Do we need to trade for another big?

Fuck no.

I'll take Dampier at the minimum though.

 

He's a stiff man! Like watching Boumtje Boumtje!

 

Thabeet is gar.

 

I imagine that Joel will push himself to get back faster now.

 

He's a backup, borderline stop-gap, but I just want him for the novelty!

 

We need to get another center.

 

Given our 4th string center is now injured, your observation is rather astute.

 

Ben at Blazersedge thinks waiting for Oden and/or Przybilla is a better option that trading or releasing someone to open up a roster spot, so it's not as if it's completely obvious.

 

YES.

 

Cool. I posted the same thing in the Dampier thread last week. I don't see why panicking and signing a 4th-string C for a few weeks at the expense of Johnson or Pendergraph helps the team at this point.

 

I'm not good at searching Barrett or the Oregonian (I was mainly reading Blazer Blog and Behind the Beat), but everyone will agree that there were quite a few articles in which Howard said he loved being here (everyone had thought that injuries had ended his career) and hoped to stay here. He said Portland is different and the fans walk up to him, great fan support, etc. It was quite a high to win games last year hours after after an announcement that some injured player wouldn't be playing that night. He was pretty happy to have his career back after a couple of years of looking like a dead man.

We read how Camby's restaurant dinner had been ruined when he found out the Clippers were trading him. He wanted to re-sign with them, so when he came here, he left his wife and children in Los Angeles, in case he would sign with them in the summer. There was Oregonian stuff about how he linked up to the old guys (Juwan Howard and Andre Miller), which in previous years we didn't have (being 3rd youngest team in history was nothing to brag about, the Pritchard philosophy, it just cost us wins). There was stuff about how Howard told Camby how much he liked it here. We read about how certain named teams planned to make Camby an offer (I remember the Knicks specifically) and then came the surprise--he signed with the Blazers. Everyone said, Pritchard is a genius!! (Paul Allen overpaying him might just have been a little bitty factor, too.)

Upon reflection, I remembered how Howard had praised the city and team to Camby, and it occurred to me that that had had a lot to do with his surprise (dumb, other teams would say) decision to not collect offers in the summer.

Boy, look at all that. You have a lot of research to do, to find those links you want. Instead, just ask others here. We all read this stuff. The only new thing I'm adding is to connect Howard's happy talk that the Oregonian reported he made to Camby, to Camby's decision to stay here. I don't see how anyone can say that wasn't a big influence in his switching his allegiance from Los Angeles and moving his family to a small market.

Then in the summer the local media quietly told us that Howard was free to leave, later that he probably would, then that the team was making no effort to keep him, and finally that he had chosen the LeBron Heat. (Apparently he could have chosen any team, at his cheap price.) So we dumped him, he didn't dump us. But the latter sounds more dignified, so Heat media now words it that way.

 

OK, BS.

Our revisionist historians move fast to protect the Blazers from embarrassment.

 

Camby took over the "Juwan" role, and Marcus is a much better player. Meaning, he's still productive.

 

Well, tonight this board is rife with helpful hints on proposed trades for a big man (giving up a No. 1 pick or a player) if Pendergraph is out for any length of time. Not having Howard doesn't embarrass me, it just saddens me.

If the news from tomorrow's MRI is that we'll go without Pendergraph in the coming weeks, then everytime you see Cunningham and Babbitt being our only subs at C and PF, just remember the guy who got us through last season, Juwan Howard.

 

I will, right after I watch Marcus Camby play much better than Juwan Howard. I like how Howard battled, but he's totally done at this point.

 

You do realize, don't you, that Pendergraph left the game tonight in a wheelchair? That an MRI will determine how bad it is? That without him, our only subs above 6 foot 6 are Cunningham and Babbitt?

I just don't understand why you keep comparing Camby to Howard. Howard would not have started this year. He would have been our best sub up front. All we have there are 2 second year, second round picks, and a rookie first round pick. In other words, no one. And now Pendy is out.

You guys write in the abstract, as if you don't know the pertinent details of our situation.