It has started with the retirement of a great Star in Roy. Oden's injury was not exactly unexpected but it doesn't change anything, we must rebuild now and set ourselves up for a run in 3-5 years. To do that I think we have to trade Wallace for, hopefully, an unprotected draft pick from a team under the cap. Like the Kings, who also could use a good SF that they also drafted way back in the day. Why trade Wallace cause we can at least hope to get something out of him before he bolts in free agency, if he opts out that is. I for one don't believe that he will opt out, cause he'll likely not get $9.5million next summer will he? He could just defer his free agent status for another year which will limit our cap space next summer to go after Deron Williams. If he doesn't want to come we could offer Nash a one year $10million deal and complement that group with a top role player or two. Basically it gives us options if Wallace's contract is off the books and why shouldn't we try and get something from him instead of letting him go for nothing like RLFEC.

This was the last chance for Nate in my mind anyways and he failed miserably. He seemed to pull out a pretty good regular season but come the Playoffs, he looked clueless. 

I haven't a clue as to why the decision to give Nate a contract extention during the season was ever a good idea. They should have waited until the season was over to make the decision but now we are stuck with Nate for the next few seasons. We are stuck with his slow-paced style of play where we don't run unless we have forced a turnover. Where the players still can't set a pick or rebound the ball. Or know how important it is to hit their wide-open shots in the Playoffs. We are still hopelessly average on defense and mind-numbingly boring on offense. Without Oden and Roy it does not work but why build a team so dependent on our most injury-prone players? Both Oden and Roy are no longer pieces to build around therefore the roster has to change and change dramaticly not just the odd in, odd out either. Naturally the offensive and defensive system has to change as well, that goes without saying.

We all know the starting lineup as it stands today but none of us know if Roy will still be a Blazer in November or if he can win the starting SG spot. Let's say, for the sake of arguement,  that the Roy we last saw in the Playoffs is the one we're likely to see in November. Thats not good enough to start just good enough to be a slightly iffy backup SG who is capable of having the odd 20pt game. But this isn't about what we can expect from Brandon but the entire team.

The same goes for Oden really, except we really have no clue as to when he'll actually get on the court and what he'd be able to do once he does.

Therefore we shouldn't go into next season expecting anymore than that from either of them just to be on the safe side, right or wrong?

Without Oden and only 1/2 of Roy we don't have a team capable of doing anything in the Playoffs. Sure we'll have Wallace for the entire season but its not like he's a great Playoff performer either nor did he play real well this time round with us. But it wouldn't be surprising if Gerald does well next time he plays for us in the Playoffs.

Fact is we've got to stop expecting the injury-prone players to stay healthy for the entire season, we need to be prepared for when they get injured.

My Plan would be:

My feeling is that we no longer need a pass-first PG like Miller to lead the team, we can be better with a scorer. We'd be to run the pick-n-roll, finally. We'd also have a player that is a one man fast break as long as he has speed. That's why I hope that we go after Brandon Knight real hard. I'd trade almost anyone, except LMA, for Irving but since we aren't likely to entice Cleveland to giving him up I suggest trying for Knight instead. Even Kemba Walker would improve us but his small size bothers me but I'd still take him.

Even if we can't move up high enough to draft Knight or Walker I'd want us to trade Miller for a better scorer perhaps Felton or Stuckey. Fact is Miller is the safe option for Nate and it hasn't worked so its time to make whole sale changes. Trade Camby, Miller, Rudy, Mills, Babbit, Oden and even Batum to bring in more athletic players. That's what I'd like to see, will they do something this drastic? I doubt it but this group of players have failed to get out of the first round and I don't see this group doing any better next time, do you?

Well perhaps it is but its taken a while to happen. I am talking about Roy of course. He was expected to be a scorer off the bench but produced next to nothing in games 1 and 2. Suddenly after that "outburst" he has come alive and now he's the hero. But what if he acutally did what he was supposed to in games 1 and 2? We might have a road victory by now and maybe be even up in the series.

I'm still angry at him for that "outburst" and will take more than just one heroic performance after a few duds in this years Playoffs. I thing I wouldn't be surprised to see happenning in the following games is some of that Roy ISOs that we all love so much. In fact we probably already started seeing them in game 4 which works when Brandon is actually hitting it jumpshots. But what if he isn't which is bound to happen, is it still our best chance at winning?

The one player that I really feel sorry for is LaMarcus Aldridge. He was the one to get the team to the Playoffs but he still isn't getting the respect from his coach or his team-mates to their #1 option. He is still being treated as the guy that gets them going, in the first quarter, then just forgets about him in the 2nd half. They often give up on getting him the ball if there is just a little bit of difficulty in it or, now that Roy is hitting shots again, deferring to Roy.

