Didn't you hear? Nate crushed his spirit when he asked him to play half-court basketball, rebound and play defense.
There are a few reasons why a deal with Chicago would need to wait until July. - As someone else mentioned, it could be Luol Deng's BYC status. And, taking this a step further, with this much salary coming back to Portland, we'd have to wait for when we're officially under the salary cap to make such an uneven deal. - Since draft picks can be moved at any time, as long as they're not signed to a contract yet, it has nothing do with Pendergraph or another recent draftee. - What's more likely is Chicago is wanting to find out if Gordon is staying or going first. Gordon can't begin negotiations with another team or with Chicago until July. Or, to take this further, maybe Gordon is the player that's possibly being sought after by Portland and would be received through a sign-and-trade. - It could be another player, that's currently a free agent, who's salary is required to make the deal work through a sign-and-trade. Lindsay Hunter, Aaron Gray, Raef Lafrentz, Michael Ruffin, Channing Frye, and Shavlik Randolph are free agents. - Salaries change from year to year and maybe the deal, the way both teams need it structured, will only work under 2009/10 numbers If Hinrich is incoming and Pendergraph is outgoing, obviously Chicago would need more in value. Steve Blake and Jeff Pendergraph makes the most sense, but only would work after June 30th. We'd have to use $5.5M of our salary cap space though. This leaves very little left. I don't think adding just Hinrich is a big enough improvement. Hinrich and Deng seems sexier, but as others have pointed out, Deng's risk doesn't make much sense for Portland to take. What if we pushed for a Ben Gordon sign-and-trade, sending Outlaw, Pendergraph, and Blake, while getting back James Johnson or Taj Gibson. If we signed Gordon to a deal starting at $8.5M, this would still leave us with $6M in free agent spending money. We renounce our rights to one or more of our overseas guys and we add on .8M or 1.6M more to that spending money. We include Clavor for a future draft pick and we save another $1M. We could still offer Turk a deal starting at around $8.5M or Artest $7M or Ariza $6.5M. It could just be that we're sending Outlaw, Blake, and Pendergraph for Hinrich and Thomas, Johnson, or Gibson and a future second, but that Chicago wants to deal with Gordon first. Who knows.
What if the deal is Outlaw, Blake, and Pendergraph to Chicago; a re-signed Ben Gordon to Detroit; Tayshaun Prince to Portland. Then Detroit can keep their spending money to add two new free agents. Just thinking out loud at this point.
I think the point of Chicago taking on Blake and/or Outlaw is to make enough room in its books to retain Gordon.
Correct. My guess is that if the Blazers and Bulls consummate the deal for Hinrich it's going to be a swap of Blake and then Pendergraph, Claver or Cunningham so the Bulls add some length and size to a roster totally devoid of any quality big men (and no Taj Gibson and Johnson don't really count, at least not yet). Who knows what is going to happen, but what I do know is that the Blazers have to do something this summer and now they can have a nice little pool of money to play around with in addition to some liquid assets that Claver, Pendergraph and Cunningham represent.
We don't know how much money is guaranteed immediately. plenty of contracts are partially guaranteed. It could be that on July 1, their contract becomes 50% guaranteed and they only become fully guaranteed in February. Tons of guys have that kind of guarantee.
No way! He heard there are other possible trades out there? Pure Blasphemy! In other breaking news, people might be breathing air. I heard they were.
dude obviously was a very productive player at one point and he's only 24 next season. Injuries are part of the game and may or may not rob guys of their talents. If I'm in KP's shoes and the Bulls are dangling him, I'd want to hear what my Docs have to say. STOMP
Did you watch the whole video? Starting at about 3:47 shows the injury that ended his rookie year. He's never been the same player since. I think the injury affected him mentally, as well as physically. He's not nearly as aggressive at attacking the rim. He shows brief flashes of his former self, but they are rare. When he does play aggressive and attack the defense, he's a much better, much more productive player. Problem is, we only get to see it for a hand full of games a year (the two San Antonio games and the Cleveland game come to mind from this past season, as well as the last five games the season before after Joel was injured - he also played well during the 13-game winning streak). The rest of the time he floats on the perimeter and launches jumpers. After the way he finished the 2007-2008 season - he averaged 16.2 PPG and 10.2 RPG starting at center over the last five games of the season - I really thought he was our long term answer at back-up power forward. But then he played horribly in 2008-2009. This has been an odd trend for Frye - alternating good and bad seasons. If you look at his PERs over his four year career, they are 18.1, 10.5, 14.8, 10.0. The first three kind of make sense. He started out great, then the injury. His second season was one of recovery (both physically and mentally). It was also a train wreck season in NY under Isiah. Then his third season, he was physically healed and in a much better environment. However, the awful 4th season is a bit of a mystery. He suffered a minor injury during the preseason and came back sooner than expected, but that doesn't explain an entire season of futility. So, will the trend continue? Will he have a productive 2009-2010 season? I hope he does, he's a great kid, but it probably won't be in Portland. BNM
You have to take any highlight video with a grain of salt. Shit, I can make ZBO look like a great defender........ Travis look like he has handles and even Sergio look like he's money from downtown! Speaking of Channing, I do think the team will miss him off the court. Great guy, great person to have round the locker room.
You think Larry Brown never asked him to do that? But snide comments aside, I think you're right that it is the coaching. If a coach believes in you and makes you a featured player, it makes a HUGE difference. Isiah Thomas actually made Eddie Curry look good. And he made Jermaine O'Neal into a player. And look at Boris Diaw with D'Antoni. It's not just that they played uptempo - Charlotte doesn't, and Diaw is doing well for them. It's that he recognized what would work for the player and encouraged him. Channing hasn't had an injury - at least, a physical one. [Edit: okay, forgot about the ACTUAL injury while he was still in NY...] Deng, on the other hand, has, and continues to have. With Oden on our team (not to mention Roy's heel and knees and LaMarcus's heart scare) I don't think we'll be targeting Deng. (Hope Channing can latch on with the Bobcats, or maybe back in New York. Actually, come to think of it, he might be a good fit in San Antonio, too.)
Chann had also not been scouted yet. Once those advanced scouts figure out your game, it's up to the player to adapt. Rudy was killin' that first 6 weeks of the season remember? They figured his game out and he wasn't really the same after that.
