I love me some James Jones, but the reality is we don’t have room for him.

You are quite a player, and one day, I wouldn’t mind seeing you back here.

If Martell or Travis are dealt, who’s the backup SF? A couple of ideas

3 guard lineup with Roy at SF, Rudy at 2 and Blake (or new PG, Harris, etc)

KP drafts a backup SF

Jones doesn’t get the offer he’s looking for elsewhere and resign with Portland

McBob comes alive and claims those minutes

We can always re-sign him. But keep in mind, this is a two way street. It’s pretty clear that Jones was looking for an indication from management that he could stay and play, and management didn’t want to commit beyond that final year for now. We can’t blame KP, but we also can’t blame Jones. He’s always been upfront about “wanting to be wanted”. However, as most of the blogs constantly reinforce, with Oden, we have Travis and Webster at SF now, whereas last year Travis was playing both SF and PF. There were never going to be a lot of minutes for Jones. Further, Jones had a higher salary than you’d normally want to dole out for a third SF playing 6 – 8 minutes or so.

Also, keep in mind that if you read Oregon Live today, you’ll see KP confirm that he had a “good deal” on the table from an Eastern Conference team for a straight up trade of Outlaw for a starting PG- but he didn’t pull the trigger. KP obviously values Outlaw, and isn’t going to just dump him. Further, other comments clearly bring into question the idea of whether or not he ever actually offered Webster for Barbosa. In fact, the word now is that Phoenix never did get much return on their attempt to move Barbosa and Diaw – making me wonder how much of the debate was smoke – not fire. If KP pulls a trade to move up, it’s almost a sure bet that it will be for one player, and the only other player on our end involved will be the one he replaces. i.e If we target and get a PG, then you might move Jack. Or, if you target and get a “Very Good” SF, then you might trade Webster. But there’s only a handful of players in this draft where we’d likely see this. Many of you were always right in one sense, and that is that KP isn’t just going to sell the farm unless he’s absolutely certain it improves the team. He doesn’t need to.

As far as the Net/Blazer deal of their 10 for our 13 and Jack with Augustin our target. I’d also bet that that trade will only happen after we see who Charlotte takes at 9. And that’s true of both the Nets and Us. If the players the Nets want are off the board – then they’d likely make the trade. If the player we want is off the board – then we probably wouldn’t. And so forth.

He still may be back if Martell or Travis are traded. IMO, this reduces the chances of either of them being traded.

I’m very surprised, actually. Because of the injuries, I didn’t think he’d take this risk.

I won’t be surprised to see him end up with a contender who needs outside shooting. The Spurs are getting old, he might give them a real lift if he’s healthy.

This also increases the chances of Rudy or Roy playing a few minutes at the 3 from time to time. Minutes congestion is less of an issue, now.

We’ll still see some deals today or on July 1. But maybe not big deals—it just got harder for us to trade away a forward.

This also increases the chances of Martell being extended.

He was a big part pf the Blazer’s success last year.

On the other hand, this does reduce roster congestion and free up more time for other players. There should be less pressure to trade away players now than there would be if Jones had used his player option.