I don't think you meet this need through the draft if you can find a vet that has playoff experience to fill the role. A few guys to think about: NAME POS AGE HT WT Udonis Haslem PF 28 6-8 235 1yr 7.1 Mil Charlie Villanueva PF 24 6-11 232 RFA Eduardo Najera PF 32 6-8 235 3yrs 8.5 Mil remaining David Lee PF 26 6-9 240 RFA Chris Wilcox PF 26 6-10 235 FA Nick Collison FC 28 6-10 255 2yrs 13mil Reggie Evans PF 28 6-8 245 2yrs 10mil *Brandon Bass -I doubt they let him walk. I put the total remaining on their contract so you have to do a little math if you want to figure out how much per season.
I don't think Villanueva or Lee are going to be content as a backup so I'd take them off our list right away. Reggie Evans has no offense, and if him and Joel are going to be in at the same time, that won't work. Collison and Haslem would be two high quality bench players that I would love to him.
I have no idea what you mean but you must be referring to something other than win%, as all players are on the same team. I do remember researching our win% with Sergio starting and Bayless backup compared to Blake starting and Sergio/Bayless backup (up 'til Blake's injury). The Sergio/Bayless pairing had a higher win% than when Blake started. The team definitely played better overall both offensively and on defense with Sergio starting and Bayless coming off the bench, and Steve watching from the sidelines.
Freeland - Yes, lets bring him over, but the Blazers should not rely on him. We should expect nothing more than 12th man from him his rookie year. He will obviously get a shot, and if he somehow showed that he is more ready than expected, the Blazers could adjust at that time. BU PF - I agree that we need a banger vet in this spot. I love the idea of McDyess or Bass. But one thing to remember is that in the long run, we really don't need this position filled. As Greg learns to control his fouls sending Joel to the bench, and as LMA continues to improve commanding 38min, a Banger PF will see fewer and fewer minutes. For the coming season, I think it would be a definite benefit, but 2,3 years from now I don't think it will be nearly as important. It is important to remember this because we should not be selling anyone important to fill this position, and we should use our chips first to fill positions that are a little more important like PG. If we can get a vet bu PF without giving up much more than money that we will not be spending on a PG/SF upgrade, then great, otherwise, buy cheap and hope for gold.
Like, I said, you are taking a big risk because you don't know if they'll sign. Plus 8 million is a ton for a backup PF that you'll only need for 10 minutes a game.
When the player is on the court - his team wins the portion he is on the court or loses - this number provides the win percent of said player. This is really not that hard to understand. The specific definition from 82games is - These stats represent how the team performed while the player was on the floor. The team won only 38% of the stretches when Sergio is on the court - compared to 55% for Travis or 65% for Blake or 55% for Rudy. The numbers show that Sergio (or Frye) are the most harmful to the team's win percent of the guys that actually got to see at least 60 games of action. If you want to look at something like 1000 minutes as a real measure of a regular rotation guy - Frye does not match this criteria - and makes Sergio the worst of our "regular rotation" guys when it comes to win%. With this in mind - it seems rather reasonable to expect an upgrade in the backup PG position and upgrade in the backup PF positions to be at the top of the wish list for the team. Upgrade at backup PG can come either from getting a new starter and sliding Blake to backup, hope that Bayless progresses as the designated backup or assume that Sergio (who does not sound like he wants to stay) remains and takes a big step forward in his production. I will be shocked if Sergio is still on the roster - but who knows. Upgrade at backup PF can come either from the return of Webster and sliding Travis to play only at backup PF - or from removing the glut at SF and shipping either Webster or Travis while bringing a backup banger PF.
There's enough options in free agency this summer to make it a safe decision. If Miller doesn't sign, you get Kidd or Bibby, possibly even Sessions. If you don't get AV, there's Bass or Chris Andersen. There's a lot of options at point or power forward this summer, and I think it will be a buyers market.
