Good. Let's call his bluff. Having seen Claver, I'm not terribly worried if we scare him off coming over. And as for scaring off "all foreign players" - I don't think Batum has many complaints. The only trade I heard about had us taking Chicago's James Johnson off their hands. Why should we pay their no-talent scrubs? I wonder what other NBA GMs think of Rudy after all this. Do they assume it's just hot air/agent-speak, or are they thinking "fuck that guy"?
I don't always claim that. I do know 1 or 2 people that do get told things, as do others, but that certainly doesn't mean they are always right. I think what happens is when someone says they heard from a source, that people think it's automatically 100% going to happen, and when it doesn't, they doubt that person. I literally was 100% certain that my deal coming soon was coming soon. I was told by a coupl eof people. It didn't for reasons that I am not sure. I stuck my neck out, and it back fired. oh well?
Rudy supposedly gave KP a list of teams where he wanted to be traded, and the # of teams was in the 10s, and now, it's down to three: NYK, BOS, and CHI.
and your "buddies with connections" know that you go to a message board and "spill the beans"? What does their job involve that makes them in the know? Just curious.
Exactly. If whatever player has enough talent then they should be able to carve out a role on whatever team that they go to. Nic is pretty good evidence that this age old system works the same in Portland just like it works everywhere else (there isn't some anti-euro bias at work here). I truly believe that the biggest problem with Rudy is that he was such a big fish in smaller pond that his ego couldn't cope with the thought that he might not be a star in the NBA -- he probably sees himself as the guard version of Pau.
Amen here too. At first I was thinking just send him off to Europe. But after reading his agent's comments about him being intentionally disruptive, let him rot away two of his prime years playing pickup ball. I know it may make the Blazers look bad in one way, but I think any player worth his weight will see what Rudy did and understand.
Yeah. And I'd imagine if he's not around the team, he won't be that difficult to deal with. Just fine him and the team plays on. Out of sight, out of mind.
I hadn't really thought of that, he'd be 27 or 28 coming back to the game. Is he really stupid enough to cut out two years of what is a limited shelf life for being able to play professional ball?
They know now. NBA front office people. No GM's or anything like that. I don't know anyone that is a decision maker or anything like that. I know people that know them though. Some things I hear, somethings I don't.
I think Rudy's done the big "Fuck You!" to the team. They wouldn't trade him, even to the Bulls for a 1st and where he'd have an honest chance to win a starting job. They basically said "Fuck You!" to him in doing that. Now he's made it clear he's done and there's ZERO trade value for him. It's his only means of getting even.
I..if his getting even costs him millions of dollars and two years of his prime, then uh.. that was one damn sound plan there Rudy. Kudos.
No kidding. Cho and PA will be more than happy about ruining his next two years, during the prime of his career by forcing him to sit idle.
I say just either release him or get a reasonable deal with another NBA team. They're really not losing much money on him and this whole fiasco could upset the remaining players. This is a bad distraction - let him go and move on to focusing on players that want to play for this team.
