Purely hypothetically, but if everything falls realistically perfect for the Blazers, we could land the 4th and 9th picks. Then sign Williams and resign Batum and Hickson. Draft someone like Drummond and either Beal or Rivers, and buy a pick in the teens to 20's and try to get Harkness, Terrence Jones or John Henson. This team could potentially look like this at the opening of the season Williams/Smith Matthews/Rivers Batum/Jones Aldridge/Hickson Drummond/Freeland With a real coach, that team is really good
I'd be happy with a Drummond-Rivers draft. Much more so with Williams coming here. I imagine we'd see a veteran C in the mix there somewhere. Joel returning, something.
Several of those good things are possible, but not all of them: Sign Deron Williams to a free agent contract NJ Pick (they don't win the lottery) Sign Batum to contract Sign Hickson to free agent contract Sign Freeland to a contract We don't have enough cap room to sign all those guys to free agent deals. We do have bird rights to Batum, so in theory we keep his rights and his $5mil cap hold, giving us a bit more cap space to sign free agents, if he is willing to wait on the other guys. But, unless they move real fast, Batum isn't going to want to wait. Promising him that he will be taken care of is against the rules. I think with all the teams with cap space this summer, that the "losers" are going to throw stupid money at 2nd and 3rd tier players. I am looking at you J.J. Prepare to watch him bolt for silly money.
I think we can Sign Claver as well for a decent 3 year 9 mill contract. I believer he has a 1 million buyout for his current contract.
