Part of what makes the NBA off season so intriguing is the constant rumor mill that surrounds the draft, free agency and trades in general. While every major sports league faces roster changes, rumors and the like, basketball stands apart from baseball and football (for the most part) in that a single player coming to a team can immediately transform a mediocre team into a contender. The twelve man roster is an intricate puzzle comprised of roles, style, chemistry, system etc. As fans, the fantasy aspect of compiling our own "perfect" rosters is almost as exciting as the games themselves. That is why you see entire websites dedicated to rumors, the pontificating of fantasy trade scenarios and player comparisons. Since this element of the NBA is so addicting to fans, the media cannot help but to fan the flames by publishing rumors based on un-corroborated sources. As we saw around the trade deadline and the draft (many times involving the Blazers) trades would be reported to be on the verge of completion, but  as we would later find out, these same trades had not actually been discussed. Some of this false information was probably floated by an agent, but it seems likely that many of these rumors originated from sloppy or false reporting.

    Today I was almost a party to spreading an entirely false rumor throughout the media, but thanks to corroboration and correct journalism, the rumor was squashed before it was able to threaten anyone's credibility: I was answering the phones at 95.5 the Game when a caller relayed to me that his cousin, who lived in Indiana, had just heard on the local sports station that the Blazers were discussing a deal that would send Rudy and Martell and likely a first to Indiana for Danny Granger. Upon hearing this, my first thought was "please be real!" so I relayed this information to Jay Allen. The first thing he did upon hearing this was call the Pacer's beat reporter, the two major Indianapolis radio stations and someone within the Pacer's organization. All of our sources replied that this move had not been discussed between the two teams, so we just let the story die without any mention of it on the air. In hindsight, it was a pretty mundane occurrence for a major new outlet, but the whole situation opened my eyes to the realities of sports reporting. In today's blog driven, instantaneous sport's news world, I could easily have seen that rumor blown up to the point where people would actually have been disappointed it didn't happen When you work in the sport's media world, especially if you are covering a certain team, you can be led to jump the gun on rumors for two major reasons:

1. You are a fan of a team. In the instance of this imaginary Granger story, my wishful thinking propelled me to want to get this on the air ASAP, as if by putting this information out in the world would increase the likely hood of the deal actually going down. This also applies to the local media wanting to appease the fans. How much more excited would we be about the Blazers (considering it were possible) if Jason Quick reported a rumor that had us going after CP3 or Lebron.

2. Expediency. They don't give out awards for breaking stories in the NBA but it sometimes seems that media outlets feel a certain competitiveness when pursuing rumors or breaking news. This tendency could lead to someone like Sam Smith or others to throw caution to the wind while throwing out trade scenarios.

That post went longer than expected. I just wanted to shed some light on the machinery of the NBA rumor mill, and hopefully increase awareness to the possibility that rumors reported by even the most credible organizations could be pure fallacy.

Commence Rambling:

I love Bayless but I  think he is the odd man out after the Miller signing. Many people believed that in order to obtain an upgrade at PG, Blake would be included in some sort of Sign and Trade deal, but now that we see that Miller was signed straight up it appears that Blake and Miller will be our primary PG options. This doesn't mean that Blake won't be the PG inevitably traded, or that Bayless will either, but it is likely that the Blazer brass are concentrating on entering the championship window now rather than later. As we saw with Boston, when a team is gearing up for a championship they tend to sacrifice sustained "goodness" for immediate greatness. While Blake is still on this roster,I think it is safe to say that the Front Office believes that in order to reach championship status we have to rely heavily on Veteran stability rather than the unfullfilled promise of Bayless' raw talent. We can't play out this season with talented (read: valuable) players like Outlaw and Bayless rotting away on the bench, while we could parlay those assets in a consolidating move that could elevate our status to elite. Quality over Quantity. I suspect Bayless, Trout and possibly some other assets will be moved for an upgrade at SF and possibly a backup PF (although I think that role will be filled by lower priced veteran).

