Dave (Portland) Should the Blazers make a move this season, or wait until the offseason to do something with more cap room? John Hollinger (12:29 PM) I think they'll look very hard at it, yes, because there's a ton of uncertainty up and down that roster after this season. It's become a win-now roster, with Aldridge the one really strong building block for the future. Max (Portlandia) Why isn't anyone at ESPN mentioning the Blazers as one of, if not the biggest FA spender this offseason. Have you seen their 12-13 roster? John Hollinger (12:15 PM) Because they're not. They have cap space, potentially, but several teams are positioned to have more.
Sounds to me like hollinger thinks this is our last shot before years of being a western doormat. I don't think this franchise will survive another lengthy rebuilding process. Allen will surely sell if that turns out to be the case.
Well then the franchise would survive, but Allen may not ... I'm not so sure that's a terrible outcome.
Check out blazers edge on rebuilding thought. I think it's then answering a question in mailbag feature or something. Just read it on twitter.
BlazersEdge is a horrible website for any kind of useful info positive or negative . Those guys are hacks!
Thanks for that ... It's a nice read and it completely confirms my own biases (so it must be correct). http://www.blazersedge.com/2012/2/2/2766714/blazersedge-mailbag-how-long-to-contend
Oh c'mon, Ben and Dave both have a pretty solid understanding of basketball ... even if they aren't "insiders" or anything like that.
I usually dislike blazersedge because they have turned so doom and gloom its just depressing to read. That was a fairly well thought out artical, i do disagree with some of it especially trading away aldridge but i can see it happening if it netted us a ton of picks or young talent if we were blowing it up Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk
The idea of trading Aldridge mostly comes down to timing. He's in the leading edge of his prime right now and if the team went into a tear down and rebuild they could end up wasting those prime years, so by the time they got back to respectability he could be on the backside of his prime. Trading him would be the equivalent of the Paul Gasol to the Lakers trade ... hopefully the Blazers would be able to get more of a haul than that deal gave Memphis (though Marc Gasol wasn't a bad consolation prize).
pretty sobering stuff... But maybe it's time to step back and look at the whole map here, including the road we've traveled. Big picture: the Blazers, for all intents and purposes, blew the #1 overall pick in the draft in a year when that was a franchise-changing decision. (I know the intent was right and the pick was right. That doesn't change the result. We're talking about results here.) The Blazers just lost their All-NBA shooting guard--not All-Star, but All-League--to health problems with no compensation. The Blazers have spent 7 first round draft picks in the last 8 years on point guards plus bringing in at least three free agents to start at that position during that time frame and still have no viable player to speak of at that position. Franchises do not recover from things like this...sometimes even singly, let alone in combination. It's probably a major miracle that we're talking about Portland's playoff chances at all. It's a testament to the moves that the front office has been able to make around these disasters. But when you start thinking about contending for a title, that may be a bit much to ask. Looking at the grander scope, the chances of those things happening and the Blazers still rising as if nothing had occurred are infinitesimal.
If that happens would Aldridge revert to a guy just putting up good stats on a bad team. The same thing you all scathed Kevin Love for the past couple years?
If we revert to a team under 25 wins and we had no good rebounder and started putting up 10+ boards then yes he would. Forgot to add LMA would have to stop playing D too. Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk
Telfair, Monia, Webster, Kleiza, Tyrus Thomas, Freeland, Oden, Brandon Rush, Claver, Elliot Williams, Nolan Smith. 2 out of 11. The verb "spent" should be "traded or used."
What about Jerryd Bayless and Armon Johnson? I realize Bayless was traded for Rush, but they wanted Bayless all along so, to me, that's the same thing as drafting the guy yourself. I'm sure there's others I've missed as well.
Armon went in the second round. Bayless was traded for, showing my point that the wrong verb was used. Also, Bayless is not a point guard.
We know now Bayless isn't a PG, but we drafted him to be a PG. So Telfair, Sergio, Finnish guy, Bayless, Nolan Smith... Who are the other two?