I worry that if (as seems more and more likely) Pritchard is gone at the end of this season, that the Euros (Freeland, Claver and Koponen) will be basically written off. I guess it depends who replaces him and whose idea it was to draft them. I feel like I've invested way too much emotional energy into them for them just to be dumped. (Koponen seems most likely to be written off, but I actually think he's the nearest to being useful to us, especially as Bayless looks less and less useful as a PG.) (BTW, Freeland had another monster game.)
Billions of blistering blue barnacles... Now 3 years since he was drafted in 2006, Freeland will be able to negotiate a deal without the constriction of the rookie scale... reading between the lines of his interviews this has seemed to be an issue from his side. If the club thinks he's worth investing in, I'd expect to see him come over and replace Howard. Claver probably won't consider coming on board until he reaches the same status a couple years from now as he'd be leaving a lot of $ on the table. Koponen's offensive forte as a Point seems to be outside shooting which would compliment Roy, but the public speculations on him has always been whether he can adequately stay in front of his man on D. Having only seen highlights of these three I can't weigh in on their NBA worthiness but I'd rather have options then not. I'm not fretting on KP coming back or thinking that the Blazer future of these three is somehow tied to his employment STOMP
I'd be more worried that the new CBA will leave the Euros with even more financial incentive to not come over.
If our Euros want to play with and against the best players in the world they will eventually come over. If they don't, we don't want them.
Don't forget the foreign currency exchange. Over the last 9 years, the American dollar has become devalued to be worth about the same as the Canadian dollar. That means that European players take a giant pay cut to play here. They used to make more here. Now they make less, a lot less.
