Much of the draft talk this year has centered around our Blazers' two biggest needs: a new starting PG and a Back Up PF (BUPF).  I agree with many Bedgers that those two roles are the most important for the Blazers to fill during this offseason, that is why I am advocating that the Blazers avoid targeting a PG or PF in this draft.  Instead I am going to suggest we use our draft pick for something else this year.

Now that does not mean the Blazers should avoid the PG and PF positions all together; if Ricky Rubio or DeJuan Blair happen to slip out of the lottery it would be smart for Portland to attempt to trade up for either of them.  I just don't see any players worth trading up for slipping that far. 

From what I have seen and read about Young he could become a valuable assest to the Blazers.  I read draft express like many other Bedgers for my scouting reports and Young's profile makes me think he would be a great fit for this team.  I envision Young being a back up SF with a possibility of him contributing limited minutes at the PF position if needed.  With strengths like perimeter defense, physical toughness, athleticism, and a long wingspan to accompany a 3Pt% of 37.2 he fits Nate's mold for a SF. 

Now I am going to give my opinion on a couple of concerns people may have with drafting Sam Young.

"We already have a log jam at the SF position." This is true.  We currently have Batum, Webster, Outlaw, and Rudy that will all be jockeying to get minutes at SF next season.  First, I don't see all four of those players returning to the Blazers next season.  I see at least one of them (likely Outlaw) being used to bring in an upgrade at PG or BUPF.  That would alleviate some of the log jam.  Also as we learned this year with Batum it is important to have depth at all positions.  Imagine if we trade Outlaw this summer and then Batum or Webster suffered an injury; we would be hurting. 

"Why are we even talking about a SF, we need a PG or a BUPF?" Totally true.  Unfortunately we have a late pick in a weak draft, that does not bode well for us drafting a rotation player that can fill one of our two needs.  Now maybe I am wrong about that, it is possible that Gani Lawal could become a stellar BUPF and if KP thinks so he should go that direction.  But when I see people talking about drafting Gani Lawal I get the feeling we would just be picking up the PF scraps that are still hanging around.  IMO that is not a smart way to draft, and that is why I don't see KP doing it.  Also I think Joel Freeland would be a better player than Gani Lawal.

"So how do we fix the PG and BUPF hole that we have?" Trades and free agency.  Instead of drafting the best player available at a position of need we go out and target players that have proven themselves in the NBA.  Those are the players that can bring a fresh perspective to our team and will be ready to go on day one of training camp to make a deep run into the playoffs.  Who we get and how we get them are topics for a different post, many different posts.

I just wanted to share a perspective on the draft I haven't heard many people talking about and I will leave you with a highlight video.

It's time to celebrate.

The home streak against the l*kers continues. 

What was Ariza thinking?

How about Boom Boom in the first quarter? Joel in the game? Travis in the game? And Roy finishing off the l*kers in the 4th quarter.

We are one game away from tying our wins from last season. 

Denver lost tonight, and so did New Orleans. 

We are now tied with Utah for #1 in the Northwest Division.

Celebrate good times Come On

Since the Blazers don’t play another game until Wednesday and I have a very mellow night at work tonight, I decided to investigate some of the players that the Blazers may go after in the offseason to play back up power forward.  For the past two seasons it appears that everyone has been talking about upgrading at the point guard or the small forward positions.  I think that the Blazers will pursue many options at those two positions and if the right deal is available they will take it.   That said I feel we are much more likely to upgrade at back up 4 regardless of whether or not we trade for a 1 or a 3. 

For this post I am only going to look at 4 players that I feel are highly available and that I know something about.  There are more players out there and I encourage you guys to post info about your favorite in the comments.

Before I start with the players I wanted to touch on the qualities I think would be most valuable to our team from the back up 4.  DEFENSE (has to be number one), energy/hustle (this will contribute to defense, rebounding, and scoring), rebounding, inside scoring, appropriate age (19 – 27/28) and experience (there are a lot of different types of experience). 

The players

Anderson Varejao

The Good: Varejao is 6’11” which would allow him to play the 4 and the 5 off of the bench; this is a great quality considering the injury history of all our big men.  He averages 10.7 PTS/36 min, 9.1 REB/36 min, 1.1 BLK/36 min, and 1.1 STL/36 min.   In the experience/age department Varejao has already been to the NBA finals and is still only 26 years old.

