The #3 Draft Pick and the Portland Trail Blazers Fan Base

Your favorite Portland Trail Blazers podcast is back on the air! In Episode 28 of Dave and Marlow, Dave Deckard flies solo, chronicling the biggest franchise-changing event in Trail Blazers history since 2015. Portland now owns the third pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. What are they going to do with it?

Dave suggests the eventual fate of the pick is pretty clear. The bigger questions are two:

1. What is it worth, internally and externally?
2. What boundaries do the Blazers have, demarcating the line between sensible move and desperation?

The answer to the first question varies, but Dave talks about some of the environmental influences that could influence it and some of the players it might draw. The second matter is known to the front office alone, but Dave suggests that’s the one we should be worried about. This isn’t a Victor Wembanyama situation, a yellow-brick road to Trophy City. The Blazers need to be shrewd, and perhaps flexible, to leverage this pick into its maximum output and/or utility.

As is typical, Dave also looks at the debate surrounding the pick in a different way than most. In a stretch guaranteed to make almost everybody mad, he compares this situation among the Portland fanbase to the end of the Jail Blazers era back in 2005, asking what lessons we all might learn, asterisked with a couple atmospheric changes in the last two decades. It’s an interesting look at the reaction of human beings to tension or crisis, including everyone from humble and anonymous fans to Damian Lillard himself.

You get all that, plus a smidgen of playoffs talk, in this episode of Dave and Marlow!

You can download this show or subscribe to the podcast here. Or just click play on the embed below!

Enjoy!