Why are we living and dieing by Roy's jumper when he is so unreliable? Roy can certainly be usefull but to rely on him to be our #1 option in the fourth quarter has got to be the most daft idea ever! My hope is that Nate will use Roy as the decoy for once and let LMA lead the team to victory for game 5. But I don't see that happenning as its too good an idea for him. Plus having his little pet back will surely mean more and more Roy ISOs. Oh and more Roy ISOs.

And some ISOs for his pet.

and again.  

We all know about how the refs tend to favor the best players with calls but how about rigging the Dunk contest?

Why else would Blake Griffin pull out the jump-over-the-car-dunk in the final round unless he knew that he was guarenteed a spot in the final? Serge Ibaka got shafted big time with the longest dunk ever in the history with only 45pts. Plus it was rather convenient that the cameras didn't pan to the judges when they made their decisions. If you or I were competing in the dunk contest the smart move would be to pull out your best dunks in the first round as you can't be sure to make the final round right?

Read this article from Yahoo Sports:  
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=ApaSbZQtGDsQr3yeABnF66Y5nYcB?slug=aw-thomasknicks022011

"The fight for power could come between Thomas and William Wesley – Worldwide Wes. He’s an agent for CAA, the powerbroker agency connected as a rep of star players, executives and coaches. He pushed for Mark Warkentien’s hiring as a high-level consultant to Walsh, has strong ties to Knicks assistant GM Allan Houston(notes) and he’s one of the main reps for Anthony and 2012 free agent Chris Paul(notes). It’s against NBA rules to rep players and coaches, but commissioner David Stern picks and chooses the rules he enforces. He lets Worldwide Wes travel with his Olympic teams, gain access to stars, steal them away and broker them to the commissioner’s market franchises.

Stern ought to be ashamed of himself for letting this happen to Walsh. He pushed Dolan and Walsh together three years ago to clean up Thomas’ toxic mess, to restore a measure of honor and dignity to the Garden. Walsh did the job, and now Dolan is one more owner with so little respect for the commissioner and his franchise’s fans that he’s allowed Thomas to emerge as a Knicks powerbroker again."

You don't get to be in the position that we are in if HUGE mistakes weren't made. I can't name all of them as they are just to many to remember so I'll start it of and let you all finsh it.

1) Oden vs. Durant draft.

All though I don't consider this to be mistake by KP since most teams would have taken Oden before Durant and the fact that we needed a dominat Center to take us forward in the Playoffs. I know that we all wished that we had taken Durant instead but it doesn't change the facts mentioned above. If KP and co. got all the medical information on Greg and it was not evident that his carreer would be spent rehabbing instead of playing games then there was no way for them to know.  A MISTAKE (but one that can be forgiven)

2) Nate's coaching, offense.

a) Tempo

 I believe that he started playing his slow-paced offense because we had a young team with athletes that could only play in a fast-paced offense and he wanted them to learn to play Playoff basketball. That was the right thing to do at that time. What was not right was to continue playing a slow tempo just because one player was not capable of running up and down the court. What was not right was making us a jump shooting team. What was not right was not teaching the bigs to set proper screens. What was not right was not being flexiable with the talent at his disposal, like Bayless.

b) Subs.

 Nate can't be flexiable when it comes to his substitutions. Why continue to stick with Dante when he can't hit his shots? Its not like he's that much of a better rebounder than Babbitt, but at least Luke can stretch the floor better than Dante can. At least if the bench scoring is in trouble than put in Luke but if defense is need than Dante but how about giving players a chance? The problem seems to be that Nate has his favourites and will stick with them even if they don't deserve it. As a player that isn't one of his favs, it must be real fustrating trying to covince him that they too deserve playing time perhaps even more than the guys that they are competing with.

c) Defense

 For a defensive coach, we haven't exacting been one of the top defensive teams for the past few seasons, now have we? Don't say that we haven't had the players cause they are teams/coaches that have managed to play good defense without the defenders. We have always been just o.k when it comes to playing defense, not what you would expect from a defensive coach right? The biggest problem though is that we only play defense when the offense is working. When the shots stop falling, the defense stops working. Not exactly good coaching from a respectable defensive coach like Nate now is it?

d) Guards.

 For a man that used to be a combo type guard in the NBA he sure knows nothing about coaching them. He prefers his PGs to be very traditional which is very unlike what he used to do with the Sonics. Can't say that I was ever a fan of his offense as a player, it was all Payton as I remember. Allowing Management to trade Bayless without demading another veteran PG was all on Nate or at least they have allowed us to think that way. Nate should have thrown a fit if they refused, maybe he did but we don't know what they were all thinking. When most coaches would have started Miller right away, Nate did not. A proven starting play-maker was allowed to sit on the bench while a carreer backup started over him.  Then we get to Armon Johnson getting the backup PG job ahead of a more experienced(slightly yes, but still) player in Mills. Who is their right minds decides to start the season with 2 extremely inexperienced PGs as the only backups? There are so many teams that have at least 3 experienced PGs on the books, none of them were stupid enough to allow their GMs to trade them for luxury tax relief. This mistake has to be shared from the top, Paul Allen on down(Nate).

c) 4th Quarter.

