Better than Price? I do not think so! Sure, there are players available as backup pg. However, Leonard will need a backup more than Lillard will. I think Olshey will not spend money on backups until we spend our cap room on someone that "moves the needle".
The local media would go nuts over that. A high speed road race in rush hour traffic on Youtube is pretty hard to defend.
No. He would have a pretty big cap hold. We were able to do it with Batum because his cap hold was low.
Hate to say it, but since gave up so much in Faried, we gotta give Smith another good whirl before we let him loose.
I don't know that Hickson's Bird Rights are as untouchable as some of you think. It's not the same situation as, say, Ben Gordon signing his QO. Hickson's not going to get a SuperStar Max anyway, so # of years isn't an issue, and the % of raises isn't an issue. His Free Agent amount hold for a team wanting his Bird Rights would be 7.6M, so it's not as if he's a steal to hold onto. The one thing he would be giving up is that he has to go to a team under the cap (or be willing to accept a long-term MLE), so if he's looking for a bigger-than-MLE payday then he's stuck going to a team under the cap. If he was traded to an over-the-cap team that could potentially handle a 7.6M cap hit during FA, they're probably not going to offer a lot of long-term $$ since the penalties for tax are getting prohibitive. I'm not saying it's a slam dunk, but I don't think his Bird Rights are a full no-trade issue.
Given the sorry ass state of the team's bench and the number of needs everywhere coupled with the fact that Hickson will probably get paid with such a weak crop in this year's free agent pool, I think it's probably wise to trade him while they can still get something vs. letting him walk for nothing this summer.
We need a quality player as a back-up pg. Does Nolan Smith fit the bill? No. Cut the bait and move on.
For a 2nd round pick? Hard to answer a question like this unless you tell me what we'd get back in return.
It is not often that a player with Bird rights accepts a one year deal without it being the qualifying offer. Was looking thru the rules and do not see anything that says Hickson would lose his Bird rights by accepting a trade. I am still leaning towards holding him.
Larry Coon says he definitely looses Bird Rights if he is traded. @BrianfromWA The scenario I see Hickson eliminating for himself would be a trade like the Pacers made for Ian Mahinmi. He signed for 4yrs/16M via S&T.
I still don't think Hickson is a long term fit for the Blazers so I say shop him to see what his value is like at trade deadline.
Because since Sheed left, Blazer Basketball has meant that our forwards must be nonscrappy statues. We can't have a forward who is a flurry of activity. We just can't. We must rid ourselves of the bane of any Action Jackson.
