I'd put my odds on Oden having healthy-ish seasons. The number of franchise-changing superstars that have been mined from the draft are insanely, insanely low when compared to the number of draft picks spent by all franchises over the years. Especially if you eliminate top-five picks (as the team isn't nearly bad enough to get one). Of course, as others have noted, you can do both.
And that's worked out real well for the T'Wolves, right? How many stupid GMs are we supposed to rely upon for this plan to work?
If Oden is the next Eddy Curry, then trading him for the most you can get for him before his value drops to zero would a better route to a championship then keeping him on the roster. Really only Blazer personnel can intelligently guess the likelihood of Oden coming back and being a dominant player, a productive player or little chance of putting a whole season together. I hope they act accordingly.
Sure ... unless trading Oden was the difference between getting a high lottery selection (hypothetically speaking). If you can keep Oden and reasonable contract terms can be agreed to that make sense for both he and the organization I don't have a problem keeping him as some kind of X-factor ala Andrew Bynum, but he absolutely cannot be a foundation piece moving forward, that's folly.
I'm not banking on him, but I'd like to keep him around. It's extremely rare that you get a player as talented as Oden. His injury situation is pretty bad, but I think there's a better chance of him being healthy enough than to find another guy as talented. If the "right deal" came along, I'd pack his bags too. But it would take a pretty tremendous player for me to consider it the right deal. Even with good, sensible decision-making, creating a champion is extremely, extremely hard. I think if we eliminate Oden from the range of possibilities (as trading/dumping him would do), the chances of a title in the next decade, say, become much, much lower.
Well, let's at least pick a reasonable draft if we're going to look at that kind of scenario...not this watered down, lockout impaired thing we're going to have this season.
However, multiple surgeries or not, he's still (IMO) of greater value as a potential X-factor than as salary filler, which is what some (such as OMG) would have him be now. Sure, he's gravy if anything else. Build a team absent GO-related considerations, fine. But to jettison him for the privilege of receiving Troy Murphy's expiring contract--that's ridiculous.
I know you're asking Minstrel, but I'll answer anyway: a player under the age of 30--with a reasonably good health history--who would start on our team from day 1.
I think its becoming clear camby is gone. blazerbanter Camby, after trade questions: "If I would have known that I'd be in this situation, I wouldn't have signed my extension last year." less than 5 seconds ago via First hes already listed as doubtful for tomorrows game. Second he seems to have the attitude that he is gonna be dealt and now its being reported that he makes the harris trade work. Last Spears tweeted he and miller will be dealt. Coincidence? All signs pointing to a tough goodbye tomorrow. Im gonna guess these deals will be known tomorrow night if miller suddenly is "sick"
I guess this precludes him playing hard for us if he doesn't get traded, since he'll have been disrespected. Woo.
Hmm, good question. There's two issues here, though: his upside and his concrete value. Generally, I'd say that upside is part of overall value, but in this case I don't feel that way. The reason is that Oden's overall value is far below his upside due to his risk...however, getting a player of his value (once risk and reward are factored in) would be a little pointless, because that player would not be a star. Oden's not worth a star player right now, due to his risk. But why do we another decent player? One more decent player isn't going to push the team all that much closer to a title. Therefore, his value to me (based on my priorities which is championship or bust) is really more his upside, rather than his total value. I'm saying all that so that there's no confusion in thinking that any names I throw out there are my idea of his objective value. They're not. That said, the minimum would probably be a high-level prospect like John Wall or a young-prime star like Chris Bosh. Remember, I don't think either is his objective value. So I know 100% that neither Washington or Miami would do such a deal. But it would take something like that for it to even seem worthwhile to me. Getting a Landry Fields or a DeJuan Blair, which might be more his risk-adjusted value, is pointless to me. It does very little to get Portland closer to a title.
Meh. Stuff happens. Portland is in this situation, and thus Camby is, because Roy ended up (likely) finished as an elite NBA player and Oden suffered another set-back. If Roy were still a top player (even if Oden were still injured), Portland wouldn't be looking to trade away veterans. I'd say all of this hurts the franchise more than Camby, so I really don't feel much sympathy for Camby.
Exactly. It's a business and he works for an organization that's had major changes at the top since he signed that contract. Add to that his recent injury and this shouldn't be that much of a shock.
If we knew that Camby was going to miss a couple of dozen games this year (and counting) maybe the team wouldn't have signed his extension, either. Sheesh. Ed O.