One trend in the NBA drafting process that has troubled me over the last 4-5 drafts is the tendency of
NBA teams to draft unproven, young players on the assumption that due to these player's youth they have a higher potential ceiling than a player who spent all 4 years in college. Brandon Roy should have been the #1 pick in the 2006 draft (thank God he wasn't), but since he was older than Barngani, Aldridge, Foye and Morrison, we were led to believe that his maximum growth potential as an NBA player would be stunted in comparison because of his age.

    I think  a this  drafting folly is perfectly exemplified by Dante Cunninghams projected draft position as well as his actualized draft position. Here are his point totals from year to year: 2.2/8.7/10.4/16.1. It should be noted that he played essentially the same amount of minutes between his junior and senior season while increasing his point output by 6 per game. These  numbers indicate that Dante's skills are rising at an upward trajectory, suggesting that his ceiling is not limited by his chronological handicap. As we saw from last nights game (I know, I know. Take summer league games worth a grain of salt) Dante brings three crucial elements to the game: skilled midrange shooting, the ability to move without the ball, hustle (defense, O rebounding). These three particular attributes are usually not associated with one-and-doners. 

    One final point. Always side with success. Cunningham led an overmatched team to the final four. When in doubt draft a winner.

For the sake of brevity, the essential point of this post is thus: Dante Cunningham was a steal at 33. I expect him to be a valuable asset off the bench for years to come.

Edit: I didn't have nearly enough time to fully flesh out my point. I will either attach an addendum or create a new post on this topic shortly.

We are all wondering why would we trade for such a high-caliber PF like Lee and use him only as a backup for an already effective PF in Aldridge? Well what if Lee was Aldridge's replacement? Since we are much more desperate for an upgrade at SF than at backup PF, what if we were to turn around and deal Aldridge and Raef for a high-quality SF like Caron Butler? I know the idea of trading for Butler has been bandied about but none of the hypothetical offers really offered enough of an equal talent replacement for Caron without including one of the Big-3. I know that trading Aldridge would be a huge pill to swallow, but if think of this:

1. Our Toughness on the block needs to be improved. Aldridge is a great offensive player as well as O-rebounder, but as pointed out recently, his EFg % is really low for a PF, and his type of scoring can't carry a team when Brandon is injured or inneffective. Our Eggs are essentially in one basket right now.

2. On the subject of Brandon being injured. It has become apparent that our perimeter players simply cannot fill in when Brandon is out. Trading for Butler would not only give Brandon a great counterpart that takes the pressure of him on the perimeter but also allows for us to have a fighting chance when he is out

3. SF upgrade. Small forward has been our weakness this season, no doubt. We are relying to heavily on two very inconsistent players in Batum and Outlaw.
Batum can defend but when he scores over 2 a game it seems like a success, at this point with this team we can't afford to play 4 on 5 at the start of games. I'm not advocating trading him, but he shouldn't be our starter. Face it, games like Sunday's game are going to be flukes the rest of the season. Butler is a better defender at this point anyways.

Outlaw. I don't know what to say about Travis. Inconsistent. I would miss him. That is all.

Martell is the x factor in KP's decision. It would feel like a betrayal to trade him while he is injured. I think if we hypothetically traded Outlaw I think we may try Batum as the backup 4 in a small ball lineup and Martell as the backup 3. something Unorthodox has to be done with this roster

In Closing: I am not advocating trading LMA but I admit I am intrigued at the idea of parting with him if it means getting a player of Butler's caliber. ONLY if we can get a player like Lee to replace him. If we get Butler and we have to start Frye in LMA's spot, that is a loss. I think the benefits of the additions of Lee and Butler outweigh the negatives of losing Aldridge, Outlaw, Frye, Raef and whoever else would be included. I am not going to come up with the specifics of the trade proposal's, I'll leave that to you. Discuss. 

I just heard on the radio pregame that Travis is going to sit this game after suffering a bruised tailbone on that nasty fall during yesterday's game. Inversely, the good news is that Bayless is going to take Rudy's place in the second unit as backup-SG while Rudy moves over to SF (although I am pretty sure we are going to see the same 4q lineup us we usually do, sergio/blake, Rudy, Roy, Aldridge, Pryz/Greg.

