The Portland Trail Blazers have acquired Thomas Robinson in a trade with the Houston Rockets. The Rockets have been trying to deal Robinson to clear cap space. The Blazers will send two future second round picks and the draft rights to Kostas Papanikolau and Marko Todorovic for Robinson. The deal will be consummated on July 10, but agreed in principle now in order to give the Rockets sufficient cap space to offer Dwight Howard a max contract.
I don't believe Olshey thinks Robinson is a needle-mover, nor do I think he thinks he can get a needle-mover for under $9M in room. Makes me think there is more trading to come, either small deals to clear cap space, or as the big move itself.
Ask yourself: why did it take Houston so long to unload him? And why did they try to unload HIM instead of any of their other draftees? I think they discovered he can't play.
You're crazy if you think this deal makes Asik untouchable. Obviously they were never going to "salary dump" one of the best defensive Cs in the league, but with Howard on board they will definitely listen to offers. Leonard and Matthews for him would absolutely be a win-win.
Gotta admire Morey's confidence, but if he strikes out with Dwight, he just gave up three contributors for nearly nothing.
I think we are going youth movement. We aren't going to sign a guy over MLE-type money this off-season. LMA might even be traded.
What do we need? A center. What don't we need? An undersized PF who's not good enough for Sacramento or Houston. All right. I've said my piece.
You should look at Speights a bit closer before making such a statement. Brewer shoots well from 3 and plays very good defense.
The knock on Speights is that he doesn't play ANY defense. And didn't we just let a very productive player (JJ) go for just that?
The guy just hasn't gotten a chance to play. Keith Smart killed his development in SAC, and there were too many PFs in HOU. He's gonna be a better Hickson, just watch.
I think Howard's agent must have hinted or something. Houston seems like they already know he's coming.
Talent acquisition is the name of the game, so this deal is a no brainer. But even if you wanted to be a stickler about need, how can you say we didn't need a backup big man?
They can do better. Our only hope was to be the only team willing to do a lopsided trade to clear cap space. Now that's gone, they can sit back and wait for best offers. They might even want to hang on to him - he would allow them to monitor Howard's minutes, which might be wise given the season he had.