The biggest mistake I have is the treatment of Aldridge. Not making him a bigger part of the 4th quarter offense in the past few seasons is the reason for his inability to make shots down the stretch this season. I haven't clue as to his actual percentages by season shooting in the 4th quarter but it must be down alot this year. This leads us to the dreaded Roy ISOs. Because Nate seems to love calling ISOs for his lone All-Star means that everyone just stands around waiting for Brandon to do something with the ball. That leads to everyone watching him and since the floor needs to be spaced for him, no one moves to get open well because they aren't supposed to touch the ball, its Roy's after all. The 4th quarter is usually the best time to attack the paint but then again there really isn't a quarter when we shouldn't. ISOs for just the one player doesn't allow for the other players to stay involved and committed to the cause. Its not like we have poor free throw shooters so there isn't a valid reason to just have Roy taking the shots int he 4th. I know its not what we all think but I firmly believe that LMA can do alot more than he is being allowed to do thus far. Had he been given the kind of responsibility that Roy got, we might well be seeing a much different player to the one we have today. I understand building this team around Roy but I can't understand relying on him so much that when we end up losing him to injury, the other players haven't a clue of what to do in the 4th quarter. Another thing that I don't understand is not trying to attack teams MORE in the 4th instead of settleing for jumpshots.

3) Management.

We still don't know the reason why KP was fired. I can only guess is that he failed to trade Roy. If that was not the reason then it seems that it should have been. How they can just give him a max contract when they knew about the situation with his knees I'll never know. Just how is that a good business decision, tell me. No player should be given a max contract for past accomplishments but only for potential future ones that the payer's past suggests he should be able to do. Then we come to the backup PG problem again, just how did they think that carrying 2 rookie PGs, Wall already has more minutes played than him so Mills is like a rookie, was going to be fine is just mindboggleing. Then we have all those European picks that were stashed while we wait for them to develop and none of them have yet to be worth it, except Rudy. I know its not a huge mistake but when you take in account the fact that we had other options that are better like either trading the picks that we didn't need or drafting the conventional way.

Well that was long, now let's hear the mistakes that I haven't mentioned.

The sad truth is that Armon really isn't very good! At least I don't see it. He is young and only fairly athletic so he might make a decent backup PG in the future but right now he has got to be the worst backup PG in the NBA. He was never a good play-maker in college just decent. His 3pt shooting percentage dropped every year in college from .346 to .239 and its not like he took more 3s. He took 81 his freshman year, 90 his sophomore and 71 in his junior year.

I like his strength and his deceptive quickness but he still isn't one to make a difficult pass. To be a top play-making PG, he has to be able to make all sorts of passes and Armon can't. His turnovers are up the past few games and his effectiveness is very nonexistent in the 11 minutes a game that he gets. I find strange that Armon continues to get the playing time but there was none of this kind of treatment by Nate with Bayless. Jerryd's rookie numbers are actually very similar to Armon's.

                            AST                    TO                  STL                  BLK                     PF                    PTS

  Bayless             1.5                   1.1                     0.3                    0.0                      1.5                    4.3

 Johnson             1.9                   1.6                     0.2                    0.1                      1.3                    4.2

So the question is what makes you think that Armon is any good?

How many of you like our offense? Well if you do then you won't want to continue reading but if you don't then read on!

Our current offense seems to about creating space to get off jumpshots. Has any team that shot jumpshots ever won an NBA Championship? I doubt. We all know its about getting as many easy shots as possible, 'Points in the paint'. Piant points win Championships! Just because we have a few players that can score in the paint does not make us a good team at scoring in the paint. Its about a team philosophy, a system designed to get everybody scoring at the rim. Can our players become accustomed to look to drive the ball instead of settling for the jumpshot? Way the hell not. This jumpshooting system that we are playing is clearly not working. We don't shot a high FG% and we have to work much harder to score than we make our opponents do. Its not like our defense is good, cause its barely average.

