Bill Simmons Latest take on Portland.......

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmonsnfl2010/101015&sportCat=nba



18. Portland
Brandon Roy, a brooding Rudy Fernandez and Greg Oden's latest comeback? In. Say no more.

By the way, at some point, I need the $33.4 million Wesley Matthews contract explained to me. Yeah, this was an especially dense summer for front offices: Channing Frye, Darko Milicic, Amir Johnson, Brendan Haywood, Al Harrington, Drew Gooden, Hakim Warrick and Travis Outlaw signed for a combined $248 million even as the owners were crying for a hard salary cap and reduced payrolls. (Savvy, fellas. Way to hold the fort.) But in every case, I got it. Either the team wanted to spend enough to get to the cap minimum; it severely overrated a non-impact player; it panicked; it screwed up; it was delusional; or, in David Kahn's case with Darko, all of the above. But Portland paid Matthews (at least) twice what he was worth to back up Brandon Roy.

Huh???

Why not trade Fernandez first? Why do it at all? What am I missing? And how fast did Matthews' agent say, "WE AGREE TO YOUR OFFER!" Two seconds? One second? Half a second? I'm so confused. Even if you did it just to collect an asset for trading down the road -- like what Houston did with Trevor Ariza last season -- how will Matthews keep his value with a bad contract if he's playing 10 minutes a game? Please explain this to me. Someone. Anyone. Actually, add him to the list of reasons Portland is No. 18: I need to see Wesley Matthews in person again. Maybe I missed the magic the first time around.

 

Because he'll be playing 25-30mpg, not 10.

That said, while Matthews has looked good, I still want to see him consistently do it during the regular season.

 

That overpaid player, just might be one of the best free-agent acquisitions over the summer.

 

I think this guy just likes throwing shit out there like CrapZano! He claimed in the article that Blake Griffin is the 4th best PF in the whole fucking league!!

 

Here's more on Griffin.....

He's already (A) the best finisher of any big guy in the league, (B) the second-best rebounder in the league behind Dwight Howard

 

Oh I'm shocked. Negative Blazer take from Simmons?

[video=youtube;1X-jmdYLjNc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X-jmdYLjNc[/video]

 

Just Bill Simmons verifying he is Bill Simmons.

 

Exactly. I like when he said. "what am I mssing". Same thing you always miss Bill. Knowledge about Basketball.

 

I would love to meet Bill someday and ask him, face to face, if he actually believes all this or if he's just trying to push buttons. I suspect he's pushing buttons. Either that, or he has a serious hardon for the Blazers.

 

Pushing buttons. He knows that if he posts something negative about the Blazers, there's a very large Internet fanbase of the Blazers that will read every word in outrage. More readership = more fame and more money, essentially.

 

He was in the media room at Staples once at the table next to me and I wanted to fuck with him so bad! I feel the same way when I'm around CrapZano.

 

I don't know what Simmons is like in person, but I know Canzano is a smug little prick, who probably wouldn't give you the time of day.

 

Freeman, Bryan T.Smith and Wendall Maxey are cool as hell. Quick is a prick and I've never even talked to Canzano. Been around him a ton, and could have chatted, but I have no respect for him.

 

Read his book The Book of Basketball. He pretty much explains his style, and after reading it, he knows which fans will react to having buttons pushed. He loves cities that love NBA, and he loves getting a reaction from those fans. I'm guessing he is a closet Blazer fan considering how effusive he was in praise for both Bill Walton and Scottie Pippen (even Portland Scottie) in his book.

As a whole, that book is fantastic, and I highly recommend that any NBA fanatic who can be somewhat objective read it, just for the in-depth statistics and player comparisons.

 

Gotta be honest here. I sat next to Canzano on a Horizon flight from Portland to Seattle a few years ago. I came away really liking the guy, but we didn't really talk much about his job, just about sports and life in general, since we both have kids the same age.

So, part of me defending him here is because of my personal experience with the guy. He could have been a douche, and I half-expected it. Instead, I got a guy who just wanted to chat about things on a 35 minute flight.

 

Now you know how I feel when everybody on here is cracking on KP, Penn, LA and Greg, etc.

 

Notice I don't crack on any of them!

 

The difference is dude, most people are cracking on their profession. I don't think anyone ever called KP a smug prick or an asshole. He was one of the nicest guys I've ever met in sports. People don't like Canzano because of his work, but they also don't like the guy as a person. That's really my beef with him.

 

Really? I've read plenty of posts here in which Pritchard was called arrogant, or egotistical, or...

 

for some reason I think even if Greg Oden played 65 games this year averaged 16.6/13.1./3.5 and was healthy the whole playoffs were we swept the Heat in the finals Simmons would talk about how lucky we are that so and so was hurt because he didn't play well and how much of a bust Oden is.