Portland Trades: Martell Webster and Steve Blake. They get: Boris Diaw Charlotte trades: Diaw They get: Webs and Blake Bobcats: -2 wins, Portland +4 wins. The reason is Diaw can play 3 positions: Guard, SF and PF. He's a decent playmaker and a excellent defender. What say you?
Diaw is really more of a power forward than a wing. He'd have a helluva time guarding 3s, and for the amount of money he makes I'm not really sure I like him as strictly a backup 4.
How about this one? Portland trades: Blake, Webster, and Outlaw They get: Larry Hughes Philly trades: Larry Huges They get Blake, Webster and Outlaw Portland: +1, Knicks: 0 New York has a stable PG and scoring SF/PF combo. They have a player in the works in Webster. If it doesn't work, 13 mil comes off the books (Hughe's contract). Not saying we would have cap space, but it's not a contract that isn't going to haunt us. Also, if Hughes looks good, we can re-sign him for cheap.
Good! Nate needs to revise his playbook. This deal would make Nate give players like Bayless and Fernandez more burn. Hughes would start at 3 and Roy would go to his natural position at 2. It will allow Batum to be a sure fire back-up at 3 as well when he returns from injury.
Seriously the more I think about this possible scenario with the Knicks, the more I like it. Hughes is a defensive presence. Not a very good outside shooter, but great at steals and decent at rebounding. The one huge plus is he's a very very good perimeter defender, which we truly lack. Also, this deal will force Nate to move Roy back to his natural position of SG and give Bayless and Fernandez more burn. Also, Batum can return for a solid 15-20 minutes a game and Hughe's contract is only 1 year, so we can resign him for much less than what he's getting now. Rotation would be: PG: Miller, Bayless SG: Roy, Fernandez, Batum, Hughes SF: Hughes, Batum, Roy PF: Aldridge, Howard, Oden Center: Oden, Pryzbilla Serious 10 man rotation, but realistically a 9 man rotation, with Howard doing 'spot minutes"
The fact that Nate continues to start Blake, and gives Travis all the minutes he does, proves that this would not force Nate into starting Diaw. He would rather start Blakey at PF than sit him
The man crush is blowing me away a little. Steve has a PER or 9, a shooting percentage from the field of about 36% (nearly the same on threes because 95% of his shots are from there) and has a bottom-feeder assist rate of 18.3 and a turnover % of 16.3 ... he's pretty much worse in every measurable category, but thank god he's so steady and so unselfish and so ready, willing and able to play off of Brandon. The fact that neither Rudy or Jerryd are soaking up more of his minutes boggles my mind. Because right now he isn't a point guard, he's a poor shooting, undersized two guard who must have dirty pictures of Nate in drag or doing unspeakable things to children or animals -- that's the only explanation for why this guy continues to get so much rope by which to hang himself. Just for shits and grins. Here are Jerryd and Blake head to head for the season. http://www.basketball-reference.com...m=0&p1=bayleje01&y1=2010&p2=blakest01&y2=2010 Super small sample size and I'll concede that I'm not really sure Bayless is ready for an expanded role, but it sure does make you wonder.
Oh comon. You haven't been turned into a Steve Blake fan by the way Mike B and Mike R give him 10 minutes of man love every game? It's flat out crazy. Blake will be 0 for 5, and finally hit a 3 in the second half of a game, and they will get on their knee pads and give him man love for 10 minutes of game commentary. Flat out wrong!
Barrett does it for sure, Rice is a little more reserved in his "praise" (he'll usually punctuate praise for Steve by saying something like, "ooh, Steve really needed to hit that shot, if he had missed ... ooh boy.") I totally respect that Steve is probably a helluva nice guy and a well respected teammate, but his production is just not (and never really has been) NBA starting quality. He had a really nice career year at 29 last season in a Steve Kerr role and now he's regressing to the mean, he needs to be a reserve player and it needs to happen sooner rather than later. The offense is sputtering and of the 5 starters Roy and Oden are both at PER of 20+, LMA is at 18, Miller is so-so at 13.5 and then you have "Blakey" holding up the rear at 9 ... 9! The kind of offensive performance from Sergio that got him 8 minutes of action a game two seasons ago, but instead we're treated to 30 minutes a night. Way to go KP, I'm sure getting this kind of output for 4 million dollars a year is much preferable to an additional 4 million in cap room you could have used over the summer. Bravo.
Hughes is not a very good defender. He generates steals by gambling, but is not very good at simply preventing baskets with man defense.
Larry Hughes is terrible in any system. Seriously, I watched the guy here in CLE for a couple years and was floored by how bad his BBIQ is, and how little effort he puts into playing the game on either end. Don't be fooled by usual contract-year surge in numbers. He gave many of my Cavs' fans ulcers with his bad play. They were so happy to get rid of him, even if the best deal they could manage was for an albatross in Big Ben. http://heylarryhughespleasestoptakingsomanybadshots.com/about/
