Would you trade the whole team for a championship?

I like the San Antonio model, myself. Define your one or two or three core players and build around them. Those players are pretty well indisputably Roy, Aldridge and Oden, with Fernandez pulling up quickly on the outside. I would be very hesitant to trade any of them.

Which is a roundabout way of saying I would not swap the entire team. I would swap any pieces that needed to be swapped, though. I simply can’t put the issue into black and white.

If this is how you are going to post you need to post more often. Nicely thought provoking.

Yeah, I’d be glad that we win a championship but I’d much prefer that the guys we’ve built up and have been Blazers for the majority of their careers win.

Personally I have a hard time understanding the people who don’t care about who’s on the team as long as we win. I won’t say they’re less of a fan, but definitely are not the same kind of fan I am. I want a team I like and that will win. And so far we’re heading in that direction with this team. Some players have to leave, some join, but for the most part I prefer winning with a core you built yourself (“you” being the organization).

Anyway, I’ve often thought about this topic myself. Would I trade this whole team if it meant being the Celtics and getting a ring (even if it was guaransheed)?

For me, it’s know. I love Brandon Roy. I love LaMarcus Alridge. I would HATE HATE HATE to see them playing for any other team. In fact, I might jump off the Blazer bandwagon if all of a sudden we had Bosh/Granger/Chris Paul instead of Roy and Aldridge. I mean, I’d still root for the team, but right now I want to see Roy and LMA win a ring. Period. They mean more to me than any other players in the association right now. And it’s so fun when you have guys like Rudy, Batum, etc. added to the mix.

So, I voted no. I guess I won’t jump off the bandwagon if we do make some crazy trades, but I am forever going to root for this group of guys we have now. I was going to add “assuming they don’t turn into Darius Miles” at the end of that last sentence, but then I realized that’s part of what I like so much about this team—you know that they never will. They’re the one of (if not the) classiest group of guys in the association. And that’s a team that’s fun to root for.

No team is.
There is no such thing as being “owed” as a fan. That is the mentality that I hate with Yankees or Raiders or Lakers fans.

I enjoyed rooting for everyone on this last year’s team. I can’t say that for teams in the past; even the great ones from the early 90s. If they never win it all, I won’t start to dislike Roy or La. If they turn into floppers, whiners, thugs, or disreputable off the court, then that is when I will tune out.

I feel like Chris Paul is one of the top 5 players in the NBA. I also hate the way he plays and don’t enjoy watching him at all. I don’t want to watch him play for the Blazers, even if it meant they would win it all next year. Same with Kobe, same with A’m’a’r’e, same with McGrady.

I’m not against trading, just against trader bob style trading.

Would you be content to see Aldridge for instance retire a Blazer and lose in the playoffs every year only to have KP admit after retiring that an Aldridge, Outlaw, Rudy and Bayless for CP3 trade was on the table?

I am loyal to the team first and second to Roy and Oden after that I see guys I like, like Rudy and guys I strongly question like LMA/Outlaw/Blake. Roy or Oden I would be crushed if they were traded (Ala Drexler in 1994 or whenever that was), LMA though? I would definitely trade him if it mean Paul or someone who would put us over the top.

I hear what you are saying, it’s the old Seinfeld “We don’t route for the players we route for the Jersey’s” thing. You have a valid point but if trading LMA nets Paul I do it and I don’t look back and I think KP is far less sentimental then I am.

It is an interesting topic, and I can definitely understand why people could and would answer this question yes. A championship is the ultimate goal. And to get one for sure? When nothing is ever guaranteed with what you’ve got? I’m surprised that more people haven’t answered yes.

But for me, it’s about knowing the players, and the story they make on their own. Coming from the ground up to the top is a great story. They haven’t made it yet, and maybe they never do, but it is a fun story to watch unfold before my very eyes. Boston’s story is a lot less interesting to me, and I wouldn’t want to see that happen here, from that standpoint. It’d be like Superman without Kryptonite. Where’s the plot?

I say no.

Even though the Drexler/Porter teams got awfully close, I don’t have regrets about that era. I liked the team and I liked to root for them. I wish we would have won, but I wouldn’t rewrite history now and dismantle the roster for an “all or nothing” shot.

One of the things I couldn’t stand about the Whittsit era was the laundry list of players we went through. I suppose that’s easy to say now when we have young talent that is likely to stick around, but without even getting into the Jailblazers thing, I think I could have supported the team better during the “dark days” if we at least had a consistent roster, or some sort of core group.

Its a no for me. Roy is so far and away my favorite player in the league I just couldn’t stand seeing him in another uni, even if it means we never win a ring. Its not only Roy either, I like every damn rotation player on this team(but that doesnt mean trading one here or there to balance the roster is out of the question).

PS, ThereGoDaGame – thats a great screen name. I might have put an “Oh My” in front of it though….

Who my team is, how they grow, and the story they make are the reasons I am a fan.

