http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=ydgy4kr

Toronto gets: LA, Rudy, Batum, Blake and Outlaw

Portland gets: Bosh, DeRozan

Alright, so as much as it sucks to think about, I don't think its too early to begin to question the pillars of the franchise: Roy, Oden, LA.

As in, are these the right guys to build around? Without a doubt, moving stars is a difficult and sensative thing. Luckily, we only have 1 star right now and I'm not suggesting moving him. KP always said you have to identify 3 stars and surround them with guys willing to run through a brick wall to win.* Well, at this point, I don't think LA will ever has as much motivation (all star game in his hometown, Dallas, TX) or as much opportunity (decimated roster, all the shots he can take as long as they're not taken from Roy) as he has this year and so far, he hasn't exactly seized the moment. I realize this comes off of an outstanding performance in a double OT loss to Milwaukie (ugh) but his averages just don't scream all star and I really don't think opposing coaches like his game as much as they like Roy's so I would be surprised to see them vote him into the game. I realize I'm defining the term "star" by being selected to the all star game which can be a bit ridiculous when you consider that some chinese guy in the d league currently has more votes than Brandon Roy. But the more I see LA play and read NBA writers and experts talk about his leveling off at a sub-all star level, the more I lose faith in his position as a franchise pillar. Unfortuntately, Oden is simply an injury issue. His game is what every championship contender needs, we just don't know if he'll be available. As for our 1 legitimate star, Roy, I love his game, just shocked by his attitude and the leadership issues we're facing this year. Theres not doubt he's a star, in every sense of the word.

*Guys who would run through a brick wall"are players like Reggie Evans, Jeff Foster, Raja Bell, Joel Przybilla, Anderson Varejao...basically the guys you hate on other teams because whenever we play them they are getting that extra offensive rebound, taking that charge, playing solid defense. Why do you think everyone else in the country hates Joel?

So Brandon is our guy, for better or worse, Oden just needs to stay healthy (easier said than done); in this post I've identified LA as the guy who is the most "tradeable." So who do we bring in? Chris Bosh.

Toronto is 10-15 as I write this. Chris Bosh has only 1 year remaining on his contract and has been rumored to want out of Toronto. Looking at their record the past few years indicates why this might be the case, he got his money. Now he wants to win. I don't know how realistic my trade proposal is, espcially since he only has 1 more year under contract. Bosh would love to get on a team with Wade or James (wouldn't everyone?) and who knows, maybe he wants the glamour of the big city (NY, NJ) but its not like he's in a small market now. Portland would need to know that he would extend or sign a long contract with us if he were to come, I certainly don't think you take the risk of getting him for a 1 year loan, but man this guy can be amazing. I've been a big fan of his for sometime think he could bring a lot to the team. Toronto would welcome the expiring contracts of Blake and Outlaw (addition by subtraction for us), They get a decent return in LA despite his flaws, they get to add Rudy to their already multinational team (he needs more minutes than we can give him), and, well I would hate to give up Batum...honestly, he's only in there so the trade would work financially (same thing with Toronto's DeRozan).

So would Toronto go for something like that? Am I crazy to question LA's place on this team considering he just inked a huge deal? Does any of this matter if Bosh doesn't want to come here (you honestly couldn't blame him right now)? And also keep in mind I'm not even going into injuries and available players.

Finally! Brandon got his. All I can say is, its about time. I mean, we were losing before and our super star, our chosen one, the man who holds the keys wasn't getting his. So to me it doesn't matter that we dropped a 3rd straight game as long as Brandon is satisfied. And don't call anyone selfish here for being honest. Please. Brandon has earned the right to say whatever he wants. Its not his fault we lost tonight. Its certainly not Nate's fault. And Steve Blake? Really? You think that guy does enough to make an impact on a game either way? C'mon. None of these guys are ever gonna actually take responsibility for a loss so stop waiting for it.

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If you don't know who Wayne Winston is, don't bother looking for his player profile page on ESPN.

via www.kelley.iu.edu

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I was reading Truehoop this morning and saw a nice little article on San Antonio. The Spurs will be one of the more interesting teams to me this coming season because they represent what the Blazers could have been this year. A solid core (although the Blazers’ will have slightly improved with experience and the Spurs’ will have slightly regressed with age) that stayed intact but added enough quality pieces to be immediate title contenders.

"In a sense, Popovich is like a kid at Christmas brunch. His new toys have been unwrapped. He is eager to start playing with them. Training camp doesn't begin for another month, but the wheels have already begun to turn in Popovich's head -- the neat tricks he can try with his new athletic swingman, Richard Jefferson; the new offensive elements veteran forward Antonio McDyess can bring; the raw rebounding potential inside rookie forward DeJuan Blair, waiting to be unleashed."

