Rumor The Knicks have Wes and Monroe at the top of their FA list

Yes, I think Afflalo would be the best replacement.

 

It's hard to imagine Wes leaving Portland to play for a bunch of losers like NY.

 

I agree. Wes wants to win, I don't think he would go to New York. If a contender offers him a similar deal as us, I could see it (and understand). But New York? Haha no way

 

I love Wes too, but I thinks he's probably expendable in the end. Solid SGs are not that hard to come by.

They are not going to max-out L.A. and Wes and give Rolo a huge payday. Reminds me of when the Lakers traded Norm Nixon for the younger and cheaper Byron Scott.

And no, Wes is not going to take less to stay here. Ask Utah.

 

the only starter i could see letting walk is batum if he doesnt stop his lazy shit passes. the rest of them will work out a deal to stay because ill beg them until the deal is signed. ill go on a hunger strike and chain myself to the moda

 

To add to this thread....

LMA has been gushing to the Knick beatwriter about the possibility of playing in the "basketball capital" and would adapt to the triangle offense.

Tommy Dee gets on my nerves.

 

He's not walking anywhere until 2016

 

If solid SGs are easy to come by, why do you think people will want to throw the max at him. Wes Matthews is arguably the third best SG in the Western Conference. 4th at worst.

 

SG is actually the least talented position in the league. SF is next. Wes can play both.

 

Outside of Harden/Thompson/Beal/Matthews.
Name 5 starting shooting guards that are solid this year.
Injuries play a role in taking Wade/Kobe off this list.

 

Weird cycles at play in the NBA. Remember when PGs and Cs were hard to come by? Now they're [nearly] as plentiful as PFs, which seems to always be the easiest position to fill - actually, I think PG is probably the deepest talent pool in the NBA right now. It seems like there's still a perception that you can get by without a good C, but in actuality there are more quality Cs in the league than there have been in a long time. The league use to be DOMINATED by SGs, and now you're lucky to get one that's merely adequate. It's why I view Wes as our second most valuable player, behind Dame. There's no way we let him walk this summer.

 

I don't see the trangle being Wes' game style at all and I don't see the Garden as a place he's going to feel at home in. One slump on that team and you're crucified by the media. Stott's player's style of offense is the perfect game for Wesley's talents. He likes the underdog tag and he feels he's on the best team now. I don't see Wes going anywhere for the primetime run of this Blazers squad.

 

Monta Ellis. JJ Reddick. Danny Green. Kyle Korver. Jimmy Butler. If you consider Butler a SF, then go with JR. Smith. Or Andrew Wiggins who could also be considered a SF.

 

Ellis is a solid offensive player.
However he's far from solid defensively. - so this one doesn't work.

Reddick is a solid 3 point shooter.
But outside of that he's not really solid in any other aspect of his game.
He's been covered up his entire career by elite shot blocking.(minus a year in Orlando when Howard was traded?)

Danny Green is solid but can't really know how well he'd do out of that system. Will give you this one though.

Kyle Korver is solid in shooting. Specifically catch and shoot situations.
His defense is better than Ellis/Reddick though. Guess that means something?

Jimmy Butler is a natural SF, who can play the two.
JR. Smith is far from solid.
Andrew Wiggins is shooting 43% from the field and 35% from three. I guess that's solid for todays shooting guard.....

It is kind of silly the differences in todays game compared to the 90's or early 00's.
Every team was after a PG and tried to hit. Would Carlos Arroyo have a chance at starting in todays game? I mean even Lin is better than him.... Crazy.
But the quality of 2guard was amazing...
I mean Jalen Rose was considered an average 2guard in the early 00's. If he was playing today? He'd be considered just under elite... or perhaps even elite.

Honestly if I were to try to say whos the most important Blazer in order... I'd have to say..
Aldridge/Lillard 1a/1b
Wes 2.
I can't really say who is more important between Lillard/Aldridge because the offense looks like shit without Aldridge. It has for the past 2 years whenever he's been out.
But the Blazers didn't really start winning with Aldridge until Lillard showed up... Teams couldn't just clog the middle.

So idk.. But I def think Wes is right behind Lillard/Aldridge in terms of importance.
Batum is underrated... even with as shitty as he's played.

 

It's true that the offense has looked particularly bad when LMA is out. But if you figure that we were to replace him with another starting-level PF, rather than Robinson/Wright/Leonard, I think there'd be very little drop-off. Whereas if you were to replace Lillard with another starting-level PG the drop-off would be much more noticeable because we've relied so heavily on Lillard to win games in the 4th quarter. Therefore Lillard is, IMO, far and away the most important player on the team.