Steve Blake has returned. What does that mean? And for who? Against Cleveland it meant Jerryd Bayless played less. If you look at the playing time breakdown, Blakes seven minutes of PT clearly came at the expense of Jerryd. Blake will more than likely play more than seven minutes Wednesday and Friday. Does this mean Bayless goes back to the bench? Personally, I think there are guys who are playing are better than Blake. Jerryd Bayless has responded to the increase in minutes and its time the team gave him an opportunity. But our coach likes Blake, and has proven he will likely play him no matter what the circumstances are.
The 7 minutes that Steve Blake in the game were 7 minutes of wasted time...he did nothing out there...
It means bad Ju Ju. Bayless minutes and production already cut in the first game. Nate will go back to his old ways, and we the fans, will end up taking the brunt of it when Bayless and Rudy get pissed off and go play somewhere else, because Nate wanted to play Steve Blake.
Blake didn't look healthy out there. I mean, he not only sucked, but he looked kind of scrawny and slow. I was stunned when he nearly air balled that three from the corner. He needs a week or two to get back into shape. Normally it's almost a tossup between whether Bayless or Blake is better. Right now it's not even close.
He said he lost seven pounds during his illness, so I can't say I'm all that surprised (especially for a guy without 7 pounds to lose).
It means less development for Bayless and Mills. It also means we have a healthy player with an expiring contract. Get well soon TO so we can put a 2-for-1 package together.
Yea the topper is that Travis foot won't be healed until well after the trade deadline. The other problem being, I, like many of my friends, have realized KP will never trade those two. I pretty much plan on them being Blazers for life, and being a piece of a team that never makes a finals run during their career here, those two being a major reason for it never manifesting, and of course, causing talented guard after talented guard to leave the team over playing time issues because Nate plays Blake in front of them. We will officially become the development team of the NBA as Rudy, Bayless, and future guards to come, all leave because they can never get minutes here.
I'm sure KP would trade Blake if the right deal presented itself. Up until this season, we've needed Blake. Keeping Blake for this season made a lot of sense. His contract is very reasonable and we didn't know how well Bayless would perform. Now that Miller's fitting in better and Bayless is performing at a consistently higher level, there's little need for Blake, other than for point-guard insurance. He's got value and so does his contract. KP would be foolish to not get something back if something comes up that's worthwhile. KP's not foolish.
Yea, but this is the year they are finally coming off the books. Blake finally has value to someone other than Nate.
Sure KP's not foolish..cough...cough...cough...RLEC.....cough...cough.. (Mr. Subliminal strikes again)
He didn't find as opportunistic of a way of using RLEC as we hoped, but I wouldn't call that foolish. None of us know what was on the table. I, for one, was not onboard for bringing back many of the rumored deals we heard bantered about (i.e. Vince Carter and his massive contract in and RLEC and a young stud out; Gerald Wallace in and the same out). Show me a foolish deal he passed up and we can talk. For now, it appears KP knew he was in the driver's seat and found that if we were going to pick up a questionable-fit, it needs to come at a low-risk cost - Andre Miller. Doesn't seem foolish to me.
It means he will help us win a few meaningless games, and cost us a lot more next season by taking developmental minutes away from Bayless.
I don't know what the offers were, either, but given the Nets didn't get a young stud for Carter, I'm not sure why the Blazers would have. The Nets actually sent a superior prospect (younger, picked ahead of Lee) along with Carter to get the Magic to take Vince. I think it's likely that the Blazers would have received Carter and picks... and I think that they should have done that deal. Ed O.
Courtney Lee seemed like a young stud at the time. I went back and looked at his stats. He's young and that's about it. But, a couple of things. It's reasonable to think that New Jersey did want as good a young player as they could get out of the deal and Lee was that player. RLEC alone likely just wasn't enough. Considering how many good young talented players we have, who would we give up? I wouldn't have given up any. For sake of argument, assuming they were to bite on only RLEC. Isn't it reasonable that $38M over three additional years (much more if we didn't waive him prior to some point of the third season) for a past-prime veteran is not inline with how Portland wants to spend their money? Maybe not how you would spend it, but you can see where they'd be very cautious. And looking at his PER this season, even as solid as it is, it does show a major decline. I'd rather stick with our quickly improving forwards and guards that come much cheaper and possibly will contribute just as much this season, and hopefully much more in the next.
When your gunning for the Lebron sweepstakes, a expiring contract of the size of Raefs is well more than enough. Don't tell me any talent needs to be coming back. They are gunning for Lebron. They don't give a shit about any players coming back.
