Hey, hey, hey!  Time to join in the fun as all of Blazer Nation celebrates "We Love the GM Day"!  If there's ever been a more exciting staff in terms of being able to do anything, anytime, anywhere, with anyone I haven't seen them.  This is sure to be the highlight of the summer.

You should probably enjoy the festivities even more considering the draft, now beginning to dwindle in importance to us compared to years past, is about to fall off of a cliff into complete obscurity.  If things go well we'll be looking at low picks in no time, with little or no need to trade to adjust or improve the roster.  Those of you who have been around long enough to remember names like Alaa Abdelnaby and Reggie Smith know what I mean.  I can't even begin to guess what writing through the summer is going to be like in that atmosphere.  How do you do 180 variations of, "Wow...the Blazers are pretty darn good"?  Oh well, I'm sure Kevin Pritchard would be quite content making my job exponentially more difficult.

But that day is not today.  Tension is sure to build as 4 p.m. Pacific approaches.  You may use this as an open thread to discuss all draft matters until then.  As far as I've been able to ascertain there's no clear-cut direction for the Blazers yet.  Standing pat, moving up, moving down, and moving out for a veteran are all possible.  This is quite a change from the last couple years when, if you didn't know the exact pick, at least you knew the general range and goals.  Of course that makes things even more interesting, eh?

I will be here at 4:00 to open up the draft-time thread and discuss the proceedings.  Until then, to kick off the pre-draft talk:

The Indiana Pacers and Toronto Raptors have agreed to a deal sending Jermaine O'Neal to Toronto for T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic, and the #17 pick.  Now Toronto has a matching set of power forward-centers: yesterday's and today's.  Indiana now has two formerly-excellent point guards.  This move would have been the blockbuster of the year three seasons ago.  Now it seems kind of like odd parts for both, with a few more pieces to Indiana and an attempt to match Boston's firepower for Toronto.  Seems more like a headline-creating trade than a difference-maker to me.

The Charlotte Bobcats have acquired the 20th pick from the Denver Nuggets for a later, protected first-rounder.  Denver is now out of the draft.  The write-up says Charlotte GM Michael Jordan is enamored with the depth of this draft.  That could mean it's really deep or it could mean there are at least twenty players available who will be better than Adam Morrison.  In either case this would appear to dim Portland's chances of moving up into the high lottery based on draft picks alone.  Were it possible Charlotte could certainly cut in line first as 9 and 20 trump 13 and 27.  Unless, of course, the Bobcats have targeted a player who would still be available at 9. 

I cannot remember a draft where so many lottery picks were so in flux (and possibly available).  Enjoy sorting it out.  We'll see you at 4:00.

--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)

NOTE TO ALL:  Since we've hit 100 comments in this thread and it's not even 9:30 yet we're closing this thread and moving the discussion upwards to the two threads above.  This will keep things better organized.

Please keep draft discussion in the comment section of the main page threads today to avoid overrunning the Fanpost sidebar with duplicate posts.