The Utah situation is interesting. The franchise was clearly not satisfied with the status quo. Sloan is a better coach than Nate - he was pushed out. Williams is a better player than any current Blazer - he was traded. Could it blow up in their collective face? Sure. OTOH, they might be positioning themselves for a brighter future. In any event, it is a *very* different mindset from Portland.
Which aging players would we have traded, yet still would have allowed us to make the playoffs? Our "aging", but only healthy "real" center(does Marks really count?)? Our other center who is better & also injured, but will help take some load off of our all-star caliber PF when he comes back? Our aging PG who is pretty much the glue & maestro of the offense? Trading any of our older vets right now would have unknown consequence, the only person who probably could have gone would have been Joel, but then we definitely would have needed to keep Camby to have any hope of a productive Center. Joel is the weakest trade bait we have, we'd have to package him with young talent to get any sort of decent pick, which would make the whole exercise moot. It's far from a "win/win". People need to stop wanting a trade for tradesake. You don't know what was going on in the war room, there really may not have been any worthwhile deals. People need to get the notion out of their heads that every year there is some deal that the Blazers FO ALWAYS misses out on because they're so "incompetent". That's just BS.
That about sums up your post... Do we HAVE to trade them all? There is no middle ground here I take it? Personally I would take the risk, b\c making the playoffs to get bounced in the 1st round or missing them altogether are not much of a big difference IMO... I am not under the delusion that this team is going anywhere even if they did make the playoffs...but by all means, keep hope alive... The team won what 6? games in a row with Camby down...they could miss him for the rest of the season and do just fine, haven't they already?...and Roy is coming back is he not? And by all means make sure that you don't account AT ALL in your nice doomsday scenario there for what prodcution POR might get back from players that POR received back for these aging players....or from improved play from other players currently on the roster.....I mean its not like Aldridge or Matthews or Rudy improved thier play when Roy went down....I mean this kind of stuff...USUALLY happens (other players step up and fill the production)... Look, I understand why you don't account for any of that, b\c doing so wouldn't make your doomsday scenario as dire\realistic as you guess it to be...... So yeah I call bs.....
A) My original post wasn't suggesting you were saying we should have gone after Deron Williams. Reading failure #1. B) My last post doesn't say anything about us having to trade all three, trade any one, two or all of them that you like. Reading failure #2. Miller & Camby are going to be very useful for any sort of playoff push, especially if it might come down to obtaining home court advantage. I am not under the delusion that there was a magic tradestalk out there that Cho could have pulled out of his butt. Or that a pick or two in the teens is going to be a game-changer championship maker for this team. What was the quality of those opponents, many of them weren't that great. How many minutes did LaMarcus have to log? How many minutes was Cunningham playing Center? How effective is Roy going to be? Are his knees going to give out again in a month or so? Who do you have in mind that would have been an obvious upgrade & that would have meshed with the system/chemistry we have going right now? There is the Gerald Wallace rumor out there right now & if we could get him for Przy + Williams/Babbit/Mills then I'd do that. However, I'd think Wallace would probably want to start and that might throw a wrench in our chemistry.
could someone please remind me of all the interdivisional trades made where an All NBA player was swapped for spare parts? I know there must be many examples of this because of how outraged some of our smartest posters are at management for not capitalizing on DWill's availability, but for some reason those examples are escaping my mind. Thanks STOMP
So, I guess that wasn't Cho I saw at Jiggles today. I wondered why he looked so shocked when I yelled at him to stop sticking singles in G-strings and get back to work...
