I'm wondering what is taking so long. Why hasn't Brandon Roy our All-Star Guard been signed to a maximum contract that he deserves?

This article kind of got me thinking... http://tinyurl.com/lcbdgx

This outlines some of the ridiculous incentives players have in their contract if they hit certain goals. Example, if Luke Ridnour wins defensive player of the year he gets an extra 1.5 million. If Adonal Foyle wins MVP he gets an extra $500,000. And the list goes on.

Check out the story and comment below what you would stick in B-Roy or LA's contract for their incentives.

Ok people. Hedo ain't comin. Portland went in a frenzy over this guy and I still don't know why. I think he's good don't get me wrong and I hate to say it but he's an upgrade over any of the guys that we have at small forward. But the love affair that our Execs had over him was down right over the top, and a little weird. (We had KP meet him at the airport and a guy holding up a welcome sign in different languages.) You ever have a girlfriend or boyfriend break up with you because you "love them too much?" That's what may have happened here. Portland may have loved him too much and didn't do the right thing in this situation. And the right thing would have been opening the wallet for him. But if we would have paid him what Toronto's going to pay him I think it would have been too much for this guy. He's good but he's not 56 million dollars good. Plus this contract would suck for us three years from now. We'd have to trade him before then I'm sure and who knows what we would have to settle for to get back.

Thing is, we need to look for a player who has the mindset of a champion. Either he's won one (Rajon Rondo) or he finds himself now NEEDING to win one (Jason KIdd or Steve Nash). I don't think Hedo really cares if he wins a championship. He's going to Toronto for crying out loud. We need to search for a guy who wants to come to Portland, accept that it's weird, and win basketball games.

So post who you think we should go after now. I believe it needs to be someone who makes everybody else better and is a proven winner. We need experience and we need another piece but who is that piece? And will that be the move to make us a champion? That's how we need to think. We need to think like a champion.

Thanks, and screw Hedo.

Tim

So last night during the draft and just before the Blazers come up at 22 I'm looking at my laptop and ESPN is showing the players that are still available. I see DeJuan Blair and I think ok it's either him or Casspi. And as I know KP has a fever for international flavor I figure he's going to snag the boy from Israel over DeJuan Blair's bionic ACL's. I wouldn't be mad. Casspi could be a good player, I think he could have some upside and feel he's going to be a significant role player on a good team (and it won't be with Sacremento I assure you) and I hear him go with Claver.

Claver? CLAVER?? What the hell does this guy bring to our team? Seriously?! CLAVER!!?? I went on a tirade of Facebook status updates lashing at the pick and Twitter posts to Bill Simmons and John Hollinger hoping they could make sense of this. Of course no one is there to explain this to me so I had to do it on my own.

So here's what I came up with and just to give you heads up, there is a loud SMACK at the end of this from you know who.

By picking Claver, the Blazers will be able to stash Claver over seas and free up even more money in cap space of over a million dollars. So by most peoples estimates of the new salary cap we could be upwards of 9 or 10 million available. So instead of making this team younger we now have a better oppurtunity to make this team more mature with a good free agent. Add in a little trade for Hinrich and we have ourselves a very solid squad that, dare I say, would beat the crap out of last years amazing Blazer team.

So ladies and gentlemen.... That's how I got Pritch-Slapped. He took me through the emotions of befuddlement to pissed off to down right angry then logic came in and I had a new found great respect for our own Kevin Pritchard. We are blessed to have this guy and thank God we don't have a GM that used a 5th and 6th pick on two point guards. What was that about?   

I just read this article, although it's a couple months old, from Malcolm Gladwell that was in the New Yorker. It makes a good point about why smaller, weaker teams should run a full court press for 48 minutes.

Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/pa2ls2

So this begs the question... Why don't NBA teams run a press or why wouldn't they run the press?

So hash it out, I wanna know why they don't run the press and dominate?