There is a rumour going around that these two teams are set to make a trade Dallas get A.Sabonis R.Patterson B.Wells Portland gets R.Lefrentz N.VAn Exel good for both teams IMO..dallas gets an added scorer in Bonzi and if sabonis plays..he is a big body that dallas needs..portland get added scoring with NVE..a shot blocker inside..in reaf..which they need....dallas also gets a guy who can actually play great defence..which is also what they need great trade if it happens for both
i agree great trade for both and these two teams are crazy enough to pull the trigger. lafrentz will fit in perfectly with davis & sheed and van exel gives them a legit pg. the mavs need patterson to help guard the wing players and bonzi gives them a guard who can post up and punish the smaller guards in the league. he also brings a lot of energy. this move would probably force dirk to play PF and bonzi would start at SF.
i dunno why the mavs are so anxious to get rid of lafrentz...i think hes a decent center...sabonis is done, he cant even jump. van exl is a great part of the mavs team, i guess its worth it, if they get ruben and bonzi...i like the trade for the mavs...i just think theyll be wanting a decent center before long
This is pretty smart. With Sabonis, they have a big trade assett(8mil expring), and then you add that along with lets say Avery Johnson. Right there is 13mil in expring contracts. I am sure at the deadline you could package that together and get a pretty good player. As for the now: Nash-Johnson-Daniels Wells-Howard Finley-Patterson Dirk-Najera Bradley?-Eschmyer? The thing that worries me though, is who is our center. Sabonis is to slow to fit into our game. So how is that going to work out. There must be another trade to follow up.
Dirk might spend a lot of minutes defending other teams C's if this trade go down. That would open up some minutes for Ruben Patterson, Josh Howard and Najera.
I doubt they have Dirk play center because they don't want him getting banged around. Besides, the Mavs primarily play Zone Defense so having a 1 on 1 defensive center isn't as crucial for them. They do a great job of collapsing on post players, and with increased speed with Patterson and Wells on the Wings the Mavs defense will be good enough. Wells is also a solid rebounder for his size and he will help crash the boards with Dirk & Bradley or Sabonis. I think Sabonis is the perfect center for the Mavs. He's huge and is one of the best passing big men in the league. He can play outside of the key and allow Dirk and Bonzi to take advantage of match-up problems in the post. Sabonis has a great mid-range jumper and will be able to extend the opposing center away from the hoop.
I think the mavs are getting riped there trading Lafrentz,Van Exel for Bonzi,Patterson because Sabonis is retiring.
Nope, I read somewhere that he was not retiring and it was a false acusation. Also, like I said before we can trade his expring contract for someone valuable.
It seems good but whos gonna start at center? I hope they arent thinking about puttin Saboins at center. Ill be pissed if they trade Van Exel
Sabonis hasn't made his decision yet to retire and play in Europe or play one more year of the NBA. Despite what you read he hasn't done it yet. I would love it if Raef came to Portland. My favorite player coming to my home town! Oh this is going to be one of the best things ever if it happens. Im gonna hate to see Bonzi go, and Patterson too. Who are we gonna play at SF then... Woods? Randolph?
I don't like this trade for the Blazers. They have a logjam at power forward with both Zach Randolph and Rasheed Wallace wanting major playing time. One of the easy solutions other than trading Wallace would have been moving one of them to center. It looks like they can't do that anymore. I suppose that Wallace will probably also be packing his bags soon.
