JOEL FREELAND. "The best big in Europe"

Don't forget that we should be paying him to come over next season!

He and Batum will eat into our massive amount of cap room, but we'll still have cash for a big Free Agent. Stoked that today's trade deadline moves helped open up the space needed to get him signed and into the NBA as a Blazer.

Hope fans and local media members start focusing more on the Joel of the future instead of the Joel of the past!

Win shares is an advanced metric that estimates how many wins a player contributes to his team, combining both offensive and defensive value. In 2010-11, Bosh’s play has translated to 5.1 wins so far, topping the totals for Pierce (4.6), Garnett (4.3) and Stoudemire (3.5) -- all of whom lead Bosh in fan voting.

-From an ESPN article on Chris Bosh

This got me wondering what the "win shares" were for the current season of basketball with our Blazers. But, I couldn't find the realtime stats for the Blazers this season.

Does anyone know where I might find that information? Looking for Win Shares and Win Shares per 48 minutes ideally.

My guess is that LaMarcus is #1, Wes is #2, Dre is #3 in the overall Win Shares this season. Really want to see if those stats matchup to what my eyeballs and brain think. Want to see how Batum is ranked in this stat too.

The Blazers franchise records for Win Shares in a season: 

Offensive Win Shares

Win Shares

Looks like the Grizzlies have a young center that we could snag for a decent price, and his salary works with the Greg Oden Exemption.

EDIT: His salary isn't quite low enough to be covered with the Oden exemption alone, we'd have to move someone to get him here.

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It's time for Brandon Roy to move into he role of 6th man. It's a role he can excel at for the Blazers for years to come...certainly longer than trying to log starter minutes. Let's all be honest with ourselves here, his knees just aren't going to hold up as a starter.

A collection of thoughts:

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Roy, Rudy, Martell, LMA, Oden - I use that lineup in crunch time.

Rudy guards the PG, Roy guards the weaker SG/SF, Martell guards the better SG/SF, LMA – PF, Oden – C. Roy is generally the ball-handler late in games, this moves him to ball-handler position. This lineup limits our defensive liabilities/holes, while keeping tons of offensive talent on the court.  Let the opponent try to match up with us, rather than letting the opponent dictate our lineup.

Miller, Roy, Martell, LMA, Oden – I try starting this unit consistently. Let them get on-court time together, and build some cohesion.  I do think Miller and Roy can work, it just takes time and more comfort.

We need something solid to build on, I think this is a solid base for us, roster-wise.

Rudy, Outlaw, Joel, and Blake - Finishing the 9-man rotation. Howard can play when the bigs are in foul trouble.

Give Bayless+Cunningham minutes if you want to speed up their development…If I had to choose whose minutes to cut into it would be Blake and Howard, the veteran role-players we know what to expect from.

Cunningham+Bayless = Two great young talents who I’d like to see get in the mix. Hopefully the guys ahead of them can run up the score to get them some minutes. Bayless has been fairly solid, and what I have seen from Cunningham so far I have LOVED. Dante can straight up play.

SET BLAZER ROTATIONS

I'm saying it now.

Martell Webster for NBA's MIP in 2009-2010.

After sitting out all last season he is playing with HOT FIRE in his belly.  It sucks to sit out injured, and he certainly looks happy and focused now that he's back and playing.  Martell locked Kevin Durant down last night in Oklahoma and made Carmelo Anthony work hard every possession when he checked him during the Denver game.

Defense wins Championships...and I think it can win NBA MIP awards too.

Of course Webster can stroke it on offense as well, only helping his case if he keeps his pace.