I am personally excited to see Bayless get his teeth wet (bloody, as in Clipper blood) in non-garbage time. I think he will probably have to go against Eric Gordon and at times, Boom Dizzle. Fantastic.

I just wanted to give everyone a glimpse at our team's offensive statistical makeup 13 games into the season:

Pros:

1.  Portland leads the league in 3p% at 43%

2. Portland is 8th in the League in PPG (98.8)

3. Portland is also 8th in overall FG% (45.5)

4. Portland is 2nd in TO pg (12.7)

Analysis: I think that the improvement in FG% is probably one of the best indicators of how our offensive sets are starting to come together as we are able to feed the post more effectively as well as using our inside out/2-man game to find openings in the perimeter. Another reflection of our change in offensive philosophy is our increase in PPG which reflects the steadily rising tempo of our offensive sets and our ability exploit mismatches and read defenses in much less time than last year.

Cons:

1. We are 24th in the league in FTA (23.1)

2. We have a FT differential of -6.1

3. We are 14th in FT% (77.38)

Analysis: While our offensive rhythm is improving, our youth is showing that we have not developed a knack for drawing fouls. You can see that we are getting more points in the paint than last year and our leaders (Aldridge, Roy, Rudy) are becoming adept at selling fouls but we still are not getting a sufficient amount of dribble penetration from our other guards which, when occurring frequently, will usually lead to more trips to the line. When we get to the line we need to make better use of our opportunities. Quoting Schonz loosely "If you want to win Championships, you have to make your free throws"

Here are some more stats for you stat-geeks, most of this stuff is Greek to me.

http://www.82games.com/0809/0809POR.HTM

I'm going to just post what he said about us so you don't have to scroll through his article. Although if you want to here it is:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/081028

5. The 2009 Blazers will become the single most popular team in the history of the Internets

These guys bring everything to the Internet bandwagon table: Youth; likeability; a real excess of talent; foreign stars; a rabid fan base; an expiring contract for Trade Machine purposes (Raef LaFrentz, everybody!); Rookie of the Year dark horse and potential NBA heartthrob Rudy Fernandez (a cross between Paul Westphal and Antonio Banderas); a superb group of beat writers; multiple players who translate well to YouTube clips; a shrewdly run front office that spends its riches correctly (unlike everyone else); the whole "Will a Western rival pick up Darius Miles for 10 games just to screw their 2009 cap space?" subplot; a top three that ranks off the charts on the Good Guy Scale and may have broken the all-time record for a professional sports team (Oden, Roy and Aldridge); the smart decision to split the 10-man rotation into two separate units and keep it that way (love it); the increasing probability of a Roy-Fernandez-Outlaw-Aldridge-Oden crunch-time lineup (really love it); the ongoing "Will Oden ever be the guy we thought he would be?" and "Isn't it a bad sign that a 20 year-old franchise center looks and runs like he's 37?" debates; even the whole Duke/Rocky, "When Apollo died, a part of me died, too, but now you're the one" dynamic with the disenfranchised Sonics fans who might jump to their side.

There's just a lot going on with the 2009 Blazers. They were made for blogs and message boards and YouTube and losers like me who watch the NBA every night and everything else. Call 'em the Portland Internets. And by the way, when I made my wish list for "Teams I Absolutely Have to See" for my Clippers games this year, the list shook out like this: Celtics, Lakers, Blazers, Cavs, Hornets, Heat, Suns, Knicks, Pistons, Rockets, Durant's Future Former Team. Believe me, I can enjoy just about any NBA game in good seats. But those are the 11 teams I have to see in person at least once ... and Portland ranked third on the list. What a turnaround. Let's hope this paragraph wasn't the moment when it peaked.

Bill makes a great point. We are an extremely excellent team for internet hype, which I think everybody has figured out from the message board wars, blog shoutouts, trade proposals, Rudy youtubery etc... The internet and blogs, specifically, love speculation and It is safe to say that with only hours to go the entirety of NBA fandom is going to be on the edge of their seats to see how this great experiment will take shape.