I didn't beg actually. Denny asked if I wanted to come back and I said sure. Not that it really matters. You'll just keep saying I begged to come back.
Show me where I bashed LMA? I've said he's a good player. I've said he's arguably the best power forward in the league. Do you equate talking about trading him to bashing him?
If LaMarcus is more interested in nightlife than his career, it's time to move him. I want a gym rat that's committed to a championship.
I tossed out Jefferson as an option. I'm not opposed to Milsap, Josh Smith, etc. I'm merely saying that there are three or four really decent players available that can fill in at power forward if we move Aldridge. This team has so many glaring holes. Shooting guard, center, and our god awful bench.... If we could move Aldridge to put good players in some of those glaring holes, while signing someone like Jefferson or Milsap to fill in, I'm fine with that. I think we make the playoffs if Olshey plays the cards right. You yourself have made a huge deal about imaginary cap space being worthless. How else are we supposed to surround Lillard/Aldridge if we can't bring in free agents?
Wes is a decent starting SG. Its not a "glaring hole". We don't even have a center, so we definitely need that...bench will take a year to fill out with random signings, trades and teh young rookies getting more burn. See, you're thinking backwards...and that's my main problem with your (and others) way of thinking. How are you supposed to get a star player (like Aldridge or someone on that level) if you only have a bunch of journeymen type players who eat up the cap room and you're not bad enough to get a top 3 pick in the draft. Filling out a bench is easy. Every team does it. What's hard is getting a star player in the league, they are an indemand quantity. You get the stars, then fill in the holes. We're in the process of filling the holes in. We have cap space, draft picks and young talent...we're in an ideal situation in a logical rebuild process. By trading the star away and then just getting journeyman talent, you're basically making it necessary to push the rebuild process until those guys contracts are over and you can have enough cap space to sign a guy like LaMarcus Aldridge.
Filling out the bench is easy? How long has it been since we had a decent backup point guard? Greg Anthony? We haven't had a truly good bench since the early 2000s. Portland isn't exactly a popular destination for free agents. I'm just curious how exactly we're going to bring in these key bench players that will round out our roster. And this is all assuming Aldridge doesn't, in fact, want to leave.
Cap space and draft picks. Make other trades...i mean you make it seem like signing guys that are an upgrade from luke babbitt and nolan smith is some complex task that requires us to trade aldridge quickly. We had a historically bad bench because Neil didn't want long term contracts. It won't be that hard. Trading away your star player in the middle of a progressive rebuild for lesser talent is really really dumb.
WTF are you talking about? You need to step back and take a breather. Especially after posts like this: No posters (with the exception of Mags) are getting emotional or "throwing a tantrum" because there is a possibility of LMA being traded. Instead, posters other than you and brian are being reasonable and not making assumptions about things we really don't have insider information about. Everybody here wants to see Portland get better, whether that involves trading LMA or not. You and brian are more interested in seeing him traded just so you can claim you were "right" and "saw it coming", and have posters apologize to you. Why in the world would anybody owe an apology for saying "we don't know if LMA actually wants to leave Portland". The idea that you would expect an apology for that is mind boggling.
Okay.... are you a PapaG alt account? This post screams PapaG. My point, is that only a few people, yourself included, feel the need to go into these threads and call other people idiotic and stupid for posting their thoughts on the Aldridge situation. Yes, I think telling someone their opinion is idiotic and stupid deserves an apology if proven right down the road. Calling someone stupid is much worse than telling them they are behaving childish and throwing a tantrum.
1) I didn't call anybody idiotic or stupid. I said the strategy is atrocious. 2) There will be no apologies for calling an idea stupid. We're saying it is stupid to be "100% certain" he's leaving. Even if he DOES leave, it's still stupid to think that it's a 100% guarantee at this point. 3) Nobody called you stupid. Stop whining and building strawmen.
My point is, the rumors are out there. There are threads discussing it, and yet you feel the need to go from thread to thread calling it dumb and stupid. We get it. You don't think he'll be traded. We want to discuss the rumors and the possible trades. That's why I said it was childish. You're pouting because there are reports proving our opinions to have some merit. Stop kicking and screaming because you don't like what you're seeing/hearing.