There was no shortage of information a year ago that Richard Jefferson was very available for RLEC but the deal was not done (was any of the information concrete? No, but Milwaukee just let him go for “the-not-so-fabulous Oberto,” Kurt Thomas and the corpse of Bruce Bowen. You tell me if we couldn’t have made that deal). And even accounting for the increase in wins RJ would have produced which would have set our draft position back, we still would have had an opportunity to draft my favorite prospect, DeJuan Blair who did a free fall into the late second round. Now I have to admit Dante Cunningham looked solid in summer league and I am more than happy to have Andre Miller as a 2 year rental (Picking up RJ would have taken all our cap space) but San Antonio will be like bizarro Portland to me this season. It will be very interesting to see where that path could have taken us...

ESPN also has this up...Summer forecast: worst newcomer. 3 Blazer related names popped up, big surprise.

Randolph (12 votes)
Normally, when a 20-and-10 guy joins one of the worst teams in the league, it's a good thing. Not in this case, according to a dozen of our voters. Despite his talent, Z-Bo's questionable character would appear to be detrimental to a young Grizzlies squad. Not to mention that he is one of the biggest black holes in basketball and doesn't play defense.

To make matters worse, the Grizzlies took on the remaining two years and $33 million of his contract. Sure, he could earn the Griz a few more wins with his post play, but so could, uh, Pau Gasol (minus the headaches). Just sayin'.

Wallace (6 votes)
The C's need big things from Sheed to contend for a title; many of our voters don't expect him to deliver. His production has plateaued during the past three seasons, and he continues to make a negative impact with his technicals. Playing alongside KG might help Sheed stay interested, but will Wallace embrace his role off the bench for 82 games?

Turkoglu (3 votes)
Turkoglu had some big playoff moments in 2009 -- the Kobe block, double-doubles against Cleveland and Boston and daggers in Philly. But the Raptors gave $53 million to a guy who has never made an All-Star team and probably never will. He's a good piece, but remember, elite teams such as San Antonio and Orlando let him walk. There must be a reason, no?

I’ll never understand why Zach Randolph got that albatross of a contract just like I’ll never understand why my fellow Blazer fans still have love in their heart for Sheed just like I’ll never understand why KP would offer 50 million freaking dollars to Turkoglu. Meh, they’re someone else’s problem now.

Marc Stein also talks about a potential lockout from the NBA referees this year. “The proposed cuts to the referee budget are believed to include reductions in travel costs, pension payouts and health benefits in addition to salary cuts.”

If I was an NBA referee I wouldn’t be happy about that either. Of course, if I was an NBA referee I would also suck at my job (zing!). Seriously though, I know the “scabs” that would replace the current referees would suck for a while (at least thats what Dwight Jaynes implies they did in 1995, the last time this happened) but couldn’t the NBA use this as an opportunity/springboard to just clean house and start with a fresh set of (assumingly) young and unbiased officials? I mean, drop a nuclear bomb on the current referee regime, start fresh with a little transparency and really start holding these guys accountable. We all know refs are human and make mistakes, so lets talk about it. Make them accessible in post game conferences. The NBA disciplined a ref? Ok, what was the action? I’m not saying the NBA should just let everyone go and not change the way they do business; the league should probably change more than the refs should. But I wouldn’t be sad to see Joe Crawford, Dick Bavetta, or Steve Javie go. Hell, keep em around as consultants or trainers if you really want.

2007 was a transitional year for me. I had just graduated from Portland State the previous summer and was trying to turn 3 part time gigs into 1 full time job. Looking back on that year, I can remember a lot of good times shared with a lot of good friends, but one day in particular will always stand out because of what it meant to me as a Trail Blazers fan. At the time, I was living in a house in southwest Portland shared by 5 friends of mine. Most of us had already graduated from college and although each of us certainly could have lived on our own, I guess no one was in a hurry to move out because we enjoyed each other’s company so much.

There was Rob, who was probably the smartest guy in the house. We went to high school together but I really didn’t get to know him until after I came back from my 4 years in the Army and he had already graduated from the University of Oregon. See, we were different kinds of nerds back in high school. Rob was more the book worm type and I was more of the socially inept sort. In school our paths never crossed, but when they finally did we became good friends. At this particular time, Rob had just dropped out of grad school at PSU and was working for Frito Lay, stocking grocery store shelves with hundreds of bags of potato chips every day…like I said, the smartest guy in the house.

Stefan worked as a banker and was best known for his chain smoking and German ancestry (although for some reason he would hide his smoking habit from every girl he brought back to the house. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but he pulled it off every time). When the house would go out to play a game of pick up basketball I would always want to have Stefan on my team because despite his pack-a-day addiction to American Spirit cigarettes, he earned the name “crazy legs” for notoriously running around the court for what seemed like the entire game, eventually wearing down whomever was guarding him and making it easier for the team he played for. Stefan also went by the names “Kraut” and “the Myspace pimp.”

