There's a lot more to a team that finished with 54 wins (what, tied for 5th best record in the league, share of the division title, and played four gutsy playoff games against a superiorteam) than Brandon Roy. He's an all-NBA caliber guard, but this team works because of the 10 players and personalities surrounding Roy also.
I agree. But put it this way, if Brandon (god forbid) had gone out for the season with a knee injury this would have been at best a 30 win team.
Who, after watching this series, doesn't think Artest would be a great asset to Portland. Not only would it make us better, but it would weaken a team that is one of our toughest match ups. Ron would make us a title contender NEXT year. Great defense, we'd get rebounding from the SF position that we've sorely lacked, and he hits the 3 well. I think he would take our team to a whole new level.
Maybe not. The way the coaching staff develops and finds ways to put players in roles they can excel in, I wouldn't be surprised if rudy moved into brandons role and bayless into rudys role and the team still equalled last years win total. I get your point though. Let's not ever speak of brandon and season ending injury again. K?
The 25 point pledge isn't really relevant anymore IMO. Our team is already full of goody-two-shoes. And it's nice to not have a team full of jerks, but I don't think Artest is that bad. This league is not full of goody-two-shoes types, and it's ok to bring a few guys in that are not choir boys.
I just had a thought and it might be the clincher for me when debating in my mind whether Artest would be a good fit or not -- anybody think we'd ever see the Lakeshow try to lay the wood to Rudy or Brandon ever again with a flagrant foul with Artest patrolling the perimeter? I guarantee you people would think twice about the flagrant fouls and bullying if they felt they'd incur the wrath of the hardest muthafuckah in the league.
