Twitter rumor - Blazers to deal F Gerald Wallace for picks

Is it really a knee-jerk reaction? If Brandon Roy had never been traded by Minny, the Blazers would still have been the terrible team they were the 5 years prior to Roy.

Great teams are built from existing players, and typically with a bit of luck. The Spurs got lucky on Duncan, and still had a capable David Robinson, Sean Elliott, and a true PG in Avery Johnson. Unfortunately for the Blazers, their shot at greatness went away when Greg Oden turned out to be a dud, and Kevin Durant turned into a Top 5 NBA player. One decision, that seemed like it was win-win regardless of the pick, set the course for where the Blazers are right now. Portland had its shot, and even if LMA turns into a year-after-year franchise player, it will take at least one other player at that level to win titles in the present-day NBA.

 

Interesting. I would call what the majority of us do........ staying loyal to our favorite team. Standing by them through ups and downs..... good times and bad. Unlike yourself that comes around every few months to bitch and complain about everything and show your lack of basketball IQ thru every post. As you were.

 

That excuse is so fucking old and tired. The "homer/kool-aid theory just doesn't hold up.

 

I'm an adult. I don't waste my life away on this forum all year long. It's sad and pathetic.

I am however, a big Basketball fan that lives in Portland. I would like to see this team be relevent in my lifetime. If we keep treading water as a franchise, that won't happen. Blow it up. Start over. Its the right thing to do.

 

Amen to that. This Blazer team is going nowhere, and the sooner we do something about, the sooner we will have a winning team again.

 

The loss of Roy and Oden (neither of which the Blazers expected) gives them a perfect justification to begin rebuilding NOW. I doubt many fans will question the strategy, especially if the picks are relatively high. Not only that, this is a short season, so the suffering won't last long--and there will be lots of excitement about the new rookies in only about 7 months from now.

It's all about "hope," and this is a good way to get it.

 

Without knowing how the next five years would have unfolded, there's no way to know that. Minus Roy on the team, the excuse of, "we already have a scoring wing, so we don't need Durant." wouldn't have been in play ...

I can agree with most of that and if there is some way of trading for that player then awesome, but usually high-caliber guys end up on the trading block for a reason (either attitude, decline or forcing their way to a preferred destination) which means you either have to get these top end guys via free agency, which seems very unlikely for a team like Portland in the current NBA or you have to draft and develop them ... which is also hard to do.

There is no easy or sure way to championship for this team moving forward, but the best they can probably do is manufacture as many opportunities as possible and this theoretical Wallace trade -- if it had gone through -- would have created more of those opportunities.

 

I agree with trading Wallace, especially if it gives Nic more opportunity, and it would give Portland the trade exception. My biggest problem was that TE was going to be used on a Carl Landry or some other 'B' player, at least according to Wheeler today on The Game. The one thing that Portland cannot do right now is trade away LMA without getting a similar player in return. I guess I don't think this team is as far from being a contender as others do, and I'd like to see what Oden's expiring $8.8 million along with Wallace's $10+ million might bring before the trade deadline.

 

Our last rebuilding took, what, 6 years? No thanks. Not sure I would renew my season tix if we went back to a team of rookies that are 3 years out, if that.

 

I would renew my reds, but not my yellows and would spend less on 10 game packs. Likelyhood of making the playoffs plays heavily into how much I spend on seats as well as demand for regular season.

Would take a huge price increase to give up my years as a season ticket holder though. Even if we were horrible again, I would want to watch games and go to season ticket holder events.

 

If the rules are the same as the last CBA, trading Oden could not be combined with any other deal (so no 2 for 1) and he would lose his Bird Rights. Would be highly surprised if he gets moved.

 

Different circumstances entirely. That team was full of bad actors and toxic personalities and was hopelessly cap constrained. This made getting rid of them not only advisable, but mandatory ... and usually for pennies on the dollar. It also didn't help that Steve Patterson and John Nash were shitty talent evaluators.

This team? they might actually have a guy worth building around in LMA, they aren't overloaded with bad contracts and even have some complimentary players they probably would like to keep in Nic and Wesley (and maybe Felton?)

 

Dumb. Wallace is our 2nd best player. When he actually was allowed to not just camp at the 3 point line on offense (basically after Nate figured out how to use him), he did great!

 

It's almost like a catch-22.

I'd like to keep Wallace but I don't know how much he wants to stay in Portland, especially now that we lost Roy and therefore, look less attractive as a contending team. And if we do get picks, I see us getting picks over a period of years rather than in a single year.

Though, let's say we do trade him and we do get 3 first round picks (including ours) for the 2012 draft. We'll likely have two in the late teens-early twenties (Nets, Blazers) and a top 10 pick (Orlando).

That would look like good positioning in this year's draft. I'm even wondering if we could somehow use the Nets and Blazers pick to get a borderline top 10 pick and using that to pick a decent SG? Then, perhaps trade Batum+Orlando pick for Harrison Barnes? Or use the Orlando pick to pick up a big man, keep Batum, and move up w/ the Nets and Blazers picks to pick a decent shooting guard like Lamb.

 

What do dwarfs do if they aren't on a message board? I don't get it.

 

I don't see trading wallace for four first rounders rebuilding. I see it as a smart move for the future. losing wallace would not catapult this team into the lottery(IMO)

 

If true, I wonder if Portland is still involved in this?

Rumor:

John Ireland, Lakers reporter / new announcer, says his source told him the Magic will trade Dwight Howard to the Nets if no other offers come, really soon, even a 90% chance it will happen tomorrow.

Says, these are the same sources that confirmed Stephen A. Smith's news that LeBron and Bosh would join Miami last year.

Here's the link: http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/radio/archive?id=2682382

The podcast for today won't be available until later tonight/tomorrow (it will be dated 12/19/11

 

I highly doubt we trade Gerald.