It doesn't hurt to bring Freeland over. We'll have him for a minimum of 4 years and we'll see what he can develop into during that timespan. You don't want a situation where the rookie scale is low and he will have to take a huge pay cut to play in the league (they might be amending this rule, however, so that we could use cap space or MLE to increase the value of a drafted player's contract to account for these situations). I'm totally in the bring Freeland over camp. I hope we can see him in summer league. Might as well give him a shot and let him be the 15th man. It could turn out like Jermaine O'Neal --> He said one of the reasons he became so good was because he had to go up against Brian Grant, Rasheed and Sabonis every day in practice. If Freeland has to practice against/with LMA/Joel/Oden...he'll get better and more used to playing top talent than just about anywhere else. It would be a very good time to bring Freeland over if he's even close to hacking it, and I think he would be. So I now expect Freeland to be on the roster occupying Michael Ruffin's vacated spot.
I'm pretty sure there is some international basketball event going on this summer in Europe, and Freeland is a member on the GB team. I know Batum is participating in it (and will miss the SL as a result), not so sure about Rudy or Sergio, though.
One player that could fit our plans is Rashawn Turner (sp?), of Ashkelon, in the Israeli league. Tonight (Israeli time, before noon Portland time) is their 2nd game in a best-of-5 series against Maccabi Tel-Aviv. In the first game, Ashkelon shocked Maccabi with Turner going for 27 Points and 19 Boards. Last year, Batum had one of his best games against Maccabi in the Euroleague and since then I wanted him to come to Portland. I never paid much attention to him, since he's on a small team (barely finished 8th, Maccabi finished 1st) and I also didn't see the first game, just read stats and comments and everyone is raving about him, I'll see the 2nd game and tell you what I think.
Backup PF? If Oden can learn to stay out of foul trouble (I think he can), then I say Joel Pryzbilla can back up both spots PF and C: GO: 30 min Joel: 26 min LMA: 40 min
Joel has zero post up game and zero offense outside of putbacks and the very rare roll to the hoop. Maybe down the line if Oden becomes a consistent 18 ppg guy you could say Joel could come in and backup either frontcourt spot, but that isn't going to happen next year; this team desperately needs some more proven front court scoring ... even if that's only for a couple of years.
I'm hoping it happens for Oden sooner than that, but yes, next year might be optimistic. Of course, it's the offseason - THE time to be wildly optimistic!
Actually the quote Roy used I believe was "We need a banger at backup PF." Not necessarily to dig at anybody, but to obtain a different type of player. Frye is a finesse player. Outlaw is a finesse player. IMO a Nick Collison, who played under Nate and would be familiar with his system so he could fit in quickly, would be a good consideration. I also like Haslem (who has tons of playoff experience). He can bang, but he can also hit the open jumper, which fits in the Blazer system. His defensive experience would be very valuable. Bass would be a good fit, because he could pick up scoring slack as well. He pretty much averages .5 points per minute while on the floor, while shooting damn near 50%. He actually shows up in the playoffs as well, providing the same production.
Given how close Roy/Aldridge/Blake's numbers are, I'm guessing at the good end of the scale it's largely a measure of consistent lineups, while at the bad end of the scale it shows how poorly certain players plug holes in spot minutes.
There is something to be said for that - but it is clear also that it is not the only thing - given that Joel's and Batum's win% is not as high - and both Oden, Travis and Rudy that spend a nice amount of time playing without them had higher win% than Joel's and Batum's. The fact of the matter is that Sergio's style is not good to play next to Roy - so they spend little time together - and when they do play together - it detracts from at least one of them. Add the fact that Portland does not have lots of players for a GSW like random ball that suites Sergio - and it is clear that it would be better for Portland to remove him from the rotation. It is up to Sergio and the circumstances, I suppose - to figure out if it would also be better for Sergio. Personally - I think there are very few teams in the league where Sergio will be a more effective NBA player - and even on these teams he will never have the star potential that someone like Steve Nash has - because he lacks a very big weapon that Nash has... shooting.
I like Jason Maxiell, dude's tough as nails and super high energy. But he's a little overpaid and really is used to playing in the post so I'm not sure he'd mesh extremely well with Oden or Pryz on the court, more of a compliment to Aldridge I think. But I'd take him over Bass for sure. The guy's a thick, athletic, high-energy sparkplug though who is a straight up bulldog underneath the hoop and runs the floor pretty well.
