There's a lot of teams with good young PGs, or just good PGs, that I don't envision a huge market with us getting outbid for Felton. Also, we would still have his early bird rights, which allows us, at least under the current CBA, to offer him a deal starting at 175% of his previous year. That's 13 million a year. He can blow up, and still, I think we'll be fine if that's the "max" we could offer him.
Ah, yes! I'd forgotten that Bickerstaff was GM and coach of the Bobcats when they took Felton and May at 5 and 13, rather than trading up with the Blazers (where they could have taken Chris Paul). Bad move, Bernie. Ed O.
excess talent? Has anyone looked at POR "new" bench oft-injured Roy, Smith, Williams, Babbit and Johnson? Yikes....
Link? Seriously, Greg has shown to be a good player and all, but what proof do we have that he gets us to the next level? Our record in the games he has played pretty much mimic our record in the last 3 seasons
Well, not now. But we once had more capable players from 1-12 than most teams. And we've happily dumped them in deals.....
Amen. Since we did go out of our way to keep him. And let's not forget Oden or Camby, whichever is not the starter..... I include Oden because he's really under our control at this point. Batum and Oden considerably improve the look of our bench. But Blazer conveniently forgot those two.
I'd agree, except most analysts said that we had one of the toughest schedules they'd ever seen to start the season two seasons ago. And we were looking very formidable, and then GO went down.
I agree with the thread's premise that Felton was the best we could do without trading Batum. But then the thread proceeds under the assumption that this was a good thing, keeping Batum. What about the opposite argument. Like Rudy, Batum will not flourish under McMillan, but his potential attracts other teams. Batum's play was already descending when we got Gerald Wallace, who makes Batum look like a piker. Batum is now wasted on the bench while other teams clamor for him. In exchange for Batum, we could address a better starter at C or SG, and get a normal sub forward thrown in. It was a bad thing not to include Batum in a trade, so as to do much better than Felton.
I have mixed feelings on Batum. I love his pure shot, his silky moves, his athletic ability. He might end up being another Scotty Pippen . . . or he might never get close to anything like that. Right now he's still very inconsistent, and he doesn't seem to have the anger, or the hunger, or the aggressiveness he needs to take it to the next level. Here's hoping that he discovers a fire in his belly this season!
Agreed. But I suspect that Blazer management wanted a point guard with upside, rather than one whose best days are behind him. Miller's game is slowly declining, while Felton's game may get even better over the next few years. This move was probably more about the next 5 years than next season.
Yes, you are correct either Batum or Matthews... Oden's return is looking like it will not be until January at the earliest, so that mean 38yr? old Camby is the starter and who? (Johnson? Pendergraph?) are the backups? Not pretty...... So we have Roy who pretty much can contribute 1 out of every 4? 3? games at best, Batum, who is inconsistent on offense at best and then a bunch of rookies in Babbit, Williams, Smith & Johnson? I don't know how ANYONE could be optimistic about POR chances to ADVANCE in the playoffs with a bench like that... and that is even mentioning the starting five, which ONCE AGAIN has NO consistent outside threat...I guess Felton will be as close as it gets and he will need to have ONE HELL OF A YEAR shooting from the outside to have any positive effect..... The team didn't improve it's shooting, Diebler is NOT the answer here people...and more importantly there is no CONSISTENT "go to" player to genertate offense off the bench, that is unless you really believe Roy with his two badly degenerative knees is going to return to his previous All-Star form and more than 1 out of every 4 games? I mean come on now.... Hope Roy comes back to form? Not likely Hope Felton becomes deadly from the outside? overly optimistic Hope Oden can come back, stay healthy and back to form he had before he went down last year? I really hope he can, but I certainly wouldn't COUNT on it. Hope Matthews\Batum\Roy develop into a CONSISTENT outside threat? Wishful thinking Hope 1 or 2 of Williams\Babbit\Smith or Johnson develop into a consistent bench scoring threat? Really? hey I hope all or most or some of that happens, but you don't build playoff CONTENDING teams by COUNTING on that to happen...
It's looking like the NBA's return will not be until January at the earliest, so that might not even be a concern.
