In the pre-season we were ecstatic about the depth we had as a team. I remember some saying that our second team would probably be a decent (not great) but decent team. We've seen some filtering of that "depth" and a blatant expose' of our lack of depth in this series. Bake it? We baked it. We got burned. However, the baking has not necessarily been a bad thing, it has shown increasingly who are keepers, who are not, where we are strong, where we really need some help. I expect KP to be busy in the off-season. Gramps...
depth is good in the regular season. keeps everyone fresh. rotations get shortened in the playoffs. period. so you need great players off the bench and not a "white squad" or whatever.
A few of us have been hoping for a consolidation trade for a while. It's fun to have a deep team, but your odds of winning a title are better if you can concentrate your talent in your best 2-4 players. I'd love to deal all the depth for one more bonafide star, preferably a point guard.
It's easy to say we should consolidate, but you are not going to get a quality young player for two or three decent young guys. If you want to give up Sergio, Rudy, and Lafrentz for Vince Carter, that's fine, but I'm not sure moves like that really make sense.
We knew many of the answers at the trade deadline, yet we did nothing. I think we'll look back at that lost opportunity and kick ourselves.
Maybe not, but you can sometimes get a single good player for a couple of high upside prospects, a solid rotation player, cash and draft picks. At this point I'd make everyone outside of Brandon, LMA, Greg and Joel available for the right deal.
Everyone is available for the right deal. I'd trade Aldridge for Paul. I'd trade Oden for Howard. I'd trade Joel for Bosh. I'd trade Roy for LeBron. With this economy, Paul Allen's deep pockets, and our inexpensive talent, we will be able to take advantage of a great deal.
We're as deep as can be. We saw nothing of that in the playoffs because Nate threw out the rotations that got us here, that were clicking so well together. You can't just mix and match guys at random and expect good results. Rudy and TO for example owe a huge part of their success to Sergio's PGmanship, something Steve and Brandon cannot duplicate or even imitate. Neither fares well offensively when they have to wait until they are covered by defenders before they get the ball. Both score better on a full-out fastbreak with someone who knows where to put the ball. Nic is a scoring machine when coupled with Sergio, a ghost with Blake and Roy. Nate needs to do some self-examining this summer, which I am sure he will do, and we'll be fine next season with these guys a little older, a little wiser, and a lot hungrier. BAKE IT!
About the only guy I wish we would have gotten was Salmons. And that's in hindsight. I was intrigued by him before, but he's looked very very good for Chi town. All that said, I still think there are a lot of you that are being delusional about what you thought these players we "could have gotten" would have cost, and more importantly, how much they would have helped us. If you would have told KP that Travis would completely dissapear in the playoffs, or that Batum would be so tentative (way more so than his usual self) then maybe we should have made a small trade. You say this cake is baked and this is the attitude a lot of shortsighted fans are taking, but it's still baking. Oden is going to be improved next year. Those flashes will turn more consistant. He'll still pick up a lot of fouls, but experience is everything. Batum will continue to develop his offensive game and remains a really wonderful defender against anybody but Ron "Bull in a China Shop" Artest. I'm totally for making some moves, but I honestly don't think Richard Jefferson would have given us the win. You never know, but I just don't think it. It's about next year, and the year after and the year after and.... I like to look at it as we baked a cake this year, and was ok, but it turned out a little dry. This offseason we'll change some of the ingredients, and next year we'll bake a new cake and see how that turns out. Martell would have helped us in this series I think. He's an ingredient that we lost and we'll put in our next cake. And like any good spice, some get better with age. Here's to baking an even better cake next year. GO BLAZERS!
I totally agree. We know who the keepers are and aren't... As of right now I think that... Roy, Aldridge, Oden, Batum and Rudy are keepers... Bayless next... and of course our vets in Blake and Przybilla are important. Any of those outside of Roy and LMA and probably Oden can be traded if it helps us better the team though. I think Frye, Sergio, Outlaw and Webster may all be traded this off-season. I would love to see us trade them along with our 1st for Battier/Landry from Houston if Houston re-signs Artest. Blake | Bayless Roy | Rudy Battier | Batum Aldridge | Landry Oden | Przybilla I think we could then adress our PG situation with Blake, picks, our TE and our cap space, or even use Bayless as well if it gets us a young stud like Sessions... one of my dream 10-man rotations for next year would be... Sessions | Blake Roy | Rudy Battier | Batum Aldridge | Landry Oden | Przybilla DAMN! edit - LOL, looking at my post I feel like that one guy who always puts out the same post of trading for Iggy/Nash/Miller/Curry/etc...
Gramps, you started a thread! I didn't know you still could at your age (I'm 44, it's all good) Brandon and LMA were healthy during the playoffs. Greg went down for extended time and Webster did not play at all and we still won 54. I think that it's because of our depth. So, depth is good. However, we have been waiting for a consolidation trade for 2 years, and we're still waiting. Combine this with the fact that KP will draft a rookie again, and this team will likely get younger again