My team goes all the way to Ruffin and it IS continually changing. But these slow subtle changes (like JB for JJ, or maybe a Outlaw+Sergio for ?) are jarring to me. I miss JJ. But it makes sense. We are still the Blazers, these are our guys, but the different parties were better off in a different situation.

Outlaw would be hard on me. He’s been a Blazer awhile, and his personality is part of who the Blazers are. It disappears and part of my fandom does with it. Hopefully I will learn to love the new guys who come in.

Life comes with changes though, so I shouldn’t grieve them when they come, right?

However, if you are talking about our whole team, or even a large part of it, there is no continuity. It isn’t even the same story any more.

We did this a few years ago, like a do over after the Wallace era sunk into oblivion – a do over to take us back and try to connect the story to something that was going on in the early ’90’s. Try to trace the Blazers story back to four or five years ago, and it really only flows for me in terms of contracts and transactions. That story was not the beginning of who the Blazers are now. That story was purged and removed, and a new one began.

A story that I have followed like no Blazer story before it. This team – it’s individual players and what they stand for – is why I am here on BEdge today.

I’m a journey > destination type of guys as you can tell. Championships are wonderful, but in the long run, see how they are treated. The main point of them is to give adolescent Californian trolls something to repeat like a parrot, dragging the glory of their team’s past through the dirt. They must be earned the right way or they are empty.

But this topic is especially pertinent. Somebody else brought up last year’s Boston team, and I’d say that is the best available model for an “insta-championship” (just add Garnett) that we have, and I can say as a one-time Celtics fan that it was not that satisfying. I think the whole philosophy around the re-building of Portland has (arguably) been an equal emphasis on talent and chemistry, and I think having a team that the fans have gotten to know as a unit and vice-versa means a lot more to a city than players doing it for their own glory of winning a ring (ala Garnett). People are starting to talk about our “championship window” opening, and as much as that in itself is nice, I think it says a lot more about the organization that they have been able to open it with such a likable squad.

The Blazers have been close so many times. I want a championship so bad.

The only player under contract for the season after the next one (2010-11) is actually Martell Webster. EVERYONE else is expired or under option until then. I don’t think more than a handful of teams have that situation, most are burdened either by big contracts for veterans or even by dumb long contracts for players that just turned out to be not deserving of them.

That said, it’s only theoretical since the team will extend Roy and LaMarcus this year or latest next summer, and after that one after another needs to be re-signed or let go (Travis + Steve, then Oden + Joel in 2011, then Rudy, Nic and Bayless, …).

I would love to keep most of the team together, but since I don’t believe they already have all the pieces for a championship in place and there will be open spots in the future no matter what (likely 3+ already now) some turnover will happen.

I would guess when the Blazers win a championship at least 3 to 7 players from this roster are still with the team.

http://www.blazersedge.com/2008/5/22/534401/a-question-of-identity

if I already knew we were going to win one, assuming I was all powerful and was able to make this decision is because the journey would be lost. All the exciting wins, heartbraking losses of a season would become boring, which would demean the whole reason I watch the game.

To me, this comes down to a question of what the team means to an individual fan or observer. Is it the colors and the name, or is it the guys on the roster?

This question has changed quite a bit with the changing landscape of free agency. Players do come and go much more frequently, so it can be harder to form attachments and relationships with them. Meanwhile, the team as an organization remains mostly a constant (moving cities, new ownership, and wholesale management changes aside).

I watch basketball because I love the sport and the players who play it, especially “my” players. The Blazers are my team, but not just because I’m an Oregonian. They earned my fandom with their fantastic rebuilding effort that has resulted in the great team we now have. And it’s the players that really spurred that, although with plenty of credit given to Kevin Pritchard and Paul Allen, too. But it really boils down to how much I like all of the guys on the roster. And not just as players, but as people.

If the complete team trade that ThereGoDaGame proposed came about, I would most certainly not be happy, but I’d grow to accept it because I am a Blazer fan. I’d be really happy for the players if they won a championship elsewhere, but I don’t think I’d change my allegiance to follow them on another team. I also would feel pretty cheap about a championship that I hadn’t been able to see developing for years. I’d be happy, but it would be muted, and I certainly wouldn’t journey to Portland to take part in a championship parade.

As others have said, I think it’s more about the journey than the destination. It’s about the relationship I have to the players and how it’s changed with them. I’d rather rise and fall with guys I like and know, even if it doesn’t end with a trophy.

I like the faces more than the colors.

felt this way about the Sebastian Telfair and Ruben Patterson Blazers. I would really like to see this team play for the next 10 years.

I wonder how people would answer if the poll has an addendum that if we chose to stay with “our” guys, the cost would be that they would not win the championship. That might be a less lopsided poll…

That said, I identify with this group as much or more than I did with the Drexler era teams, and feel filthy talking about disbanding.

The players don’t mean anything to me, it’s the winning I’m after. A lot of people say that, but then they want to keep Travis Outlaw and draft a bunch of intriguing new rookies. So give me one title and I would be willing to kick them all out on the street. I’m not a “OMG Superstar pee myself” kind of guy.

On the other hand I would not trade the entire franchise for one title.