I don't think anyone has posted this yet. An interesting perspective on the upcoming Free Agency/trade markets. In particular, catch the comment on page 3 about the Blazers trading Oden. http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/31623379/ns/sports-nba/
You mean his comment about Oden being a better scorer than Thabeet? I did find that a little odd. As far as his evaluation of Oden's trade value - I have to agree with him. Nobody is going to pay (in a trade) what Oden *might* be worth in the future. They are only going to gamble on him if he is available at a deep discount. In other words, the Blazers have no incentive to do anything but wait and see.
no, him talking about joel being the better player and that no team would be interesting in giving up anything of value for him.
Last season, Joel was more valuable to the team than Oden. He is the better player until Oden actually proves otherwise. ("potential" doesn't count) As I already said, I agree with his comments on Oden's trade value. Until he proves he is healthy and has learned not to take himself out of games with foul trouble, his trade value just isn't that high. A year from now, that may change.....but he is talking about this summer.
the part where the blazers should think about trading oden because joel is the better player and the part about how teams wouldn't be willing to offer much value for oden in a trade. those two parts are far from accurate.
oden did that last season. i'm not talking about potential, i'm talking about production on the court. oden was the more productive player. this summer oden still has a lot of trade value. i bet the blazers could have gotten any pick in this past draft for him.
Przybilla was more valuable, because he stayed on the court much more. In the minutes Oden actually played, he was the superior player.
Actually, we are getting side-tracked here. The most important part of the article (IMHO) is his view that Portland isn't/can't be a major player in the FA market. Other teams just have too much of an advantage in terms of cap space. The implication would seem to be that trades are our best hope of getting anything done. (and at this moment, I am sincerely wishing that Darius, Wallace, and the fruit of their loins, all die slow, hideous deaths!)
Actually, this is not true. The team won at a significantly higher percentage when Oden was on the floor (60%) than when Joel was (49%). Joel's value was specifically because be was not wounded last year and gave the team a consistent, stable, starter level (even if not star level) center when Oden was out. Just to give you an idea - we were all upset that Greg was only able to stay on the floor for 22 minutes per game and wish he could stay longer - but Joel, who did not get into foul trouble - played only 23 minutes per game - the reason is, that quite frankly - Joel's value to the team - while very high, was not as high as Greg's. The team did not wish it could play Joel more and Oden less, quite the contrary - thus, the value that Greg added to the team, was actually higher than Joel. What is certain, however - is that Joel's defensive value was bigger than Oden's - but Oden's offensive value to the team was much much higher than Joel's.
I guess the main thing I got out of it is there is not going to be much competition for available free agents this year. And I also saw Shawn marion's name mentioned. I know that in the past he has had a really large contract but once he realizes he needs to take a lot less (maybe 6 or 7 million a year contract), maybe the Blazers would be better with a guy like him than Turkoglu.
I'd love to add the talent of Marion, but a guy who was unhappy being the highest paid player on a Phoenix team that had the best record in the west concerns me.