Mike was another guy I went to high school with but didn’t know that well before we moved in together. I believe it was around this time that he changed his name to Reed (which was his middle name). His rationale was that the name “Mike” was too generic and he preferred to go by a more distinctive name. This irritated me to no end, and I honestly don’t know why. Needless to say, whenever there was a dispute I would “accidently” refer to him as Mike. Reed (Mike) went from president of his U of O fraternity, to managing an Abercrombie and Fitch, to becoming a real estate agent. He eventually bought the house we were living in and planned on “flipping it.” I still blame him for the economic crisis we’re in today.

I’m not really sure what Bill did exactly, but I know he wore a hard hat and a reflective vest and he left for work at an ungodly hour in the morning each day. Bill was a man’s man who always seemed to have everything under control. He spoke slowly but deliberately, and acted as if nothing could ever rattle him—and to my knowledge nothing ever did. In a house full of guys who would get into fights over whether Jennifer Garner is hot (she’s not), Bill was sort of the “cooler.”

Justin was and still is my best friend. He and I were without a doubt the biggest blazer fans in the house which was very important, especially when control of the television was in dispute. We’ve known each other since the 6th grade and although we always followed the home team, our Blazer fandom didn’t truly blossom until we went our separate ways between high school and college. Once we hooked back up, I guess we kind of fed off of each other’s infatuation with the team and it wasn’t long before we became fully fledged blazermaniacs together. Needless to say, as the 2007 NBA season ended and the Draft Lottery approached, we waited with cautious optimism.
 
The Blazers only won 32 games the previous season but for the first time since I’ve followed the team, I not only felt connected to each and every player; I truly felt we were on the cusp of greatness. I was too young to fully appreciate the championship runs of the early 90's and although I was excited during the run in 2000, I wasn’t emotionally invested in the players like I am now. Back then I cared more about the bottom line which was beating the Lakers, and winning a championship. In that order. All the other years seemed marred by first round exits, failed experiments and wasted energy.

But now Brandon Roy was looking like the steal of last year’s draft, Aldridge looked promising; Martell Webster was going to turn into Ray Allen and Jarrett Jack into Chauncy Billups. I thought Travis Outlaw was one killer instinct away from being an all star and when you add in a lottery pick from what was supposed to be one of the deepest drafts of all time, you get a to start whispering the word “championship,” which hadn’t been used in the same sentence as the words “Trail Blazers” in a long time. Unless you count the headline: “Trail Blazer Rasheed Wallace wins the douchebag championship again!”

Now obviously I knew the team wasn’t going to be an immediate contender as constructed at the time. Juan Dixon probably wouldn’t be long for the team and I was openly anti-Zach Randolph. I also knew that after being royally screwed over in the previous year’s draft lottery (we ended up with the 4th pick instead of the number 1) I shouldn’t get my hopes up about anything special happening on this day. We finished tied for the 6th worst record in the league with Minnesota and had something like a 5% chance of winning the number 1 pick, which in this year’s draft happened to be a once-a-decade center named Greg Oden. Even Adam Silver who presided over the event as the deputy commissioner opened the presentation by saying “good luck to all, the stakes are pretty high tonight.”

Something to keep in mind as you read this; this is before there were any questions about Greg’s health let alone the slightest murmur of the term “micro-fracture.” This was before the so called dispute over whether Kevin Durant deserved to be the number 1 pick (although to be sure, getting a shot at drafting Kevin Durant seemed nearly as exciting from our vantage point). At the time, Greg Oden was the baddest man on the planet and had just finished a superhuman performance during the championship game against Florida where he outplayed 3 front court lottery picks…at the same time…with one hand. There was no question who the number 1 pick was going to be in the 2007 NBA Draft: Greg Oden.

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Another summer league game, another summer league loss. But don't fret my dears, the wins or losses as a team don't mean as much as the progress of the individual players. So lets break down some of these guys.

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Dwight Jaynes has a good reaction to John Canzano's most recent article on the subject of Paul Allen wanting to "break even" and it got me thinking enough to at least draft a fictional letter to our fearless owner...

Dear Mr. Allen,

    I understand that you have recently requested that you “break even” financially in regards to my beloved Portland Trail Blazers. As a satisfied customer of your product for over almost 20 years I have no problem with you looking for financial relief, especially given the present condition of the economy. Your willingness to take on massive losses for the sake of providing a winning ball club has been well documented and for the most part, you have been a fantastic owner: not selling to a business man (when it seemed like you were very close to selling) who could have hijacked our team and sent them to Oklahoma City for instance; not holding tax payers hostage and demanding they pay for a new building or renovations, paying guys like Steve Francis to just go away, I could go on and on. But now I’ve heard some of your vulcans may be whispering in your ear that the actual product on the floor should be effected by some of the cost cutting required for you to break even. Although this may be nothing but bad rumors, I would nonetheless like to address it and at the same time bring up a few other points about the Rose Garden, the Trail Blazers, and the “fan experience.”

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