I don't know if its possible to get him but I'd like to have Rick Adelman coach us next season. Mainly cause I believe that a free flowing high post offense suits us best. Adelman's Kings had 2 bigs that could pass the ball in Webber and Divac. While Oden and Aldridge would need to improve their passing a little, it could still work. Webber didn't come into the league as a great passer of the ball, he learnt to do it under Rick. Oden and LMA could as well. Its not like our posistioning has to change alot since LaMarcus spends a lot of time around the free throw line anyway. Aldridge's passing has improved a lot this season and this would allow a ton of space for Roy, Bayless, Rudy and Batum to drive to the basket more. Oden's FT% is quite decent so I don't know why he doesn't take a bit more 10-14 ft jumpers to keep the defense honest. It wouldn't surprise me if thats what he will be working on in the summer. The High Post offense will negate the need for playmaking PGs and helps the team to move the ball more than we currently do. It also requires that players run more to get open either for shots at the rim or open perimeter shots.  It should also be succesfull against zone defenses. I can picture Bayless bringing the ball up the court and looking for Oden in the low post and LMA around the free throw line. Jerryd will likely find it a challenge feeding the big guy all the time so he passes to LMA. LaMarcus has the whole court in front of him and waits for Roy to come from behind him to cut to the basket. LMA pumpfakes him man and creates a passing lane to get the ball to Roy cutting to the hoop.2pts! Its time we stop lambasting him for not scoring inside more and allow him to play his game. In time Oden will be able to pass as well and LMA can play from the low post and take turns.

While I don't expect the players will be able to change into this system in one training camp, I do want to see this high post offense played at least 30% of the time. Its doable but probably not under Nate.

I know our chances at getting Adelman to coach us next season is slim to none but either way, this is the offense I'd like to see implemented for 2010-2011.

Before you scoff at my idea you should know(if you don't already that is) that Dallas is starting another rookie PG and having success. They did it with Devin Harris and now with Beaubois. They start them and let them play 15-20 minutes a game. While they don't offer a lot on offense, they have turned into capable defenders. Bayless, like Beaubois, is quicker than both Blake and Miller and J-Bay might be able to learn the PG duties quicker when he actually plays. Playing him a couple minutes a game is not going to speed up his progress any. He is still the same kind of player he was last year when he wasen't playing either. Give him the minutes now and we'll be able to find out if he's the real deal. Miller can take the rest of the minutes and Blake can sit on the bench for a change. Nate can kiss his bum alot more often if Blake is sitting next to him for 48 minutes a night. You go Nate!

Do I really need to explain how much of an impact this could have on the team if its succesfull? Bayless needs the minutes to make a few mistakes and thereby learn from them. If he does not play, how does he learn? Perhaps playing with better players will help his confidence. Everytime I look around the league, nearly every team has a good young PG (sometimes 2 of them) and I get envious, alot! A while back I thought that since Minnesota has 3 young PGs and 0 SGs, that we could make a trade with them. Then I remember that we still have Bayless that we need to develop and how he would feel if we went out and traded for another young PG. Wouldn't it be great if we could know NOW if Bayless was the real deal or not? At this rate Bayless will never develop the tools to play PG, at best he'd be a combe guard off the bench, like Ronald Murray or Will Bynum. I 'd rather know now if he can play or at least learn to play PG. Wouldn't you?

Its clear to me that something needs to change. It could be anything from tactical (minor) to a trade/firing(major).

After 4 games, its come to light that the best we could hope for is a minor change, perhaps starting Miller for example. But that still won't help us enough on the defensive end. As soon as we lost Batum to injury, Nate lost his reason to start Blake. Webster provides us with the 3pt shooting that we need and since Steve contributes nothing else I see no reason for him playing more than 18 minutes a night. Blake is a career backup and Miller is a career starter but I guess we do things a little backwords. That is probably why Miller is struggling as much as he is. Why the hell did we sign him if Nate was never going to allow him to play his way? Putting restrictions on an uptempo PG is stupider than hell. Bringing off the bench is restricting him as much as playing a slow tempo. But he probably wouldn't help all that much defending the Brooks' and the Westbrooks' of this league.

If KP were to read this(chuckle) I would tell him to trade Blake without asking Nate. We could package him with a player that teams actually believe has talent like Outlaw or even Rudy ( if we could get an established PG). Why in God's name did we not go for Moe Williams when he was still a Buck?

Does KP have the balls to make a trade that will put us over the edge? I know that he's great at drafting and whatnot but he has yet to trade away young talent( without star quality i.e Outlaw) He even failed to trade away our most tradeable player ever, Reaf! How did we end up with a backup PG from RLFEC? That was failure!

What about Nate? He spent the entire Preseason working on the teams defense and its still piss poor for a Playoff team. Spending all that time on the defense has led to our offense to stink just as bad. You can make all aathe excuses you want but the other Playoff teams have similar ones but they are started really well.  For example look at Orlando, they lost Lewis for the forseeable future and Carter as well and they still managed to get a 125 -116 win against Toronto with 4 players scoring at least 20 pts. They put up 82 shots and 41 free throws and they managed to shot below 44% and have less than 10 TOs. We will never do that with Nate as head coach. Nate has to be the most stubborn guy ever. For a former PG, he doesn't a thing about what makes a good PG. I'd rather him prove me wrong but I seriously doubt it. I remember in his days coaching the Sonics, he decided to start Ridnour over Watson and he still hasen't learnt.

