Anfernee Simons says he’s “pretty sure” he’ll be back with the Trail Blazers next season, Sean Highkin of Bleacher Report tweets. “We both have a mutual interest in coming back,” Simons said of being a restricted free agent this summer. “I’m pretty sure it will get done.” Simons expressed back in February he “100 percent” wanted to re-sign with Portland — it seems nothing has changed since then.
We have more from the Northwest Division:
- Damian Lillard expects the Trail Blazers to return to prominence in the Western Conference next season and will have a say in the team’s roster building, according to Highkin (Twitter links). “A tough season, a lot of adversity this year,” Lillard said. “A lot of things came up that we didn’t expect. But I want you to know one thing: this will not continue. Next year, we’re going to be back better than before.”
- Nikola Jokic gained a $534,484 bonus when the Nuggets made the playoffs again. The incentive was considered likely before the season and has no cap implications, Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets. Jokic is a prime contender for the Most Valuable Player award once again but he knows there’s plenty of worthy candidates, Mike Singer of the Denver Post tweets. “To be honest, I think there is a lot of guys that are playing at an extremely high level,” he said. “I’m just trying to be humble, to stay on the ground. … I don’t think about that to be honest, am I one of the best? I’m just trying to win the game.”
- Timberwolves coach Chris Finch signed a multi-year extension on Monday and the team’s top executive was glad to lock him up long-term, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic writes. “He’s just a joy to work with,” executive VP of basketball operations Sachin Gupta said. “I think the results on the floor are clear, just the drastic improvement from last year to this year, with really little change to the roster. I think he and his whole staff deserve a ton of credit for that.” Finch said, “I feel like there’s a pathway we can see to keep getting better and better. I’m just really excited to be able to say that these guys believe in what I’m doing.”
If Lillard were smart, he would let the front office do it’s job. Part of the reason they ended up in this mess is because of his desire to keep playing with his buddy CJ even if that pairing was never going to work defensively.
The more involved he gets, the worse off the Blazers are going to be.
100% Shea
When has this ever gone good? Like really
If the Blazers are rationing off the Gm’s job to the players? How’s this ever going to move forward
Id be scared after what I saw last deadline from Por and now this mumbo jumbo. Feels like nobody wants to grab the wheel over there as they see the cliff, hyperbole is all that’s left for the season ticket holders
If I’m the front office, I’d definitely keep Lillard in the loop out of courtesy but I definitely wouldn’t let him have a real voice in terms of decision-making. It’s their responsibility to sell Lillard on their plan/vision for the future and get him to buy in at all costs. Whether that’s from repeated discussions or showing him stats to back up their ideas, the ultimate goal would be to make Lillard feel confident in you knowing what the hell you’re doing by being assertive and not kowtowing to him.
Should all of that fail, you politely put your foot down and say “Look, we only want the best for you and this franchise. We’re on the same page there. But you’ve got to let us do our jobs. We know things didn’t go as well as hoped with the last front office, but give us this chance to prove ourselves to you. We know what’re doing. We will get the job done. We’re going to make this team as good as humanly possible”.
And if THAT doesn’t work, well, then leak some stuff to the media about Lillard being a PITA. Jk lol.
Jokic seems such a humble guy, unlike all the many other players coming out saying they should win such & such an award, for that alone he would be my winner… but on top of the modesty, I can say as a matter of fact that he has played the best individual season of any player I have ever seen in the last 40 years of the league, so his performance alone warrants for him to be the MVP, by a landslide if you ask me, easiest vote in years as he has been light years ahead of the field, notwithstanding that Giannis has been unbelievably good & Embiid too, their fantastic season makes Jokic’s season looks even better, that is for sure!