how to catch and shoot. No matter how wide open he is, he ALWAYS takes a couple of dribbles before taking a shot. His offense comes independent of the teams offense. He was great on last years team because we needed guys like that. With the talent we have now, we don’t need a black hole type of player. I’d love to explore trade possibilities.

Today, he was no help. No team leader. On the contrary, he pulled the other guys down with some wild jumpers instead of trying to create something useful, making them also more nervous. Today, Batum > Outlaw. Over the course of a season, of course he is not ready yet. And he was not the only one who looked less than stellar in that game. Same for Bayless, Joel, …

But yeah, my money is on an upgrade at SF at the deadline or in the off-season.

he can’t dribble
he can’t pass
he loses track of his man
he shots two pointers with his toes on the line

—-

Despite all this, I would only move him if the trade was clearly in our favor. He’s drastically improved in the last couple years. He is an amazing athlete and developed into a very solid shooter and scorer last year. He’s very valuable because he can create his own shot better than anyone on the team other than Roy (at least last year, we’ll see if Rudy or Bayless or someone passes him).

One game is one game. Its not reason for concern.

I love Portland, not just the Trailblazers, but also the city. At the same time, Blazer fans (myself included sometimes) are nuts. Talking about trading Outlaw after a bad preseason game? Seriously? There’s no way we get anybody that fits our system better or makes us better now or in the future than Outlaw. All of this overreaction leads me to one conclusion:

Portland needs a girlfriend.

Seriously. Call that snooty Salem chick, or maybe slum it up with Kelso. Whatever it takes, just get out of your own head, Portland.

And that people like Rudy better,

There has been talk about getting rid of Travis the whole off-season. Travis has done nothing over the last two games besides reinforce already well established opinions regarding his general game.

There is a certain amount of love for Travis on this site, and people counter any criticism of Trout by saying, “#25,” like his number has anything to do with his value to the team.

Travis is incredibly athletic, and has been like able since we first saw him at a spindly 17. That being said, Travis has been largely over-rated based on one great shot. Yeah, I said it… one shot.

 He is bait. Good bait.

      Perhaps. I think 3M is our long term answer at
SF, unless RLEC & ?

     COINCAST SUCKS !!!! GET A DEAL DONE, NOW !!
   WHY IS CHARTER COMM. OUR ONLY CABLE OPTION ??

I think it is an overreaction for anyone to change their mind about Outlaw in one pre-season game. With that said, I have never been a big fan of Outlaw’s game. He is an inefficient scorer and a mediocre defender. Inefficient scorers will lose you more games than win them. For some reason, inefficient scorers are valued around the league, so if we can get a good asset coming back, I would be completely in favor of it.

People need to face this reality, Outlaw is a veteran in this league. His game is not going to evolve much from this point forward. Potential is no longer a word that should be associated with Outlaw.

it was just one game. please dont give him the jarrett jack treatment and cast him out of rip city after one poor shooting night.

i agree it was terrible performance but troutlaw, mr 4th quarter, is better than that. i think webster, frye, sergio, outlaw, ike, and a few others are always open for trading but please dont outcast outlaw just yet.

One game. Travis is our 6th man, mr 4th quarter. I agree he looked horrible out there, but he also has a new role on the team as starting SF in place of Webster. Wait until a little later this season and see what happens. One pre-season game is not worth throwing out one of our best and mos loved players. Let this team come together and if someone is not fitting in, THEN we trade him.

he is clutch, and he can bring something to the table that most of our guys cant…the abilty to create their own shots. there will be times where this is useful (esp with Pryz in the lineup). i think trout may not be the man he was last year (partly bc he was so successful as a 4 in the 4th quarter) and the dynamic of the 2nd unit is slightly different now.

i wasnt impressed with trout in the kings game offensively…but he still got active in other parts of the game, areas where i felt he was weak in before. so i was happy to see him improve in those areas. he hasnt made m/any questionable errors related to his “lack” of bball iq so far this year too.

this year id love for trout to – maintain his weak side help defense, improve his man defense, pass the ball a bit more, and learn to catch and shoot. i’m not gonna knock on his shot selection, bc as we all know he can make a bucket even taking a horrible shot.

I totally agree. He does not have a basketball IQ. He only does a few things. I like him. But I really hope one of those few things he does includes gets us somebody who fits us better.

I was at the game, and he looked really out of it. The crowd seemed to gasp when he went up for those sky jump shots. He still has tons of upside, but tonight was really a setback. I feel that Batum really made him look like he should be playing better after so many years in the league. He had some good rebounds though.

Ugggh, I really am not a Trout fan right now.

You very rarely see Roy take a bad shot. And when he gets the ball and decides to move, he usually moves into a better position. Travis is the exact opposite. Somehow he is able to shoot the ball quite effectively off the dribble but not when catching and shooting (only in the two corners a little bit). And somehow he often moves himself into a worse situation than just taking the shot he would have had when immediately going up, instead dribbling into three defenders and then going up for a fallaway jumper or something.

.

the good thing is that its happening in preseason and i doubt the coaching staff will let him just float around and take 16 foot jumpers all day.

rudy was able to find a slashing martell the first game and if the coaching staff can help outlaw get into that im sure trout has a little jump in him. :]

I really liked in the first pre-season game where Trout was like the 8th man off the bench. He kind of snuck up on the other team that way, plus it really illustrated how deep our 2nd unit is. For every night of 1-12 shooting there will be another where he’s 10-12, maybe?

trade talk.

Some people are priceless.