... according to pioneerpress.com. 

Ricky Rubio's reaction to the interviewer last evening suggesting that he will have to get used to the cold was a strong clue.

Then Rubio's father's almost immediate suggestion that Rubio might stay in Europe for another year or two fanned the flames of speculation.

The speculation continues in this story.  

This being the United States, where everything New York takes on a heightened significance, of course everyone thinks Rubio will be dealt to the Knicks rather than be allowed to season in Spain.

Would KP and Nate be interested in adding another rookie to the roster if it is Rubio?   What would it cost in a trade?

UPDATE:  Christopher Reina of RealGM thinks Portland is the logical landing place: 

By the looks of it, Rubio will never put on a Minnesota uniform, so they will need to work with Portland on a bailout. New York will do everything within their power to get Rubio, but I don't see any assets that they could legitimately use in order to get it done.

http://realgm.com/src_feature_pieces/802/20090626/realgm%5Cs_draft_grades_for_2009/

Candidate for immediate induction into the Hall:

"(Kobe Bryant is) the greatest Laker ever."

    -- Jeff Van Gundy, 2009 May 21

    ------

Some other Lakers:

George Mikan ("Mr. Basketball")

Elgin Baylor (best 6'5" player in NBA history)

Jerry West (model for the NBA logo)

Wilt Chamberlain (greatest per-game scorer in history, averaged more than 48 minutes per game over course of entire seasons, never fouled out in his career)

Kareem Abdul Jabbar (scored more points than any other player in NBA history)

Earvin Magic Johnson (most conceited player ever, possibly biggest ego in WORLD history)

Shaquille O'Neal (best player on the Shaq-Kobe Lakers teams of the early '00s)

       ---

Please submit your comments about (alternatively): 

    1.  Jeff Van Gundy's subtle appreciation of irony, or

    2.  A more Worthy candidate for the title of  "greatest Laker ever."

I suppose this should be a Fanshot rather than a Fanpost, but I do not have a digital version of the image to post of the photo I want to ask a question about.  On the first page of the Sports section of the Saturday Oregonian (page B1), there was a photo of Greg Oden dunking Friday night.  To Oden's right (left of the photo) was Sergio looking on.  To Oden's left (right side of the photo) is a guy with a body shape that does not look at all like an NBA player.  In fact, he looks at least seven months pregnant, and he has a caboose on him, as well. 

The face is unfamiliar.  Is that Ike Diogu?  Really?  Is he that out of shape?

While others have been projecting RydBay's performance in four games of the Las Vegas Summer league and are starting to write  RydBay's acceptance speech for the NBA Hall of Fame, my protractor and straight edge end up in a different place. 

R ydBay the reincarnation of Billy Ray (Bates)?

RydBay's Saturday night's fourth quarter performance against the Suns could  easily be Photoshopped into Billy Ray's  performance against the Kansas City Kings in the 1981 Playoffs. 

Of course, we are watching the results of four games  against unrepresentative opponents with unfamiliar teammates by a player who has a lot of growing to do.  But the 1979-1981 Billy Ray would have done exactly the same thing that RydBay did Saturday night, while flying higher and hanging longer.

So far as I can determine, nobody has commented on the most authoritative tidbit of Trailblazers news/rumor yet to emerge from the Las Vegas Summer League.  Did you miss it?  In the during-game interview of Dean Demopoulos, discussing Travis Outlaw's progress, Demopoulos said (paraphrasing), "Everybody talks about our big three of Roy, Oden, and Aldridge, but we think we have a big four."   In the context, the fourth member of the big four clearly was Outlaw.  I've wiped the Minnesota game from our TiVo, but perhaps somebody else can retrieve the exact wording. 

One assumes that Demopoulos, as a coach, knows what he is talking about; one assumes, further, that he likes his job and knows that to stray too far from the reservation with unfounded remarks could endanger it.

This elevator is going DOWN.  

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ESPN's Monday bullets again notices Dave: 

An excellent explanation of why Portland is likely to make a trade or two before long, from Dave at BlazersEdge. Essentially, if the team stands pat, the cap room they have worked so hard to get next summer could be eaten up by cap holds for Martell Webster, Channing Frye, and Jarrett Jack. If Portland is going to get a big-time free agent next summer, and the roster remains as is, those players are still on the roster, they will have to be cut, traded, or signed to reasonable new deals before Portland can make a move. Also, I would not be surprised if Portland spends some or all of that cap space in advance, by acquiring a veteran between now and the trade deadline.

If this keups up, next year when Dave becomes an unrestricted free agent in his day job as pastor of his church, he may have ESPN or cbs.sportsline or CNN/SI knocking at his agent's door.

So the Phoenix Suns gave up a good chunk of the roster and made the average age of the team older, to get Shaquille O'Neal.

The Dallas Mavericks gave up a good chunk of the roster and made the average age of the team older, to get Jason Kidd.

Two of the best teams of the league who each gave up a lot of developing talent for the "last piece" player both were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.  The players traded for managed no better than one win for each of their respective teams.  The teams that made the bold moves had a combined .200 winning percentage in the playoffs.  The players they traded away may have many more productive years in the league.  It is a safe prediction that the former Suns and former Mavericks will enjoy more productive years hereafter than Shaq and Kidd will.

