Portland has had a number of pretty good drafts, if by "good draft" you mean "we picked up quality players that are still in the rotation": 2009 Bayless, Cunningham, Pendergraph 2008 Batum 2007 Oden 2006 Roy, Aldridge 2005 Webster, Jack 2009 is still pretty iffy IMO. Bayless and Cunningham appear to at least by viable NBA role players, though. And that's nothing to sniff at when you are talking about picks outside of the top ten. If by "in years" you mean "going back to the massive whiff we had on Chris Paul" in 2005, then yeah, I could see how this might turn out to be worse than any draft after that. In my mind it really depends on whether Bayless or Babbitt have the better NBA career. Because Roy can sop up backup minutes at the 1, 2 or 3 as needed, and Batum can guard 1-3, those two guys could really be competing for backup minutes this year. Which is cool, because they bring entirely different things to the bench unit.
The more I read about these guys, the more I like this draft. Let's see, a stretch 3/4 scorer/shooter that rebounds, can put the ball on the floor and seems like a smarter guy than Travis is (and I like Travis and think his contributions were sorely missed in the Playoffs) - check, A slightly bigger Bayless clone with longer arms and better hops - check, a defensive PG - check.
doah! Must punish brain for bad braining with more alcohol. (Rudy I intentionally left off, just like I dumped Sergio. After the disappearing act in the playoffs when Batum and Roy were so beat up, he is dead to me. Dead like so, so many brain cells.)
Destiny is always gold. My other two vary between Angel, Raven, Porche, Tiffany, Chloe and Diamond. It depends on the area we are in
I am not ready to write Rudy off just yet, given that he had the back surgery that could have been a real issue all year long. I am still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt before I assign him to Sergio's file.
Great, world class talent (Something Rudy simply does not have). If he can stay healthy - he was well worth his #1 pick position. But, it is clear that health is a concern. At this point in time - I can't see any way he can be traded for something that is worth his potential - and given that he is still in his rookie contract - I can't see what harm it does to keep him, build around him and hope he can use this talent consistently for many games a year. If it happens, we are set, if it does not - next year's RFA status will help the team evaluate his real worth around the league.
I think a point a lot of folks are missing about SF is that there are a lot of SF available on the free agency market, some of them at the veteran exception level, who are all far superior to Martell across the board. There will be talent there to pick up, and that talent will be an upgrade.
That disqualifies you as having an opinion worthy of anything. What part of the playoffs did you miss this Spring? Did you not see that anyone who's opinion is worthy of anything praised Martell Webster as being the best defender the Blazers had on the Court, including Nicolas Batum? Just because you think something is one way, doesn't mean it is. Sometimes you need to listen to the collective experts out there who know what they are talking about when they differ with you. Martell may not be an All-Star, but we just lost our best defender from last year's playoffs. Batum will become a better defender, but during the playoffs this season, Martell was the best. Martell also shoots the three better than anyone on the team who takes a high volume of shots (Brandon, Martell and Bayless). Go ahead and stand on you island and be defiant like a little bratty kid, but Hubie Brown and Doug Collins know more about basketball in their little pinkie than you do in all of your body. They both praised Martell for his Defense. And, Defense is 50% of basketball. That's why we chose Oden over Durant. Defense is that important to pass up a sure thing like Durant for the chance of getting a great defender which Oden may become.
Jeez. You really like flogging that line over and over and over (and embarrassingly not just in this thread). You make it sound like Webster was the defensive mastermind that miraculously stymied the vaunted Suns offense. The Suns beat us 4-2. They put up over 98 points in all but one of the games. Webster's minutes played in the final three games of the series? 13 minutes, 14 minutes and 20 minutes. Yep, Coach McMillan actually used him LESS even as Batum's injury seemed to get worse. There's not much I see in these basic facts that make Webster somehow indispensable going forward.
I'm not sure which is sillier - the hate for Babbitt or the blind love for Webster. No trade is a guaranteed "win", but this was a very reasonable move. Sometimes, you have to take risks in an effort to get better.
I think the trade was a win-win. Webster is going to do very well in Minnesota. He'll get his minutes and no one will push to take his time, so Webs will relax and thrive. We needed a change, and this trade was an admission that his MLE-level deal was a mistake. We unwound it and now have a rookie who will get the opportunity to fill those minutes behind Batum.
Many of the smaller, lower talent conferences automatically get a team into the NCAA so that isn't all that good a reference. Winning the Sun Valley conference gives your team the right to get beat by 80 by Kansas. His team only played against a single ranked team (North Carolina) all season. He played pretty poorly in that one. He also played pretty poorly in the two tournaments his team made (The WAC championship and the NIT). Not a very good sample size or anything like that but to say he played well against quality college teams is flat out wrong. I don't think he has done much to prove he is NBA ready.
I agree that it's a win-win for us and Webster. If you make it a triangle, though, it's a win-win-lose for Minnesota. He's started 119 of the last 157 games he's played. 164 out of a total 301 in his career. It's not like he hasn't had his chances in the role of unquestioned starter. It's hard to think of a Blazer in the past ten years who has had more opportunities to start and produced less. Hmmm. Wait--Damon Stoudamire. I would rather have Webster as a long-term starter on my team than Damon Stoudamire. Yikes. I had to reach back that far? Surely I'm forgetting somebody through all those crappy years.
I listed his game by game results against "good" teams in another thread. You said he padded his numbers against bad teams, when actually they were roughly the same against the "good" teams. Plus, he played in a conference with 2 NCCA tournament teams; the same number the Pac 10 had last season. Opinions are fun, but I don't understand why you keep flogging this horse when the facts say otherwise. Babbitt chose Nevada, but he was offered by Ohio State and turned them down. It's not like he is some unknown like Gordon Hayward; Babbitt was a McDonald's All-American who at times dominated national AAU tournaments.