The Bad: his TS% is .555, not bad but it would actually be higher if his FT% wasn’t .624.  He appears to have reached his peak on the development curve.    

The Other: Varejao is likely to opt out of the final year of his contract this season and the Blazer’s may just have enough cap space to sign him.  However, Cleveland will put up a fight to keep him since they will be trying to entice King James into staying.  One more quality about Varejao that should be mentioned is that he seems to be content with being a roll player on a good team; I think that is very valuable to team chemistry.  But would Nate lift his ban on head bands to get him?

Leon Powe

The Good: Powe is a high energy, athletic banger for the Celtics.  His best quality seems to be his ability to produce without a high volume of minutes.  This season he is averaging 16.4 MPG and has per 36 minute stats of 9.8 REB, 1 BLK, and 14.8 PTS.  Powe also brings a good mix of experience/age: he has one NBA Championship to his name, he may have a second after this season, and he is only 25 years old.

The Bad: Powe doesn’t just produce points and rebounds in his short amount of playing time; he also produces a large quantity of fouls, 5.7 PF/36 min.  Slightly below Oden who is averages 6.2 PF/36 min. 

The Other: Powe is a restricted free agent this off season.  He should definitely be attainable with our cap space but I don’t know how much of it he would be worth, or if it would be better to draft a late first/early second round pick because of the price difference.  If you haven’t seen this vignette on nba.com from the finals then make sure you check it out. 

Tyler Hansbrough (I might take some heat for this one)

The Good: Hansbrough has a lot of experience at the collegiate level, arguably the most experience a guy could have at that level short of winning a national title.  Talking experience only, he should be the most NBA ready player in the draft.  He has good strength, a strong work ethic, and despite what he gives up on the athletic end he should be able to rebound and score at a decent rate in the NBA.  

The Bad: Hansbrough is not a tremendous athlete; this means the ceiling for what he may become is not tremendously much higher then where he already is.  He also is said to have a short wingspan, although I have not seen a measurement on what his wingspan actually is.  The physical deficiencies that hold Hansbrough back from being a top prospect in the draft mean he will likely never be a defensive force. 

The Other: Hansbrough is pegged as a late first round pick, possibly into the second round on most mock draft boards.  That makes him very attainable, and it would make his contract very cheap for the next four years.  Draft Express Profile

Joel Freeland

The Good: at 6’11” Freeland has great size for an NBA power forward and could possible develop into a back up 5 as well.  Draft express ranks him as the 7th best player who already has his NBA rights held by a team.  He can score, rebound and his size bodes well for him turning into a decent shot blocker.

The Bad: his only real experience is playing in Spain for the past three seasons and to my knowledge this is the first year he is getting serious playing time.

The Other: we hold his draft rights which is a plus for us getting him in uniform.  However, because we drafted him 30th overall back in 06 he can only make about 800k next season for us.  He is surely going to get offered more from another team in Europe.  And if we don’t get him over here next year the contract he signs in Europe could keep him out of the NBA for a long time.  Unfortunately I am not able to provide more info since the only time I’ve ever seen Freeland play was in summer league two years ago.  Maybe almart1 could start sending us Freeland updates like he sent Rudy updates last year? His draftexpress.com profile was updated recently and has all his stats, check out that PER.

I know there are other guys out there like Brandon Bass, Paul Millsap, David Lee, and Carl Landry who I don’t know as much about, so if you do enlighten me in the comments.  I’ll be here all night.

I felt like I had to write this because all season long I have been very critical of Channing Frye lately he has really stepped his game up.  At the Midpoint of the season when Joe Freeman wrote his mid-season report he named Greg Oden as the disappointment of the season so far.  A lot of people were upset about that, as was I.  But I was mostly upset that he didn't seem to consider Frye's play so far this season.  He had been terrible.

Last year at the end of the season Frye was rolling.  In April he averaged 12 points and 8 boards.  Over the summer there was alot of talk that he was working hard on his shooting, especially from 3.  Also that he was going to step his game up because it was a contract year. 

