No Going Back
In late August, Goodwin [Dame's agent] suggested to Cronin that he meet with Lillard to mend the relationship in case his client were to return to the team. Cronin agreed, and they met at Lillard's Portland-area mansion on Sept. 5. ...
Lillard expressed his disappointment with how his situation had been handled, citing his steadfast commitment to the organization over the years. He questioned why there was no dialogue with Miami and expressed how it would be disheartening to be sent somewhere against his wishes.
1) According to sources, Portland had asked Lillard to sit out the final 10 games of the 2022-23 regular season to help the franchise improve its lottery odds. He was told the higher the draft pick, the better chance they had at using the pick to facilitate a trade for a proven veteran player. He reluctantly acquiesced to being shut down, citing a "calf injury."
Portland went 1-9 to finish the season and would go on to win the No. 3 pick and select Scoot Henderson, a promising young point guard the team planned to keep.
2a) In the Sept. 5 meeting, Cronin conveyed that if he was forced to do a deal with Miami, he had every intention of going after every attractable asset.
Lillard then said if a deal couldn't be worked out with the Heat, he would prefer to rescind his trade request and return to the Trail Blazers.
2b Cronin's response to the seven-time All-Star was that there was no coming back.
Lillard was shocked, sources said. ...
...
2c...on Sept. 11, [Lillard] started showing up at the Trail Blazers' practice facility to work out. He went in for eight days. He said Cronin did not address him once.
...
Moving in Silence
Deeper into September, things had become so contentious between Lillard's camp and the Blazers that the NBA league office intervened.
2d On Sept. 23, a Zoom meeting was organized by the NBA featuring league officials, Cronin, a team attorney, Lillard, Goodwin, and Ron Klempner, the general counsel for the National Basketball Players Association. The meeting was scheduled with the purpose of opening up the lines of communication between the Trail Blazers and Lillard's camp. The session got volatile at certain junctures, with both sides expressing their trust issues with the other.
At the end of the session, Cronin promised to do a better job communicating. In the days ahead, Cronin and Goodwin started communicating again.
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Dame found out he had been trade to Milwaukee "shortly after" 2 pm EST Wednesday.
The article makes clear that Joe Cronin is a liar, a bastard and an asshole who had it in for the "Heat" for reasons that are entirely unclear. But the enumerated paragraphs mark questions I have about the propriety of Cronin's conduct under league rules and under the CBA with players. No. 1: you can't do that in the clear terms that Haynes writes it. Meaning: Yes, teams tank all the time, but this was premeditated falsity on both Cronin's and Dame's part and Dame was deluded, "reluctantly" agreeing to sit out by Cronin's promises that it was necessary to get Dame help! Dame shouldn't have gone along with the fake injury ploy but he did only because Cronin deceived him. For analytical purposes here I accept everything Haynes writes as totally true. Tanking is a BIG issue in the NFL and NBA but unless you have a smoking gun it's all circumstantial. Haynes' account is a smoking gun. It was known that Dame felt betrayed by Cronin when the first day of free agency came and went and Cronin did not trade the pick for a vet. That was the trigger for Dame's trade request.
2a: Commissioner Silver warned Goodwin and Dame to not restrict the market for a trade. But here it was Cronin who was restricting the market by cutting Miami out. There is corroborative reporting on this as well. Linking 2a, 2b and 2c together, Cronin cut Portland out of Lillard's options as well. 2c looks pretty lock-outish.
But there is contradiction in Haynes reporting on the Sept 5 meeting and Dame's Sept. 11-18 back-to-school actions. Since Dame was told on Sept 5 he could not come back to the "Blazers" why did he show up and work out with the team "for eight days"?
We know, from this report, next to nothing about the league-brokered, league-monitored Zoom confab on Sept. 23, just last Saturday--four days before Cronin shipped Dame to Beer. Since the NBAPA and Lillard and Goodwin were on this call, was Association counsel informed that Cronin, also on the call, had told Lillard there was "no going back" to the "Blazers"? Was league counsel told Dame went back to work Sept 11-18? What did NBAPA counsel say if those other things were said? To any union lawyer, this is very explosive stuff! If all this happened exactly as Haynes wrote it the trade, I truly believe, could be rescinded. Cronin would be guilty of capital deception, self-tampering and restraint of trade. But there are too many gaps in this report to make those conclusions. All we know is that Joe Cronin is a liar, a bastard and an asshole.
