http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/57679/the-resolution-of-the-martell-webster-dispute Anything to make life a little harder on Minnesota.
I'm happy if we just drive up his price, like Minny did with Batum. I'd be a bit worried if we ended up with him.
Abbot is such a ridiculous writer at times. He makes it sound like Khan was going to win big in the Martel case so we had to settle.
Teams have to give each player involved in a trade a medical exam right? I don't see how Minny has a case what so ever. Unless there is some kind of disclosure rule that the Blazers broke.
Concerns about getting Pekovic: How much of an improvement is he over Hickson? Is it a big enough improvement to sacrifice all our cap room and not have any money to fill out our bench? Won't Lil/Wes/Batum/Ald/Pek with the same crappy bench be just as bad next year as this year?
Did you watch the games against Minnesota this year? Pekovic made Hickson look downright silly. He would be HUGE improvement over Hickson. We would be lucky to have him. I just don't see it happening though. I really feel like what's going to happen is we're gonna end up with nobody and JJ is gonna sign elsewhere and we'll end up signing three MLE level guys that improve the team just enough to ensure we miss the playoffs by a slightly smaller margin than this year.
You didn't completely answer my question though. Is Pek a big enough improvement at center to give up improving our bench that we'll make the playoffs? The bench was our biggest issue last season. Not JJ even though he wasn't ideal.
Pekovic's rebounding and scoring stats are almost identical to Hickson's. But it seemed to me that a lot of Pekovic's offense came off great feeds from Rubio (after all, Minny had Pekovic before Rubio, and he was nothing special), something JJ didn't have the luxury of. So, the question is, is Pekovic's defense better? Well, it could hardly be worse. He's, if anything, a worse shotblocker, because he can't jump at all, but he's probably a defensive presence just by being a brick shithouse. He's not going to be pushed around by anybody, which would make a nice change for us. But would he complement Aldridge or kind of get in his way? As somebody else pointed out, if you don't like Aldridge shooting jumpers, you don't want him paired with a low-post-scoring big guy. And Olshey has explicitly said he wants a shotblocker at C, something Pekovic manifestly isn't.
No doubt that Pekovic would be better than Hickson. The question is by how much? To have a chance at Pek you have to bid max (or very close to it). He isn't worth that imo.
From my eyeballs the answer is yes. He looked like an effective scorer down low and he protected the basket on defense. I know his numbers over the 82 game season don't really back that up as his shooting percentage was just a hair over 500 and he averaged less than a block a game. But from what i saw of him he seems like a great guy to anchor the middle for the Blazers. I'm thinking outside the box all of a sudden and I'm wondering if the Timberwolves are still carrying a torch for Batum. And if so I'm wondering if they'd be interested in a Pekovic for Batum sign and trade. Seems to me we've got a better shot at getting a swing man with our cap space than a big man.
Well the fat boy can guard Howard like no ones business and can probably D up Gasol good as anyone as well
X one million Let's get a team that's just super skinny guys. Start Barton at the 2, bring back Darius Miles and Travis Outlaw, trade Damian Lillard to Golden State for that super skinny point guard who's name I can't remember. Is there a power forward out there skinner than LaMarcus that we can trade him for?