So when is it time to put the pressure on Nate and the team? Do we stick by him as he guides us to at best another  first round exit? It would take an MVP type of performce from Roy to get this team to the Playoffs with home court advantage. Trust me, the PG is that important and we don't have one that is good enough. We might have to give our little T-Rex a chance to save someone's J.O.B!

What I don't understand is why did we sign Miller? Why did we pay $7 million a year for the next 2 years at least for a backup PG? If we wanted a better backup PG than Sergio than we could've just signed Brevin Knight or Anthony Carter for the league minimum and saved a whole lot of money. That's right, we needed a better PG than Blake so we could've used Steve off the bench. So why is Nate so insistent on starting Blake over Miller? To balance the team my a$$. He is the coach so he is the one that has to come up with a way to play the best players from the start and not just play is safe and do what did last season. Did we win the Championship last season? No! So we need change, Miller starting would be the change that we need. With Andre we would be able to run more and get easy baskets but with Blake we would not. Didn't Nate say that he wants the team to run more?And does he not say that every pre-season? Well we never had a true PG until now, and now that he does he seems too scared to implement a fastbraking offense. If only we had traded Blake as well as Sergio than Nate would have no choice but to go with Miller. The reason for my recent dislike of Steve Blake has more to do with all the Blake fans. Blake had one good year last season and you all think that the world shines out of his bum. The guy is so limited that I cringe whenever he is on the court. All he can do is shot the 3 ball and when his shot is not falling then what does he offer the team? At least with Andre he can make plays for his teammates, rebound and play better defense. Blake would not start for any other team in the league but Miller would be starting for more than half of them. I was so looking forward to having better play from our starting PG position this season when we got Miller but just because Nate can't figure out a way to expand his way of thought. My solution is simple, start Miller and play him for the first 5-6 minutes and then rest him till the other starters come off then bring him back to play the second unit. As I remember correctly, last season we had one of the lowest scoring starting units in the league and almost always required that the backups make it up. That had to do with starting Blake, Batum and Pryzbilla. That's why I'm in favor of a starting lineup of :-

PG-MILLER  SG-ROY  SF-WEBSTER  PF-ALDRIDGE  C-ODEN

BLAKE       FERNANDEZ   BATUM     OUTLAW/HOWARD   PRYZBILLA

I know that Webster might not be able to start right away but he should be able to by late December. This way our shooters will be spread out for both units and we'd play our best players from the start of every game!

Anyone worried to see Cunningham, Pendergraph and Outlaw battling to be LaMarcus' backup. After last season's struggles and KP's inability to find an alternative, I certainly am. We all felt that our Blazers needed someone that could provide some offense and rebounding. The guys that we were looking at were Bass, Millsap and Lee. Lee is still available but as he wants a $10 million a year deal which he won't get. Milsap we can forget about and the same goes for Bass. So who do we have left to choose from:

Lamar Odom - He won't come because he wants to play in a city by the ocean like L.A or Miami.

Glen Davis - He is a restricted free agent and after the Millsap affair, I don't know if I'd want to go through all the waiting around again and have Boston match the offer on the 7th day.

Drew Gooden- The best option left and could be had for under $5 million a year. He has a little toughness about him, he's no Oakley but he'll do. He has a passable offense and defense plus he's tradable if things don't work out.

Joe Smith- He is getting old but he can still play about 15 minutes a game and like Drew, he can contribute on both ends of the court.

Hakim Warrick- A restricted free agent. Enough said! Plus he is so inconsistent and lacking fundamentals.He is athletic though.

Shavlik Randolph- He'd be cheap and gratefull but he is lacking in talent and experience. But what if we gave him the opportunity to play significant minutes? He might be worth it.

What's needed to win? Well we need to be in the top 5 in both Offense and Defense. Nate is a defensive minded coach but we have mostly offensive minded players.

Offensive players are : Roy, Aldridge, Outlaw, Webster, Bayless, Blake, Fernandez

Defensive players are: Przybilla, Oden, Batum

Both Oden and Batum are inexperienced. Both have the potential to be great defenders but will they improve quickly enough? Its bound to take them a couple of seasons to develop the necessary tricks to defend the league's premier players such as James, Wade and Bryant. By 'tricks' I mean all the uncalled-for holding and tripping that players like Bowen, Posey, Ariza and Battier do all the time. It takes time to establish a familiarity with the referees to pull off those obvious fouls and not get called for them. So if we want to win now, we need a 'veteran' defensive player to take the pressure off of Batum and Oden so they are free to develop their all around game. A veteran defensive player will also be able to help Batum and Oden learn the 'tricks'.

