The next three weeks will set the course for the next five years of Portland Trail Blazers basketball, for better or worse.
Joe Cronin has gotten a lot of benefit of the doubt since he took over as the Blazers' general manager in December, both because the guy he replaced was extremely unpopular and because it was widely understood that a big part of his job in the first months would be digging out of the hole his predecessor had left the team in.
The deadline-week trades of Robert Covington, Norman Powell and CJ McCollum didn't look great at the time and look even worse now, after McCollum led New Orleans to a surprise playoff appearance that cost Cronin a second lottery pick. None of the swings he took to create more flexibility to retool around Damian Lillard panned out the way he'd hoped, but he's asking you to reserve judgment until he has time to execute the second half of his plan.
That part starts now.
Cronin won't be graded on a curve anymore. The less-than-ideal circumstances he inherited, and the disappointing results of his attempt to make the best of them at the deadline, don't matter anymore. What he has to work with now, going into Thursday night's draft and next week's opening of free agency, is his reality.
When Cronin made those moves in February, he was still working under an interim title with no promises that he'd keep the job permanently. He goes into this offseason with that interim tag removed, a new long-term deal, a beefed-up front-office staff and full buy-in from Lillard, who advocated for him to get the job and has entrusted the final years of his prime to him.
The entire organization got an extended glimpse this season of what life without Dame would look like. He's promised to come back better than ever after undergoing abdominal surgery in January. The idea of a Damian Lillard revenge tour is a lot more appealing if it comes on a team with a legitimate chance to do something in the playoffs than one that would be a lottery team if his greatness alone didn't drag them to 43 wins. We'll know a lot more in the next month about how realistic that is.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Blazers would like to move the No. 7 pick for a starting-caliber veteran. If the goal is to build on Lillard's timeline, John Collins or OG Anunoby or fill-in-the-blank high-end supporting player they've been linked to will help a lot more than anyone they could take with the pick. But Lillard has been at the practice facility in Tualatin all month, watching draft workouts alongside Cronin and Chauncey Billups. Maybe he's sold on one of the prospects they've brought in.
Whatever Cronin ultimately does, it won't be without Lillard's blessing. But what he's trying to do, retooling on the fly with limited assets around a 32-year-old superstar in a Western Conference that's only going to get more crowded at the top next season, will be one hell of a needle to thread.
Other thoughts:
We're entering the craziest period of the offseason for rumors. The great @TrillBroDude calls this time of year "Slop Season." You'll hear all kinds of stuff in the next 36 hours about which teams are thinking about trading up, down or out of the draft and who they're targeting and which deals are being discussed. Most of it will cite some version of "rival executives." All that means is it's something people in front offices are talking about among themselves. That's not to say none of it is true, in the sense that it's definitely true that whatever trade scenario you saw reported has been speculated about by an assistant GM as something they've heard other league people speculate about. These guys love to gossip about this stuff and throw out hypothetical trade ideas just like we do, and if someone who works in a front office says it, it technically comes from a "league source." The closer it gets to draft night, and this holds for the trade deadline as well, the more likely that whatever is being floated out there is misdirection and gamesmanship. You can either react to all of it or react to none of it, but always ask yourself why something is out there and who might benefit from it leaking before deciding how seriously to take it.
With that said, I do think it's noteworthy that the Blazers have reportedly been linked to Shaedon Sharpe as a potential target if they do keep the pick. After the lottery results were announced last month, Mike Schmitz—at the time still employed by ESPN—appeared on The Woj Pod and when the subject of Portland's options at No. 7 came up, specifically mentioned Sharpe as a player he'd look at in their position, taking the highest upside swing on the board. (Fast-forward to about the 25-minute mark here for the Blazers discussion.) The podcast was recorded on May 18, and news of Schmitz' hiring first broke a little over a week later, on May 26. While I don't know the whole timeline of the hiring process, it's probably safe to assume Schmitz at least knew it was a possibility he'd take the job at the time of recording. So if nothing else, it's an interesting window for fans into the thought process and values of a prominent member of the new-look front office.
One more note on Schmitz that I've gotten a few questions on Twitter about: when ESPN first reported (citing anonymous sources) that he was leaving his job as a draft analyst at ESPN to join the Blazers' front office, he was expected to stay on at ESPN to finish out their draft coverage and start with the team in July. That is not the case. The team officially announced his hiring (along with fellow assistant GM Sergi Oliva) in a press release on June 9, and both Schmitz and Oliva have been present at every one of the team's predraft workouts since then. So Schmitz will, presumably, be in the war room tomorrow night.
Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the very sad news of Caleb "Biggie" Swanigan's passing yesterday at the age of 25. I'd be lying if I said I knew him well, but he was never anything but friendly in our limited interactions in the locker room, and you can see by the outpouring on social media the way his teammates and those who knew him felt about him. My friend Gregory McKelvey, who did know him well, had a Twitter thread after the news broke that's worth your time. Brooke Olzendam shared some thoughts in a radio appearance yesterday that's also worth a listen.
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