Well I asked rice on twitter if we are gonna draft or trade our picks. His answer was "a little of both". So I ask myself, what pick do we trade and which do we trade? If we are thinking bigger; which was a response to a twitter regarding Kk hicks. I'm gonna assume he believes the Blazers are thinking bigger. So I suspect new jerseys pick will be traded and we will draft from ours. I'm curious what a #4-8th pick can give you?
Right now I really don't like to assume that we'll have any lottery picks. It's well within reason that we make the playoffs and New Jersey lands a top three pick. Tread with caution, all you optimists, this is Blazerville.
It's actually not as bad as you think if jersey wins. The pick is still valuable. It would only be top 2 protected the following season and it's almost guaranteed that d will bolts. So it still holds good value.
I get it Mags, but it would be nice to get two high picks in this year's deep draft. I'm just not going to hold my breath.
He could be talking about JJ Hickson, not positive though. And I honestly think we hold onto the picks. We need young talent. Trading the pick probably wouldn't make us a contender right away anyways so we might as well build through the draft at this point.
I think Rice knows as much as we do. And I would love to have KK Hicks on our team. That guy can ball.
You probably should have asked the Rose Garden Janitor what he thought was going to happen ... just to get a fuller perspective.
I think we will trade the NJ pick for a stud. A team like Boston or San Antonio will be looking to finally rebuild after an early playoff exit and will offer up a good player (Rondo/Parker) for the pick.
Think about this for a second. a number 5 pick is going to cost us about 3-4 million dollars of cap room ... trading that Pick for a "stud" like Rondo for instance is going to take up 11 million dollars of cap room. Assuming the team has 15-16 million to work with in the first place (after capholds from picks and the QO for Nic are taken into account). If they trade New Jersey's pick the team now has about 7 million dollars of cap space to work with in free agency. If the idea is to add as much talent as possible wouldn't it make more sense to add two (relatively) cheap lottery picks in the 5-10 range and still have that 15-16 million to go after Deron or pursue a lopsided trade with the maximum amount of flexibility or even pick up two good free agent acquisitions to compliment LA, Nic, and two good lottery picks? Lastly, using your example of Rondo, doesn't it worry you a little bit that he's supposedly available? I'm not denying his talent, but the guy can't shoot to save his life and I'm guessing the rumors about him being a headcase have a pretty high degree of merit -- I don't think he's the panacea that so many people seem to think he is. Getting Parker has its own concerns too, he's no spring chicken and has a lot of miles on those legs and for a guy whose whole career has been about his quickness I'd be more than just a little worried about the wheels falling off before we ever got close to getting back into the Western Conference elite.
Guys I understand rice doesn't have inside information to blazer decisions, but he is closet to the team. Watching each game, the practices and talking to players; you would think he has an idea on the needs of the team. My question to him was a question on his opinion. Not one that would tell us what the blazers "are going to do". So you can take it for what it's worth, but I personally think he's right in this case. If we are going "youth movement" then why would we keep aldridges? The new players will at least need 3-4 years to develop. In 3-4 years, Aldridge will be getting close to past his prime. Do you think it's fair to keep him? If we want to keep Aldridge we need some youth and veterans in this club. Otherwise, Aldridge should be used to get even younger players or picks.
I know people love to knock on Rice, but he does know his basketball regardless of how crazy his on-air persona can be.
I agree with him, I feel like we'll trade one of the two. The FA class isn't good enough to fill all of our holes, and 2 rookies playing big roles seems unlikely to me. I also feel, with one trade, if you were able to bring in another player, it might go a long ways towards convincing Deron to actually sign here, versus LA, Batum and 2 lotto picks. Wes and our pick for Iguodola sort of deal still leaves us with the space to sign Deron to a max deal, I believe, and shows him he'd be coming into a lineup of Deron, Batum, Iguodola, Aldridge, NJ pick.
Exactly. There is zero reason right now to think we will have any lottery picks this season. NJ is tanking to get a top pick, and Portland is not tanking and will end up in the 8th seed.
Tanking doesn't guarantee you a top three pick. Look at our blazers in 06 and cleveland last summer. Just because you have the worst record, doesn't mean you win. Ironically when our team was purposely losing to get the #1 pick, we got #4. The next season, we played to win and had the #6, and won the bet lottery pick.