Then the season starts and I thought we had a 7 foot high school player on the team.  I officially gave up on him when we played at Boston, at one point he jumped up to shoot and then decided not to so he just floated the ball out in front of himself; and one of the Celtics was more than happy to take the ball.

It seems however that Frye is starting to come around.  He played well at San Antonio in a losing effort.  But tonight he looked sharp.  He was 5-6 from the field for 12 points, and he had 4 boards in 20 minutes.  Not the greatest stat line but he had some strong cuts to the hoop, finished inside, and had some great passes that his teammates unfortunately could not capitalize on. 

I still worry about his defense and I think he must have a competition going with Oden to see who can have the most fouls per minute.  Also I am of the opinion we should release him at the end of the season for cap space.  All that said I wanted to give him some credit and I hope he has returned to form just in time for the playoffs.

Go Blazers

I have been fuming for about 36 hours over what I heard yesterday on the Morning Sports Page, as have many B-edgers.  And I wanted to write a post calling Dawson and Doing names and vent out all my frustrations.  But after reading Dave’s “Watching and waiting” thread, I’d rather do something constructive. 

I want intelligent sports talk radio.  And I know it does not sound like those two things can go together, but I hold out hope that they can.  When Gavin Dawson took over the MSP he had a chance to make it a quality show, instead he has taken a page from the Lars Larson/Don Imus playbook.  The MSP is trying to get listeners by being edgy and provocative.  Yesterday, whenever someone called up to point that out Dawson dropped the call and made a big thing about how they he is just telling the truth.  Yeah right.  The truth is there is plenty of quality sports news to talk about without making outrageous claims like Oden is a bust after 29 minutes of play.  Dave did a much better job of saying that than I can, so I will defer to his post on the benefits of watching and waiting. 

What I want is a new host and co-host for the MSP.  If you don’t believe me that Dawson is just trying to be controversial, think back to his take on this past NBA draft.  On his former show Overtime with Gavin Dawson, he and Doing made this big deal about the Blazer’s draft being a bust and the fans being sheep that are only excited about the draft because KP told us it was a great draft.  Then on the weekly Blazers’ podcast Dawson said the Blazers had a great draft.  That sounds like a guy who says whatever the people he is working for want him to say, that sounds like a sheep. 

And all I am going to say about Doing is that he is a L*ker fan.  He owns L*ker gear, he likes watching K*be play, and he routed for the L*kers in the playoffs.  Unacceptable. 

So if you are like me and want some Real local sports talk radio in the morning there is only one thing to do... listen to something else.  We have to turn the dial and keep it turned until either 95.5 or 1080 wise up and put a better product on the air.  I know that all you want after a Tuesday night win is to pop the radio on Wednesday morning and hear a recap, but the more you listen to those two the worse it will get.  Just think of it this way, anything is better than listening to a couple of Don Imus wannabes, even Don Imus (not that I recommend it). 

For the poll, who would you like to see replace Dawson and Doing on the MSP.  Personally I think a combination of Dave from Blazers Edge and John Strong would be awesome.  For those of you who don’t know John Strong he is on the BFT with Canzano; he is really knowledgeable about a lot of sports and he seems pretty down to earth.

I researched this information after reading Dave’s The Changing Paradigm post tonight.  There are a lot of fanposts and comments stating the Blazers should not sign a max contract free agent next off-season because we will be over the luxury tax once we re-sign our big three.  It got me thinking, just how much does the luxury tax matter to PA?

During the 2002-2003 season our payroll was $104,321,823 and the luxury tax was set at $52.9 million.  That means the Blazers (PA) were paying $51,421,823 in luxury taxes (If I owned the Clippers that year I would have been sure to thank PA for the 1,773,166 dollars he gave me).  That money was on top of the $100+ million in salary we were already paying. 

We must also consider PA is #41 on Forbes Billionaires list, he drops 3 million on draft picks like they are going out of style, and the Blazers have been over the luxury tax every year since its inception.  Looking at all this I think it is safe to say KP will have no reservations about Spending Paul Allen’s Money next off season.

Sources

http://www.sportscity.com/NBA/Salary-Cap/#history

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/2002-2003-nba-salaries-western-conference.htm

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_Paul-Allen_1217.html

Extra words: paper, cha-ching, Benjamin’s, bling bling, SPAM