Where our team needs to improve defensively are in 1) Protecting the paint 2) Opposistion fg%3) Creating turnovers 4) Opposistion 3pt%

Last season we were pretty much awfull in all 4 categories. We won't win in the Playoffs, nevermind the title if we don't make it in at least the top 10 in those categories. I believe that the teams goal should be to finish the regular season in the top 5 in overall defense.

How to make it happen? It has been suggested that Houston would be a great trade partner what with having one of the best defensive players in the league. But I would really hate to not only give up our very own Vanilla Gorilla but to then see him at a rival Western Conference team. I am not sure giving up Joel for Battier is our best option. I'd rather offer them a 1st round pick but I know the Rockets are desperately in need of a Center. Perhaps a 3 team trade would be best.A sign and trade with Atlanta's Pachulia would be good for them. Personally I'd rather trade Rudy for Battier and a protected 1st round pick from Houston. Webster can shift over to back up Roy and Batum would backup Shane. We will never be able to keep Rudy for that long anyways, plus his trade value could go down if we don't trade him this summer.  

The next move that I'd make would be to get Millsap to sign an offer sheet. Paul is already I really good defender and rebounder. His versatilaty allows him to defend not only Power Fowards but certain Centers(backups) and certain Small Forwards. Wouldn't it be nice to see Millsap guard Artest and Battier guarding Bryant? Roy wanted a physical team and with Battier and Millsap, we'd have one!

Honestly I am not very excited by our options. By the way Miller and Kidd are the only All-Star PGs available this summer as free agents. Both are

- old

-above average rebounders

-more comfortable passing and setting up their teammates first

-neither player can shot better from distance than Blake

-not as good defensively as they were when they were younger

-better than Blake but require the offense to play to their strengths

So what do we do? Do we stick with Blake? Remember that this is the last Summer that we are going to be able to spend big on a free agent. It seems to me that the only way to get a better PG is to trade for one NOW! Ideally the player I believe is best suited to our needs is Billups. There is no way we could have him now so its best to forget about him and look elsewhere. So what are we looking for in a PG?Someone who

-can accept being a provider first 

-can accept being at best a 3rd option, maybe even a 4th (excludes Paul, DW)

-can defend the quick PG like Parker, Ellis etc

-can spread the floor be shotting well from 3pt land

-has the ability to lead our young group of guys

Can anyone name 3 PGs that match our requirements? All I got is Billups, Calderon and Harris. Neither will be available without sacrificing our big 3.

So if Bayless doesn't improve 'alot' for next season we are going to have to stick with Blake.

Just how valuable is he? Do we have guys that can step up and to the things that Travis does on the court? Can he really be an All-Star player with us? Personnally I think that we should 'LOOK' to trade him for a proper defender like Prince. I know I'm reaching pretty high on that one but it could be done if we give up a 1st round draft pick and maybe even a second round too. Their salaries don't match up so a third team would be included but I think it could be done. Both average around 13 pts and 4rbs but at least Prince can play good defense.

Most of us believe that he won't be an All-Star with us so if we know it then Travis must know it too. I am afraid that Outlaw won't be able to help the team win by starting. Losing the Webman could be bigger than we realize. He has aleady learned to start games and that is very different to coming off the bench. What I could see happening is that Outlaw will finally start to mesh with the starting 4 and Martell will be fit again. What shall we do then? All summer we have read how we might have to lose one, two or all three of Frye, Webman, and Outlaw. If we sign all three then we can't sign a marque free agent. Personally I'd sign Webman to an extention before the season ends. We need a small forward that can shoot the three really well and play good defense. Some of you might think that I am thinking too highly of Martell but so what! Ha Ha! Seriously, we need shooters and guys that are determined to play defense. Travis has not shown any determination on the defensive end. The most annoying thing is that he is the one with the body. I mean the length, you know the fact that he's 6-9 and Martell is only 6-7. Face it guys, we could struggle while the Webman is out, I hope we don't and I would never cheer against Outlaw but I just don't see him as a player that can fullfill his potential with us. We could be better off without him, with the arrival of Rudy and Bayless plus Frye, I believe that 2nd unit will be fine without him.  

P.S- Udoka could be a better fit than TO, if we can't get Prince. 

I have realized that there seems to be a growing support for Travis Outlaw to start at Small Forward next season. Why? I'd like to know why Outlaw would be a better starter then Webster. For the record, I rather have Martell start and Travis come off the bench.

1) Martell started last season and did well not great but a good start.

2) Web have already begun to develop chemistry on the court with Roy and Aldridge.

3) Plus we're going to need Martell's 3pt shooting to spread the floor for our post game. Travis is not likely to become a good enough shooter over the summer to help spread the floor. Not like Martell anyway.