Is there a lesson here?

Time and again, going after a veteran player  with anything but cash has been shown to be mining for fool's gold. 

A year from now, Chris Paul will be a free agent.  If he can be obtained for cash, maybe the Blazers should make a run at him.  But New Orleans is not going to let Paul go that easily:  Paul will be re-signed by New Orleans.  Once that happens, Paul will be like Shaq and Kidd this season:  too pricey.   The Hornets' price will be too high to pay. 

So forget Paul, forget Deron Williams.  The dominant point guard on the NBA champion Trailblazers either will be a transplanted 2 guard named Roy, or he has yet to play his first NBA game.

The larger premise fails to cover errors on the details.

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Beyond mere speculation, not entirely.

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This year, the Trailblazers have a lot of potentially pretty good point guards on the roster -- too many, probably -- but nobody who is as of summer 2007 a standout.  One or more may develop to be a superstar, more likely not.  With the expiring contracts and cap room opening up in the summer of 2009, everything points to 2009 (perhaps 2010) as the Blazers' breakout year, the year when they will need to have a really good PG to challenge for the NBA Championship.  

It takes a while for a point guard to develop:  how many times since 1979 has a point guard come into the NBA and played really, really well as a rookie?  (You will answer, "Chris Paul," but he was good only in relation to a really weak draft class.)  

So here is the question for you:  in November 2007, a little over three months from now, where will the player who by the end of the 2009 season be the Blazers' starting point guard be dribbling the basketball?

[Stendahl wrote "Le Rouge et le Noir" in 1830; "Le Rouge et le Noir" usually is translated "The Red and the Black."]

In one of Canzano's stupider columns (now there's a concept, like the ranking of infinities in number theory), he suggested that the Blazers should petition the NBA for an exception to the drawn-out approval process of making changes to team uniforms, so that the team could roll out a fresh new look this fall.

Now design by committee is impossible, and if there are one million Blazer fans, there are two million ideas about what a new Blazers uniform should look like.  So let's make it simple:  assume that the NBA says, "you may change your uniforms on short notice, o.k., but not the overall design, just the colors."  

New fabric technology has broadened the palette of colors well beyond what it was when the Blazers were formed in 1970.  Look at the transformation of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' uniforms from the old orange sherbet and white to the blood orange and pewter combination of today.  With a stroke of the color swatch, the Bucs turned from a prissy joke into a serious-looking mean football machine.  Could a change in the Blazers' colors signal a similar transformation?  

Le rouge (red) et le noir (black) are pretty popular in the NBA.  The Blazers (formed after the Bulls) basically adopted the same color scheme as the Bulls, but have chosen to play up the black side more than the Bulls ever have.  The Heat (formed after the Blazers) uniforms pretty much mimic Blazers colors.  The 76ers wear red a lot.  Wouldn't it be nice if the Blazers adopted a color scheme that would make them stand out on ESPN SportsCenter?

The team name "Trailblazers" is an apparent reference to Lewis & Clark, who blazed the first overland trail to the Pacific Northwest from the Mississippi Basin.  But, literally, trekkers put blazes on trees to mark trails, so maybe Cambian Layer Tan and Tree Bark Grey should be the appropriate colors.

Here is your assignment:  excluding the white that everybody but the Lakers use as the base color for home uniforms, what two colors would look best on the new Blazers uniforms?  Please, don't just pick.  Give an explanation for your choice.

I checked the "Allow multiple selections in poll" box for poll below, so if you can only tick one entry, complain to Management.

It is a given (both by consensus and of course by Blazer fans) that the biggest winner on Draft Night 2007 was the Portland Trailblazers.  Since Draft Night, there have been some interesting events and even more interesting nonevents in free agency and some minor trades around the league.  (What to make of the Houston-San Antonio swap?)  

And then we have had the Las Vegas Summer League, where lightning quick guards come to play and look better than they will on the big stage.  

SO:  On the basis of what you have seen in the Summer League and read to date, which team has helped itself the most this off-season?

In the poll below, I have listed the teams that drafted 2 through 8, plus two ringers.  My ringers are there because the surprise standout of the Orlando pre-Draft camp dropped to the 59th pick, and then burned the Blazers in Saturday's game, and ny Michael Chertoff-like "hunch in the gut" that at some date in the future, there will be a thread on this blog about why KP let Morris Almond get away.  (That's the perk of drawing the poll.)

So what do you think?

Ridiculous as it is to say "only" $1.2 million, that is what Grant Hill signed for with the Suns.  http://realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/46921/20070705/grant_hill_heads_to_phoenix/

So Phoenix dropped a $3 million contract for James Jones on the Blazers for two years, and picked up Grant Hill for the same slot on their roster for the first of those two years for less than half the price they would have paid for Jones's services.  

Channing Frye could be the missing piece of a three-way trade that allows Phoenix to get Kevin Garnett while giving up only Shawn Marion.

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