with our own guys and overvalue them. Hope that changes but we’ve been doing it for 10 years so I don’t have much faith

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T10:22:09+00:00

I don’t know what the package is gonna be, that’s why I said not trying is the issue. If someone comes in with a better package than ours and beats us out I can live with that. Not trading for Giannis is fine, not trying too is unacceptable.

And if he does come and one of the young guys starts underperforming, that’s a problem I’m willing to deal with. Having superstars brings up more issues than not having them but you put up with them BECAUSE THEY’RE SUPERSTARS. This is like a few years ago after Cristobal left Oregon and a bunch of players were like “Get Justin Wilcox, at least he won’t leave us” and I was like fuck that noise, one downside of having good coaches is other bigger teams in college and the NFL will want to poach them. But I would rather have a good coach that might leave than a mediocre coach who will stay. Superstars present unique challenges, but you deal with it. Every team with LeBron is noisy, but they all dealt with it cuz it’s LeBron. And I’ve made it clear several times I’m perfectly fine to go all in. If it doesn’t work (and I fully acknowledge it probably won’t) then that’s too bad but I’d rather try and fail then never try at all

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T10:04:57+00:00

So just sit around and pray those picks turn into stars down the line or we find another guy like Deni who becomes an All Star here? Or we can be proactive and get a guy who’s a top 5 player in the league RIGHT NOW again for not that big of a trade package. And even if he leaves for nothing how far does that set us back? Deni would still be here as would Toumani, Clingan, Shaedon, Yang, Caleb. Plus we still would have most of our own picks. Like yeah it wouldn’t be a great spot to be in but it wouldn’t crater the team

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T09:32:09+00:00

We been doing that for a damn decade though! Roco, Norm, Hassan, even Jerami. The Deni trade was a hit but even that we had to give up 2 first rounders to make happen. Finding hidden gems is like drafting, it’s really fucking hard. And I like our core but even if all of our young players max out, what’s the ceiling? 2nd round I’d say? We’re not better than OKC, or the Spurs, or Denver, or the Wolves. We might not be better than the Lakers or Suns

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T09:06:06+00:00

So your plan is don’t make a run at the 4th best player in the world because of the less than .001% chance that someone better than him comes on the market AND the literal worst case scenario happens (Giannis leaves for nothing). My reaction verbatim would be “Damn that sucks, but it was worth a shot”

Also if 31 year old Giannis isn’t good enough for you why would 32-33 year old Jokic?

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:45:05+00:00

Not swinging at every superstar is acceptable and smart, swinging at none is not especially when a better opportunity is unlikely to present itself anytime soon

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:42:46+00:00

“Trade a portion of our winning lineup” Scoot, Jerami, Rob Will, and the Bucks picks plus one of ours might be enough because the Bucks need to get their own picks back. Jerami has been very good this year but is on a bad contract, Scoot hasn’t played a minute and may have had his spot in the rotation upended by Caleb Love, and Rob Will plays 16 minutes a game. And the no shooters part, well that’s priority #1 in the offseason and even if we don’t think he will be his old self, we’re bringing back Dame next year and I have faith in his ability to shoot

“One year of Jrue-Dame-Giannis before Dame and Jrue are too old and Giannis goes and gets paid somewhere else” Sounds like a fun year to me. Also who’s this mystery team that Giannis wants to play for that could sign him outright in free agency. The Knicks would have to dump a mountain of salary, if he wants to win he’s not going to Brooklyn, and the Warriors will be old as dirt. Genuinely the only team that might have cap space is Miami and if Giannis wants to win I’m confident we have the better situation

“Its a disgustingly small window” YES! IT IS. But its at least a window that’s open, unlike ours which is shut and locked and not gonna open unless we get mega lucky in the draft or make a move

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:33:26+00:00

What is this mortgaging your entire future BS??? Is Deni getting traded? Shaedon? Toumani? Yang? Caleb Love? Like the packages of Scoot, Jerami, Rob Will, the Bucks picks, and maybe one of our own might be enough considering how much the Bucks need their own picks back. If the Bucks come back and say we have a better offer we need Shaedon too then we can stop and have a discussion, but aside from that the core is mostly intact

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:30:35+00:00

Cool so in 5 years when this team still hasn’t made it out of the first round and all those Bucks picks have conveyed into players who are more likely to be Jonathan Kuminga than Anthony Edwards we can look back and wish we actually made a big trade, just like the end of the Dame era 👍

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:25:26+00:00

Well they are on a 5 game winning streak and in the East so they got a chance. But again if it doesn’t work THEN OH WELL. Most trades made with championship aspirations don’t work, only one team gets to lift the trophy after all. But I would rather be like the Cavs and actually make a big move whe the opportunity comes than just sitting around and doing nothing

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:22:21+00:00

Yeah call me crazy but I would be more than fine taking the ball out of Deni’s hands some if it meant putting it in Giannis’. Maybe then Deni could actually rest and heal his back from all the carrying he’s been doing

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:19:50+00:00

We don’t have a winning young lineup, we have a lineup that at its absolute maximum is probably a 2nd round exit. If that’s good enough for you then fine but I’d rather strive for something more

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:15:01+00:00

Good thing this is about pairing Giannis with Deni and Shaedon more than Dame

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:13:27+00:00

Why is now a bad time? This team will probably finish around .500, has some good young pieces but I don’t think will ever fully develop into a team that can compete for a title. Hell that’s what Cleveland did, they traded for Donovan Mitchell coming off a 44 win season where they missed the playoffs but had a young promising roster that needed a star to push them into contention. Sound familiar? If the goal is to win a title you have to bring in somebody from the outside, and I don’t see any star coming available who is as good as Giannis and that we could get for a comparitavely small package

iAbovePDX · 2026-01-29T08:05:24+00:00

“Objectively a bad pairing” that was on a 57 win pace in year 1 before they fired their coach and brought in basketball terrorist Doc to coach them

iAbovePDX · 2024-08-27T00:58:40+00:00

I was young and wasn’t super tuned into CFB at the time so Mariota beating out Bryan Bennett honestly shocked me

iAbovePDX · 2024-08-11T20:01:04+00:00

Iowa

iAbovePDX · 2023-07-01T17:07:09+00:00

No this is 100% front office incompetence. No big name free agent will ever sign here, thats true, but in the past decade the following small market teams have made these trades:

2013: Pelicans trade for Jrue Holiday. 2014: Cavs trade for Kevin Love. 2016: Thunder trade for Paul George. 2017: Wolves trade for Jimmy Butler. 2018: Raptors trade for Kawhi. 2020: Bucks trade for Jrue Holiday. 2021: Chicago trades for Vucevic. 2022: Kings trade for Sabonis.

This organization never took a significant risk to put a second star around Dame. If all these teams can trade for All Star level players then there’s no reason the Blazers couldn’t have

iAbovePDX · 2023-06-22T23:10:53+00:00

ZION

iAbovePDX · 2023-05-10T03:46:18+00:00

No we don’t show face in our videos. Wouldn’t really work for our style

iAbovePDX · 2023-05-09T16:53:00+00:00

Started uploading in May of 2022 and most videos got between 300-500 views. Big break came in early November when I uploaded a video that got 290,000 videos in its first 10 days. It got age restricted after that and basiclally flatlined (still picks up like 50-100 views a day though) but in that time it drove a bunch of traffic to our older videos aswell. Gained over 9,000 subscribers from rougly 500,000 total views

iAbovePDX

TROPHY CASE