4) We need Outlaw's scoring ability OFF THE BENCH alot more than we need it in the starting 5. Webster still isn't good enough to do that. We can't count on Rudy for that yet either.

5) And lastly, Webster should start over Outlaw because he is a better perimeter defender. He's quicker and a more determined defender.

Do we keep the pick and draft big like Lopez or small like Bayless or Mayo?

Or do we trade the pick for oh let's say............Harris or Calderon?

I like the idea of drafting Bayless to play the point. If he isn't an accomplished Point Guard already then he can learn on the job. Roy would not have any problems being the unofficial PG. Bayless could bring the ball up and hand of to Roy to call plays and set the team up. We could then give Jack away and keep Blake to help mentor young Jerryd.

If we decide to go big and draft Brook Lopez, we would have a backup big man all teams would envy. Now before any of you start to laugh, another benefit of having a big man like Lopez on the bench is for trade bait. If we draft him and develop him, we can turn around and trade him when there is a team desparate for a big man. Plus a guy that can post up and rebound is always good. We still don't know how Oden will hold up injury wise. We might have to draft 'Best Player Available'

Trading the pick makes the most sense to me. I'd call New Jersey up and offer Jack and the 3rd pick. That seems fair to me but would need possibly a third team to be invovled. We could also trade the rights to our players overseas..................Oh yeah not including Rudy who as we all know is off limits to anyone.

Another option we have is to trade down in this draft to pick up a guy I would love to have ...............Russell Westbrook. With all the offense we will have, picking up a defender like Russell will be invaluable. Westbrook will be able to help keep Oden out off foul trouble and on the court blocking shots and rebounding and scoring and well DOMINATING! Remember none of our guards are above average defenders so we need one that can be.

The last option we would have is my favorite. TRADING UP! Yeah baby, trading up to get ..... can we all take a deep breath and say it aloud ...............................................Derrick ROSE!       It can't be that difficult to trade up one spot right? It will be. But its worth a shot and we got the players teams want. But at what price? Rudy? LMA?Oden?Roy? I guess it will depend on which teams get #1 and #2.

How good is Outlaw really going to be? and Martell Webster, how good will he be? We all know that Jack is virtually gone but Nate likes him so who really knows?
Personally I don't see them as becoming anything really special. Outlaw just needs to become more consistent and he'll be as good as he can i.e 14pts 2assists 4rbs a game. Sure he might get good enough to put up 18pts 4assists 6rbs but I highly doubt it. Webster has the potential to be an All-Star but will he? Right now he's only a role player on team with plenty of them.
Think about this, next year we have :

--a #1 pick i.e ODEN
--a potential #5 pick i.e RUDY
--and the 13th pick of the upcoming draft.
We already have :
--an All-Star shooting guard in ROY
--a candidate for most improved player in ALDRIDGE
--and a legitimate backup center in PRYZBILLA.

Isn't that enough to build a Championship team right there? Can we really afford to keep bringing in youth and potential and then wait years till they are ready to produce?
I say we gut the entire team and only keep Oden, Rudy, Roy, LMA and Pryzbilla. I guess we might have to keep Sergio too. The rest can be trade bait. Remember this could be the last summer to trade Webster, Jack, Frye and McRob. Those guys plus Outlaw and Blake could get us some much needed experience to the team.
What we would be then looking for are:

-- a starting Point Guard
like Calderon, Collison, Udrih, Andre Miller, Ford
-- a backup Point Guard
like A.Brooks, Watson, Anthony Johnson, Augustin, Lawson
-- a defensive Small Forward(role player)
like J.Posey, Salmons, Barnes, Ross, Simmons, Batum,  
-- a backup 3pt shooter
like Nachbar, Korver, J.Jones, Szcerbiak, Budinger
-- and backup Power Forward
like Bass, Gomes, Moore, Haslem, Diogu, D.Marshall

Those were just examples of guys that we could go after to fill the lesser posistions in the team. We probably couldn't get one of each but IF KP where to fill 3/4 of the posistions then we would have a great summer. We have tradeable pieces in players and draft picks to fill all four but that would require Kevin to get really creative. For example we could trade 2 out of the 4 second round picks for Brooks and the other 2 for Diogu and that's two posistions filled. Brooks is very quick and can be the defensive PG that we NEED! Diogu has not had a good year but is strong and can play, he's not ideal but who else could we get for so little? How about trading Outlaw, Jack and the 13th pick for Calderon? We might not need to offer the 13th pick cause well Toronto might REALLY like fish, I mean Trout? All this AND we get to keep Webster.

New team with experience:
PG- Calderon/Brooks/Sergio
SG- Roy/Rudy
SF- Barnes/Webster
PF- Aldridge/Diogu(?)
C - Oden/Pryzbilla/Raef

Then if we have the 13th pick we could take best available player. I may be living in dream land but losing 4 in a row makes me this way.

