Despite signing Keith Bogans, the Bulls are still open to dealing for Trail Blazers guard Rudy Fernandez. Chicago has offered to absorb Fernandez's $1.25 million salary for 2010-11 with cap space in exchange for a future first-round pick, according to sources. However, Portland believes they can do better. It's widely assumed that the Trail Blazers want Taj Gibson back if they are to deal Fernandez to the Bulls. Chicago isn't making Gibson available, but they are open to trading James Johnson. http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/18798/what-next-for-t-mac
That sounds about right. His value is at its nadir right now. Trading him for anything less that Gibson or a first round pick is silly. Let him play and improve his value, then we'll trade him.
I dont think they will. They realize that Rudy is threatening to go back to spain if he doesnt land in the right situation with minutes for him, so thers no point of trading a player like Gibson, who exceeded expectations and will be apart of our nucleus for a possible 1 year rental
From what I am reading, the Bulls still want Rudy. Bogans does not deter Rudy coming here. Gibson in any trade does! Also rumor is Portland is looking to expand the trade by including Joel Przybilla.
The Taj part is qualified as "widely assumed" which equals speculation without even a towel boy anonymous "inside source." Still, Portland has a reputation for needing to rape any partner wanting to trade with them. A pick and absorbing salary is more than fair for Fernandez and potential suitors are few. I'd like to see the Bulls get Rudy but he's not enough of an essential piece for Chicago to succumb to a lopsided deal just to get him.
At this point, after seeing Rudy play two seasons, he's not worth a #1 draft pick, even if it's at the end of the 1st round.
I won't be to sad to see us not trade Rudy tell after Worlds. He was sandbagging badly at the end of the year to force himself into a trade or back to Europe it seemed, so i'd rather wait tell he lights it up at Worlds and his trade value increases. That being said you guys would be crazy to trade Gibson for Rudy with how he played the second half of last year.
Yeah, I've not seen any actually "sourced" discussion that indicates to me that the Blazers really want Taj. Considering they've got about a million guys under contract and plenty of solid front court options anyway, I don't see why they'd insist on a guy who wouldn't play much for them. I think they've asked for a pick, but we were slow to offer it, and now they're waiting around for a better pick and/or for Rudy's stock to go up after his upcoming international audition.
This is a weird situation. Late round 1st round draft picks mean less to the Blazers than any other team in the league. Their owner is always happy to cough up $3M for one.
This is true. Unfortunately, I don't see that they're going to get much else out of this situation. Since Rudy can up and leave for Spain whenever he feels like it, I don't think any team is gonna offer much for him.
He's locked into his NBA contract for another 2 years actually. I think the Blazers are probably asking for 1 or the other of Taj Gibson or the Charlotte Bobcats pick the Bulls own, nothing else from the Bulls has any value to Portland.
He's not locked into anything. He can go home to Spain and not play, and the Blazers will get nothing. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
And "your money or your life" is a genuine choice. (You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead.)
Sure it's a genuine choice. There's lots of calculations about whether the guy with the gun really is willing to pull the trigger. Likewise, do the Blazers and Rudy really want to play hardball with each other? I doubt they want to pay the guy a million bucks to sit there and mope and piss everyone off. I doubt he really wants to do that, but I doubt he wants to play for them either. It's a big game of chicken. Anway, what, no graphite?
Sure he could 'hold out', but so could any player that's unhappy and wants to be traded and teams still get some value in return even when backed into a corner. And 2 years holding out would be a terrible financial idea for Rudy, he was paid peanuts as a teenage prospect by Joventut, had to pay to get out of his contract and give up alot of salary to come over and play on a late 1st round rookie scale contract. I mean, when has anyone really done what you're proposing, and made it work? As far as the trade to Chicago goes the Blazers can buy a pick close to where the Bulls are projected to be picking this year, so a 1st from them isn't worth anything in a trade, and James Johnson has zero on court value to the Blazers unless 2-3 wing players are all out of the lineup at once, otherwise he's just deadweight salary (and being paid more than Fernandez). So again the future 1st from the Bobcats or Taj Gibson(who would probably only see 20 mins or less) are the only realistic assets with any value to Portland.
Players bitch and demand trades all the time. He doesn't have to literally leave. He can just show up and be mopey. Do the Blazers really want to put up with that? I agree with this. The Bobcats' 1st is the obvious move all around.
