"The contract we're working on will make Joel [Freeland] not want to go anywhere, even the NBA," his agent Rafael Calvo said about negotiations between Freeland and Unicaja. http://www.laopiniondemalaga.es/uni...ato-hara-freeland-quiera-irse-nba/482744.html
Well, if they can afford to pay him more than the Blazers can, why not? But I would be very surprised if the point of this announcement wasn't to get the Blazers to commit to something.
Sabas was able to enter the NBA immediately. He chose to stay in Europe. I'm not against looking for players from Europe; I'm just against picking players and keeping them in Europe to develop. Batum is a prime example. He was good enough to come to the NBA as a rookie. Freeland wasn't good enough, so we kept him in Europe until he was. Now he's just another wasted pick. Time to move on.
Marcus Camby can't play forever. Joel Freeland was our best bet to have a decent starting center after Camby retires.
I think we would offer him a contract close to what the spurs offered Splitter, 3 years 11m. Thats hard to make overseas but if he gets one close to that I can't see him turning that down.
Freeland was very eager to come to the NBA, and very disappointed at Pritchard's strategy (on him and Koponen) to get seasoning in Europe. Pritchard failed at everything he did. Here's the Google translation. http://translate.google.com/transla...ato-hara-freeland-quiera-irse-nba/482744.html
This guy is supposedly the best big in europe. He's gotta be better than Luke babbit or Chris Johnson. Bring him over. Camby's gonna be using a walker soon, we need to have someone over here why not Freeland?
So, you think trading the draft rights to Darrell Arthur (27th pick) and Joey Dorsey (33rd pick) to move up two spots and grab Nicolas Batum was a failure? Dorsey is out of the league and Arthur will miss the entire season with an achilles injury. Neither has been anything special when they played. I'm glad we got Batum and I'm also glad the Spurs didn't. They would have been all over Batum at 25 if Pritchard hadn't worked his magic and worked out the three way trade with Houston and Memphis to get Batum. And the assets used in that trade were also acquired by Pritchard. We bsacially got Batum for free. Pritchard purchased the 27th pick from NOH and the 33rd pick was acquired by Pritchard by trading the draft rights to Demetris Nichols (53rd pick in the 2007 draft) for the Knicks 2008 2nd round pick. So, Pritchard turned $3 million of Paul Allen's cash and the a very low second round pick (whose entire NBA career lasted a total of 58 minutes) into Nicholas Batum. And you consider that a total failure? And imagine how good the Spurs would be right now with Batum (PER = 19.0) as their starting SF instead of Richard Jefferson (PER = 12.1). Yeah, what a total failure that move was. Pritchard wasn't perfect, but to say he failed at everything he did is ridiculous. The 2006 draft was an incredibly weak draft where the Blazers turned the 4th pick into the two best players in the draft. It was the best draft day in the history of the franchise. Yeah, Roy's career was cut short by injuries, but when he was healthy, he was clearly the best player from that draft. And now that Roy's gone, we STILL have the best active player from that draft. Pritchard may, or may not, deserve all the credit for those draft day moves, but he certainly deserves some of it (in spite of self-serving revisionist claims by Steve Patterson). And then there was the Blake/Outlaw for Camby trade. Yeah boy, just look how Blake and Outlaw have flourished since. Blake has struggled to keep his PER out of the single digit range and Outlaw was amnestied by one of the worst teams in the NBA and struggles to get PT on another one of the worst teams in the league. Pritchard turned two pieces of shit into a starting center who is one of the best rebounders in the game, an excellent defender and great passer. Yeah, Camby is getting up there and misses a few games a season due to minor injuries, but he gives the Blazers MUCH more that Blake and Outlaw give their current teams. Do you also consider that trade one of Pritchard's failures? BNM
Those were just a couple examples to disprove your nonsensicle statement that "Pritchard failed at everything he did." Nice to see you're already backpedaling from that one. BNM
If I had a "this week's favorites" section like you, this would make the cut. You should add your quote to the list. Because it's just that rad, and even more ridiculous.
