On the Bill Simmons show that his feeling is Portland really wants to move up into the top-5 badly to draft Ricky Rubio.
I didn't get that same feeling....he basically said if he could find a way to get to #5 (which is probably the highest we could get without giving up multiple valuable peices) AND Rubio slips to 5 (which is practically 0% chance) , Pritchard would do it.
Nope, but he managed to squeeze in some Blazer bashing though, calling them "the most overrated group of players in the league."
There is something to be said to be able to recognize players who slide and go get them. But last I heard from Chad Ford, there were over 10 teams in the mix for the #5, and I bet almost every single one of them has a different pre-condition as to what player slides to that spot that would kick off a trade scenario.
You know I have to say that I am becoming a Bill Simmons h8r. He seems to go out of his way to take shots at the Blazers over the last year, and I have no idea why. Is he still pissed we won the lotto that year?
A team with an average age of 25 years won 54 games and obtained Home Court Advantage in an extremely competitive conference. How the hell are they overrated?
Whatever the reason, he's an idiot. Brandon Roy is actually underrated, in my opinion, and Aldridge barely gets any media attention. Oden is seen as a project by almost everyone now, and Bayless, Batum, Fernandez, and Webster all have their best days ahead of them. Maybe Simmons saw the Sporting News ranking that put us at #3 next year, but I couldn't care less what he thinks. He's clearly got an axe to grind against us, and he's dead to me now.
Yea but you know, I think it would be kind of fun if every time the Blazers beat the celtics that he got bombarded with email messages about how over rated the Celtics are. From everyone on the board, and each of the 10 email aliases they register for just that purpose.
His hatred goes back even further. He's still pissed about the coin toss that resulted in our fair city being named Portland instead of Boston. He just can't let it go. BNM
I know bupkus about Rubio, but all of the hype reminds me of the Olowakandi draft. I very much doubt we want another rookie PG anyway.
I like Simmons from an entertainment/speculation/pop psychology standpoint, but he says some real headscratchers these days. He was riding the bandwagon before the season (except for the Oden thing), he even picked'em in the playoffs, but then he came up with this overrated nonsense, I think just to go against the popular opinion about the Blazers. Most baffling was his idea that the Spurs should trade Parker for Foye, #6 and expirings... Wow! He first wrote about it in a mailbag a couple of weeks ago and I was like WTF, but to mention it again right after the RJeff trade... "Holy mackarel!"
The Sporting News predicting them to be the 3rd best team in the league next season? I see this more as a rip on the media than on the team.
He has a soft spot for Minnesota for handing his Celtics their 17th title. He even lobbied for the Timberpups GM job. Evidently, he expects San Antonio to give the Wolves a gift similar to the one Minnesota gave the Celtics. That would make all right in his little world - well, that and the Celtics winning the 2007 Draft Lottery - which ironically would have taken them in a totally different direction (rebuilding) than where the ended up (NBA title), but he's still bitter about it. BNM
You can call him stupid but actually I don't think he's that big of a homer. I don't buy the being bitter about us winning the lottery thing.
