" Brooklyn will have cap room, tons of it, next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Also, they are a bigger market team than Portland is. " - This, is another idiotic statement. Did you not know what is happening to the Lakers?
Portland is better off, Nets would seriously have to nail too many signings and low picks. The Nets are in an interesting situation and I think they've made some good hires that should right the ship.
Celtics are 1st seed in the east and are currently slotted for the #1 pick. Insanity. Brooklyn easily. EASILY. Blazers made some bad signings but they have some great young talents and room to grow from a .500 starting point. It's surprising that the OLDEST players on the Blazers roster is Turner, Ezeli and Ed Davis at 28, 27 and 27. Lillard, McCollum, Nurkic are real talents. Harkless, Crabbe and Vonleh are also nice young role players. Combine those young talented players with the team having all of their picks + more and they are set up well. They just need to dump Turner, Leonard and Aminu. (Davis and Ezeli will expire this off season). Even if they can't dump those players they aren't bad role players their just overpaid.
I think some of you overestimate Blazers bad contracts, they can probably trade them without CJ and/or Dame, let alone picks. Look how that horrific Plumplee contract Bucks had got moved. Same here, there are still so many money around and so little players, that even contracts that look to us bad, can't be moved anytime, there are also some bad GM's that might even give value for these contracts.
Brooklyn gets their draft pick NEXT year In order to dig out of the hole. . . they will need to 1. Draft well next year 2. OVERPAY a couple of guys - I'm talking Harrison Barnes type contracts [may payoff may not) Then they should have a mediocre 3 to get them to higher lottery . . talking 8th - 14th Rocket River
BOS gets their pick both this year and next http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/draft/future_drafts/summary/2017
Mediocrity is the worst place in the NBA. Not bad enough to get a great pick. Not good enough to be great. If I were a GM candidate and had the opportunity to be the GM of either team starting today....I'd take the Nets. I'd save my cap space. Drink it up for one season. Try to recruit the best euro free agents I could get, give them 4 year deals front loaded with decreasing salaries, even artificially inflate their salary around 20% to get them over here, including getting them bought out. If sign add many guys like Pierre Jackson, Gary Payton, and Jarrod Uthoff as I could, guys that can either shoot great, and/or distribute, low salary guys that I could overpay for slightly in year one to get them on decreasing scale 4-year deals with minimal guarantees in the second through fourth year. Trade away Brooke Lopez for a much draft pick asset and lowest salaries possible so I've got even more cap to dangle in trades chins playoff time. Then I'd put 17 kids out there and figure out who can really play. Blow away the 2017 season to get a good lottery pick. And get several of these guys, like Pierre Jackson to put up some monster numbers so I can increase their trade value significantly out determine whether they can be a top 5 player on a championship team, in which case I might keep them. I'd waste one season on the lottery and see what values I can dig up and keep in cheap 4-year deals or trade for future picks. Portland? I don't know how they're going th rebate out of mediocrity. Going to be very difficult for them to do in my opinion, especially in the West. However it only takes one Hennigan to make a great trade with that could turn the Blazers to the upside. To the player that thinks they can trade Turner anytime for value........ha......you're crazy....nobody wants Turner for that kind of money and years left....nobody. I'd rather be Brooklyn's GM.
Nets have cap space but have such a toxic culture they can't woo anybody and have to overpay for talent.
Portland is way better off. The heist of Nurkic changed everything. Adding him made all the pieces that didn't seem to match fit seemlessly. 2 stud backcourt players, long and athletic wings plus a legit boehmith with skills they can play through .... he can pass, shoot, rebound, defend the basket, soft touch, has a true back to the basket post up game. They have an inside and outside game now and those overpaid wings have a purpose (Crabbe, Turner, Aminu, Harkless)
Brooklyn is dead to me. Their rebuild will take a decade. The Nets don't own a first round pick until 2019. The argument about free agency and cap space is moot. Sure, Brooklyn will attract talent in free agency, but not franchise players and will most likely overpay them with nothing to build around. Also, with the Knicks now looking to dump Carmelo and rebuild properly, the New York market advantage to any potential free agent swings heavily in the Knicks favor. The Nets are stuck in purgatory for a long time.
I would trade dame only because he's older and I think you can get better value. I really don't think there much different in terms of talent. In fact Cj is a much better shooter which I found ironic because of all the talk of dame being this cold blooded sniper. What's funny is I would trade any combo on the rockets roster besides harden and Anderson for dame. I think his game fits very well with harden and this system.
The Brooklyn trade makes the Knicks trade for Tracy McGrady seem genius. Even if you think Portland is going nowhere, Brooklyn doesn't have smart enough leadership to even have a chance at going somewhere. Cap room or not, players know what management is like because they all talk. Why would you knowing go to Brooklyn? This isn't the Knicks with the incredible history of BBall. It's the Nets.
