Clues lead to Wizards as trade partner for Blazers

I love this trade. Caron Butler makes the Blazers a contender, absolutely.

Arenas -- play or not, would be the price for Butler. The wizz are probably desperate to shed him.

And yes, Portland can pay to keep all these players together. It would be an unbelievably potent team. Potential All-Stars at every starting position, with a very strong bench. It solves the minute problem at PG, and SF.

Heck, yes. Bayless could be Pooh Richardson-good. He is not the second coming of B-Roy.

iWatas

 

I agree vince could be a target. I also seem to remember that not too long ago the Blazers did look at dealing for him....that also adds up.

 

damn. why do they keep giving hints? why cant they just say the rumored deal DAMNIT

 

Wow dredging up pooh richardson. Unfortunately IMO Pooh lived up to his name very well. I hope Bayless turns out better than that, he probably is already better than Pooh defensivly.

 

So why not just make it worse? Is that your logic? Who cares if it's a one-shot deal, you don't get desperate and cripple yourself contract wise for five years. Especially when you're the youngest team in the league with a 30-17 record!

Batum is 20. Webster will be back, which will only help us even more, meaning we have even less of a need for Butler. And Outlaw takes ten shots a game.

Not during a bad recession he hasn't. And he sure hasn't since that Bob Whitless fiasco that got him nothing. I'm sure he'll go over the cap a bit and go the extra mile, but trading for Gilberts contract is going 111 miles. It's a tad too much.

 

When he was a Raptor, yes. I don't remember if we tried to get him as a Net.

 

vince carter

 

The way I look at it, it doesn't matter if we use Raef and stuff in a trade to bring in more talent, or wait for him to come off the books and sign a free agent. If you get a player that you are targeting, and it suits your goals, the only difference is that by trading for them you actually guarantee that the deal happens, where if you go fishing in the free agent market, you might end up skunked. The net gain either way was probably going to be one talented player at best. So what does it matter if we trade for them?

 

I am not listening to courtside right now...so I have no idea what they said, but one of the posters up above said it was somebody we had been interested in before. That is the reason I made the leap of logic.

 

Yes, that's my logic. Gilbert has five more years and we will be well over the cap during that time period, so really it doesn't matter.

You're right, Batum is 20, so I think he could use a few more years of seasoning before handing him the starting spot full time. Webster becomes expendable with the addition of Butler.

If he could be convinced that Butler was worth it, and that Arenas has a chance of coming back, I'd be willing to bet that Paul would go for it. Just a hunch though.

 

Yeah, like Darius Miles. I'm very familiar with the bad contracts we've taken on.

We'll see what they do, I shudder to think what would happen if some of you ran an organization.

 

Well, I think he would still fall under "people who we were interested in". Quick never stipulated how long ago we were interested in this player.

 

Chris Paul would be a Trail Blazer

 

butler and sanglia.....book it

 

....For Aldridge, Sergio and Rudy. Book it!

 

I think if you take the emotions out of it and follow the clues. I challenge anybody to go through the clues and come up with a different team that will deliver the following:

- Eastern Conference team - Quick on 1/29/09
- PG & SF that will make them a championship caliber team - Quick on 1/29/09
- Non-playoff team - Rice early Oct.
- Former all-star - Barrett on 12/29/08
- ages 26-28 - Wheeler on 1/6/09
- 3rd & 4th scoring options that will take the double teams off of Roy and Aldridge - Pritchard on 12/15/08

• Wizards - PG: Gilbert Arenas (27), all-star ’05-’07 and SF: Caron Butler (28), all-star ’07-‘08
• Pacers - PG: TJ Ford (25) and SF: Mike Dunleavy (28)
• Nets - PG: Keyon Dooling (28) and SF: Vince Carter (31), All-Star ’00-‘07
• Raptors - PG: Jose Calderon (27) and SF: Jason Kapono (27)
• Bulls - PG: Kirk Hinrich (28) and SF: Loul Deng (23)
• Hornets - PG: Raymond Felton (24) and SF: Gerald Wallace (26)
• Knicks - PG: Stephon Marbury (31), all-star ’01 & ‘03 and SF: Al Harrington (28)

• There is only 4 former all-stars on the non-playoff teams in the East - Arenas, Butler, Carter & Marbury
• PG & SF combo that will make the Blazers a championship caliber team - Washington, Pacers & Chicago
• If you combine the age range of 26-28 with former all-star and PG & SF - Washington is the team with two former all-stars that would vault the Blazers as a championship caliber team.

 

Bad contracts only matter when they prevent you from being able to make other moves, or if the owner can't afford them.

As for the first one, if the team is well over the cap anyway, having a bad contract on top of it all doesn't constrain them any further. They can still trade any of their other players just as well as they could without Arenas, they still can't sign free agents (except using the MLE) with or without Arenas and they can still sign draft picks with or without Arenas. In what way are the Blazers hurt, from a team-building perspective, by having Arenas' salary on their cap if they are well over the cap either way?

As to whether Paul Allen can afford it, I guess neither of us knows. The last time Portland fielded a contender, he was willing to go hugely over the cap. This time, he may be more wary, but I still think he'd be willing to pay one bad (hideous) contract. All the other contracts are likely to be good value.

 

I also think he's the most likely target.

I thought Gerald Wallace was the most likely until he got hurt.

 

Btw, Sheridan said that Washington is going to keep it's big 3. They are basically giving up this season but you won't get any star on the cheap from them.