In Retrospect, If The Trade Deadline Were Tomorrow..

Fair enough, but I'm guessing that if we had the personnel at the 3 to do it consistently, you'd see a more prominent/diverse role in the offense for that position. My hope is that Nicolas in a year or two adds a little more bulk and becomes a little more consistent with his mid-range game and can be a secondary or tertiary scorer to Brandon and LaMarcus.

 

Should I really remind you that we get 13PPG per game from Travis and 11 PPG from Steve Blake - night in, night out?

As this team goes forward - offense will not be a problem - Batum will get better, Rudy will become more consistent and Oden will learn to stay on the court longer (even if the impossible happens he does not improve his skills on offense - something I just can not see - he is too smart and his work ethic is good enough to ensure he will become a much more skilled offensive weapon) - thus more scoring from the Center position (love Joel - but his offense is gravy - Oden on the other hand will have consistent offensive output that you can count on).

Nic has the tools to be a better offensive player than Wallace - with his quickness, wing-span and nose for rebounds.

This team really needs to worry about the long-term solution in the PG spot and a better backup PF. The funny thing is that with the rights to Freeland and Kopo and Bayless on the roster - the Blazers might already have these "missing" pieces. Scary scary team.

 

If Batum hadn't had appeared out of nowhere as a 19 year-old rookie, I'd be satisfied with a move for Gerald Wallace. With Nic, though, KP has seemed to pick the perfect offensive compliment for the way Nate runs his offense, and his defense? Let's just say that defending players ranging from Tony Parker to LeBron James to Kobe Bryant as a rookie, and not getting humiliated, has been the biggest player surprise of this season for me, bar none. I just don't see SF as a need position at this point. PG should be the priority, and I do like Andre Miller with Blake moving to the second unit.

 

Repped for accuracy!

 

Defensively, Bayless may be the answer at PG, but his offensive game is light years away from being able to manage the offense of a playoff-caliber team. Kopo, hmm, I just don't know. Perhaps he's a good defender, but he certainly hasn't shown that in the summer league. That said, I haven't seen enough of his game to pass judgement on what his upside is right now.

Freeland? Anything positive out of him would be gravy. He's a complete unknown other than some grainy video and some stats Europe. I equate him at this point to having the impact of a Channing Frye. I don't know if that is accurate, but that's what I see in my mind's eye.

 

Andre Miller is not a significant upgrade over Blake imo.

 

Yeah, plus his contract means he'd better be a significant upgrade over Blake since it will limit other help for the roster.

I'm waffling on a Miller deal. I like him, but part of that may be because he seemed to crush Steve Blake when they met this season.

 

Yeah I think the fact that we got swept by the Sixers this year clouds some people's minds. You have to look at the entire body of work.

 

Miller's entire body of work supports that he's significantly better than Blake. This is one of Blake's best years (14.6 PER), and he's still below Miller's career average PER (18.0) and Miller's PER this year (18.8). Plus, Miller is a much better defender, which further widens the gap.

I'd rather get a young player in the off-season, like Ramon Sessions, but Miller would be a great add, IMO, because he'd function as a bridge for a couple of season until Bayless is ready. A good defender at the point guard spot would do wonder for the team's defense, plus he's a much better distributor than Blake. Blake is a better shooter, but I'll take Miller's overall betterness over Blake's single advantage as a shooter.

As for the trade deadline, my position has always been "I don't know." All I know is media gossip about what was available, and many of those reports contradict each other. I assume that if there was a clear upgrade opportunity, without hurting the team's future, KP would have taken it. If Richard Jefferson was all that was available, I have no problems with Pritchard passing on that. If Batum was required to get Carter or Wallace, I'm glad he passed.

 

I admit I am surprised the Blazers did so well without making a move. I definitly thought they needed to. Some players on the team were not playing on a high level, and seemed to have regressed. Those same players, have stepped up quite a bit. I do still think the Blazers are thin at a couple of positions, but some players have filled in well to plug the holes.

I criticize Travis Outlaw a lot for only being a one quarter player. Over the last several weeks, he has actually become a full game player, contributing in all quarters of the game. One of the reasons I wanted a trade was because of this, I wanted a consistent player to help Roy and Aldridge out.

The second thing being the emergence of Aldridge to yet another level of play. I figured this would actually start at the beginning of the season, not towards the end. But if you look at Aldridge career, he has finished every season strong besides the one where he had the heart surgery.

Now that being said, nobody can truly say we would be better, or worse for making one of those trades. We will never know. But the Blazers did make the playoffs, something I didn't think was going to happen earlier this season. Much better than I thought they were going to do at the trade deadline.

 

I agree with you 100%. If Bayless isn't going to develop into our future PG I think we will need to sign a FA PG this summer. I still think we need a banger defender backup PF more then anything except maybe PG if Bayless isn't going to be our future PG. I still have faith and think Bayless will be our starting PG though.

 

Aaah I see how it is. We can give Outlaw 6 years, Martell 4+ years to develope, but when it comes to Bayless, he has to produce in less than a season.

 

No, I'm not picking on Bayless. Actually I'm a huge Bayless fan and think he is going to develop into a great PG for the Blazers and will fit really well with Roy.

 

I'm just saying if KP and Nate don't think Bayless isn't the right fit for our future PG we need to maybe sign a FA PG this summer. I actually think KP and Nate like Bayless and he is our future starting PG.

 

Yea I think the same. I just think he needs a summer with coaches working with him to get his comfort level up so he doesn't play so tentative. More like when he was getting regular minutes.

 

If this was 4 years ago, I think you'd see more patience by fans in giving Bayless time to develop. The team then was terrible, and the only thing to look forward to was the future. At this point in time, unless KP thinks Bayless will become an elite PG, I have no problem if he is a part of a deal that would net the Blazers an upgrade at PG. The difference between your two scenarios is that the team is ready to compete for a title, if not now, than certainly next season.

 

Your paragraph is rather generic. If they traded him for a guy that is an upgrade to "Blake" then I think your flat out crazy. There are a lot of PG better than Blake that would be an "upgrade", and moving him now, would be a mistake for a guy that is merely an upgrade to Blake? That is crazy talk. No the upgrade would have to be significant. Like Mo Williams/top 10 PG type significant. Otherwise, I would just rather ride it out.

 

I don't have any known specifics to talk about. It's generic because Bayless won't be given the same playing time to develop that Outlaw and Webster were given simply because the team is much better now. I think of Bayless as more Jermaine O'Neal than Martell Webster, in terms of how his development will likely be handled by the team.

I would only move him if it meant getting somebody that the team feels will help the team win right now over the current roster. I wouldn't trade him just to trade him, if that's what you thought I meant.

 

Did people not watch the Houston game?

Not one guy on the team had the experience (or perhaps the respect) to stand up and tell the team to get their heads out of their collective rectums. They needed somebody to kick them in the ass and remind them that HCA was still in reach, and that they couldn't afford a night off.

Sure, you can point to the comeback wins over the Grizz and Spurs and say "lesson learned'.....but is it? Will the kids remember in the face of the pressure and excitement of their first play-offs?