I'm as excited as the next guy about the return of Nurk. But I must ask, why are so many fans talking about trading Whiteside? I doubt Nurk will be able to give us much of anything this year. I've been pleasantly surprised by Whiteside's performance. Heck, he's leading the league in blocks, and fourth in the league in rebounding. (and that's with 'lazy' effort ) With Nurk only getting about $12M, would we expect Whiteside to get much more in the open market? I believe the Blazers have his Bird rights, so they can match any offer. I'd love to see a full strength Nurk and Whiteside on the same team. If that combo doesn't work out next year, we could look to trade Whiteside at that time (if Nurk returns to his full Beast self).
You don't seem to understand Bird rights. We can go over the cap to re-sign Whiteside but he can sign where ever he wants and we don't get the chance to match the offer, that's restricted free agency. I doubt very much that Whiteside will sign here to be Nurk's back up or even split time with Nurk evenly.
I have a reasonable knowledge of the CAP rules. But always looking to learn more. Yes, Whiteside is a free agent at the end of this year. He could potentially sign anywhere. But as we know, he's had a relatively rocky unstable career to this point. It's looking like he's genuinely happy in Portland and has a good relationship with Dame. I think there's risks no mater which way we turn. If we're looking to trade Whiteside before the trade deadline so we can trade for another big contract locked in for more years, usually those teams are dumping a bad contract (ie Love). Not a lot of teams are looking to pick up an expiring contract and willing to give away a player on a good contract. There's going to be strings attached. I'd like to hope for the best case scenario. I get to watch Whiteside in a Blazer uniform for the rest of this season, then get to see us sign him to a solid contract next year. In the meantime, Nurk takes his time coming back.
Happy he will be back soon, still think it will be too little and too late to turn the season around. Hope I am wrong though.
the 2nd MRI on January 8 confirmed a "knee injury"....I can't recall the Blazers ever saying exactly what it was. They said he would be re-evaluated in a month, so that evaluation would happen in the 1st of 2nd week of February. it's beginning to look like neither one of Nurkic or Skal will make an appearance before the all-star break
seems like quite a bit of time between now and then, almost a month, although it's only about 3 weeks till the last game before the break I remember 3 or 4 posters here arguing they thought Nurk would be back sometime in December. Might miss that by 2 months
Portland's 26 games schedule after the all-star break is really easy. * 11 road & 15 home games * 10 of their first 14 games after the break are at home * only 9 of 26 games are against teams with winning records, and 5 of those are at home so, if they can get Nurk and Skal back shortly after the break they are set up to win a lot of games. The issue is how deep a hole will they be in and if Portland still has Whiteside. My guess is it's going to be a pretty deep hole and that they won't trade Whiteside
A left knee articular cartilage lesion...the same injury Oden had before he underwent microscopic surgery
IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!! Holy crapatole. I was getting worried about you, bud. It's not too late. We can still get this....