 Oh, if no one likes Diogu then we could trade up to get Randolph or Griffin. O.k now I'm done!

From the 'recap' :

--Jarrett Jack showed some of his fearlessness by driving into the teeth of the Warrior defense and converting the layups and fouls that have become his bread and butter this season.  His scoring game in Roy's absence was good...19 points on 7-13 shooting, 2-3 from distance, 3-3 from the stripe.  As long as he was playing off-guard and was on offense he had a great night.  When he switched to point, however, the Warriors had his number.  They pretty much ate up every scoring pass he tried to complete.  Maybe the best way to say it is that Jack can play some point as long as the other team doesn't see it coming.  But when they're focused on him he has trouble.  Like the rest of the guards he had trouble defending his Golden State counterparts, which doesn't really bother me.  However he did look to be giving up on a couple defensive, rebounding, and transition plays.  That did bother me a little.  19 points was not too shabby.  1 assist and 4 turnovers was yucky.

Isn't Jack a Point Guard? If he can't handle it when the opposition knows he's the PG then what use is he to us?
I remember when Jack was a rookie how Nate gushed about his defense. You guys remember? Well it turns out that Nate was high as a kite when he said that. Well I hope he was anyway. You know I can't stand it when he has these tpye of games, i.e the bad ones. I also have a hard time enjoying his good games which come around every 5-6 games because it somehow justifies Nate's preception of Jarrett's abilities. I can't accept him as
A starting PG
A backup PG
A starting SG
A backup SG
Some of you might say that Jarrett does play well on occasion as a SG. Not last night! Sure he shot the ball well but where was his defense? Ellis 18pts 6-10 fg. His passing? 1 assist and 4 turnovers. His Rebounds? REBOUNDS? ZERO,NADA ZILCH= 0. By the way Ellis and Davis got 15, let me say it again....................................................15 rebounds! Jack and Blake? How about 1. That's right 1!
That makes me angry and sad.
Maybe Nate needs to bring in a coach to teach them boys to rebound. This is truly sad!

I am getting sick of hearing Nate get upset when a journalist asks him about putting Sergio in the game. Either Sergio just isn't good enough or Nate can't work with Sergio. So I say play Sergio or trade him before his value starts falling. If I had it my way, Sergio would be starting and Jack would have been traded. Does anyone believe that Sergio is the answer to our Point Guard problems? I wish he was but Nate has not shown any faith in the poor guy and I don't think that Sergio is going to suddenly 'get' what Nate wants from him overnight and all their issues will just disappear. Trading Sergio might be addition by subtraction.  

What happens next season or the season after regarding Steve Blake? We all know just how important the PG posistion is in the NBA. But with Roy playing the way that he has, do we need a Chris Paul or a Deron Williams? Wouldn't someone like Paul or Deron want the ball in the fourth quarter? Roy has SO FAR proven himself and us that he can create shots for others just as efficently as CP3 and DW. What I believe that Kevin Pritcherd(?- or KP) should look for is someone who can consistenly make shots from 15-23ft shots, defend PG'S and SG'S and create shots for others with the understanding that when it comes to the fourth quarter, IT'S ROY'S BALL! Is there anyone out there that fits my critera? Steve Blake might very well be the guy that fits the bill in the present but can he be a Championship type PG that we need? It remains to be seen but if the chemistry of the team improves greatly with the addition of BIG O, then our expectations of the 'PG' wouldn't need to be so high. By the way, it seems that O.J Mayo's stock appears to be dropping and 'might' be available at #14. At present he is at #10 on NBADraft.net

We are one of the worst rebounding teams in the NBA and it does not look like we will improve. My question is, how hard is it to rebound in the NBA? Lamarcus Aldridge had only 3 rebounds against Utah and all we ever said was, what a great game he had. So he scored 36 points, but he ONLY had 3 rebounds. We lost the battle of the boards by 11 so forgive me for saying this. Lamarcus did not have a great game, he had a shooting game but poor on the glass. Now we are going to have Oden next season to help LMA out but this season is not lost. If Sir Charles at 6-7ft can average 10+ rebounds, why can't LaMarcus at 6-11ft ?

If we were to get lucky again in the draft what would you do? Do we need another young talented player or would you trade the pick for an established all-star? Would someone like Rose, Beasley or Mayo be better for Roy, LaMarcus and Oden? Or, do you think we could trade the pick for Deron Williams or Chris Paul? Of course this is assuming that we get lucky and get a pick in the top three.
Personally I think that having too many young players might get to be a problem. We desparately need a premier point guard or a small forward that can shoot the three and defend. This can't be an easy decision for KP to make. Did you all see Beasley first college game - 32pts 24rbs, Wow!