He did ok against Boston, but we didn’t need him that night, so it doesn’t matter. I think I’ll give up, too.

Although, if he has the potential to give 8 million Knicks fans a heart attack, that’s worth something to me. I mean, I’m not sure how 8 million Knicks fans can share a single heart attack, but if LMA can make it happen, then, well, I’ll reconsider.

I’m convinced. I won’t give up on LMA yet. The Knick fan heart attack inducing capability is too intriguing. Perhaps he can learn to give Celtic fans a heart attack, or even multiple heart attacks. This could lead to the even higher calling of giving L.A. fans a heart attack. This potential is not to be scoffed at, and probably should be developed further, even if we have to give it some time.

Perhaps we just need to refocus our coaching efforts, and he’s been working on the wrong things.

There’s not a lot to discuss about that. Might as well give up on the whole thing and root for Boston or the Lakers. You can go to forum blue and gold and debate with yourself whether Pau is soft.

……is willing to give up on a player because of a single game.

This is just silly. LMA will have a ten or fifteen year career. Deciding to “give up” on him because of one bad performance in year three is a sign of an utter lack of understanding of performance by professional athletes. Even Hall of Fame players have plenty of bad games.

whenever the blazers has had a kicka## power forward(b.grant*buck*luke)=serious title contenders.aldridge fits the new blazers regime(clean cut)nice guys=soft losers book it!!!

in the conversation nationally blazerfans then hope next summer k.pricthard goes get a r.artest to be our kick a%% guy trust me he’ll have everyone’s back and oden can feel a lot more aggressive as a legit big man next season.

but I’ve been ok with the prospect of trading him for awhile, since at least midseason last year.

I mean don’t trade him just to trade him, but I think he’s a great trading chip and has more trading value than actual value in terms of wins. I think a package of LMA, RLEC, and a Martell or Travis or Rudy could bring back a major impact player if we can find the right trading partner.

the bulls passed on him 3 years ago in the draft he’s a nice player but a very soft player and the whole league knows it not only about aldridge but the whole blazers team is known as soft around the nba.

are you serious you can’t teach toughness dude either you’re a tough guy or your soft period.to me only roy&bayless&pryz*diogu are tough minded on this team everyone else is silly puddy dude book it !!!!

most people are looking at down the road dude like 2011-12 by then tis team will be on the door of an nba final appearence and by then your team should be defined by who and what style you’re gonna win with as of right now only roy stands out as being that guy which means a real franchise player he needs more legit weapons around him guys he can really depend on the greart thing is k.p. as plenty of time to find out who will be on this roster when roy wins his title 4-5 years from now

right on dude !!!

definately been our 2.nd best player and teams would line up to get a big man like pryz in today’s nba market.

Those are your words, not homerandflanders’ nor jksnake99’s. LMA may be a steady contributor over the years but who knows if he’ll be a top or dominant PF. I doubt it. A few years ago I read that a report that looked at a sample of career stats for a large number of players. The conclusion was that the player you see after 3 complete seasons is the player you basically have over the entire career. Taking into account the “career year” and the “down year,” we may be seeing an unrefined but largely complete version of LMA. Didn’t Nate say the other day comparing LMA to Garnett that LMA had the offfense ability but his defense wasn’t there? That sounds about right.

head and shoulders above Sergio in every aspect of the game. Who care if he steps on the line twice a game.

IMO, the two biggest KP errors so far are getting rid of JJ in favor of Sergio and trading Zach for practically nothing in return. My coworker Blazer fanatic and I watched the draft day deals and the next day at work we both kind of shook our heads and muttered. We know Zach was a knucklehead but he’s a scoring/rebounding machine. Couldn’t we get anything for him?

Now that’s a power forward with some power.

There’s no discussion LA stays on this team. So he doesn’t shoot great one or two nights, it’ll happen. Maybe he’s not the toughest dude, but lets just get a banger to come off the bench and problem solved.

A hustle guy in the mold of David Lee would go a long way to wearing out the competition and freeing up our low post scoring. You can never get enough active big men. This whole argument goes back to the notion that a few hard-core Bedgers feel privileged to criticize anyone who states the obvious fact that trades are coming sooner than later. Those trades will by definition be “upgrades” for us though it doesn’t impute the inferiority of the traded players. Those player will be “upgrades” for their new teams. These trades can include any player excepting Roy and Oden. I don’t believe LMA is in the same company but he’s not very far from it – especially if he becomes a more reliable defender and low post scorer.

Assuming we can get equal value back in return (and at a position of need) it makes sense to trade him because the best free agents this summer are all PFs. The danger of course being that Utah matches a max offer to Millsap (or that he doesn’t want to come to Portland). But, even then, there are other options, namely:

Boozer – Bad defense, but would a serious upgrade on the boards. Overall team defence could balance out if we picked up a good PG for LMA.

Rasheed – Probably the best short term choice other than Millsap; great defender. What LMA should aspire to be. Probably doesn’t want to come back to Portland (and management probably doesn’t want him back.)

Chris Anderson – Don’t know much about him, honestly, but was impressed with his effort in our recent games with the Nuggets.

Brandon Bass – Solid player, a little undersized, would probably be disappointing to get only him if we traded LMA. Not really sure about his defense.

David Lee – Solid rebounder, scores a bit; weak defensively. Would be a tad disappointing to end up with him, as well.

Channing has even been pretty good when he gets a lot of minutes and he’d have around half a season to prove himself.

Realistically though, the guy we’d be going after is Millsap. His TS% is 59.6% and he’s scoring 15 a game. LMA is scoring 17 a game right now and his TS% is 50.6%. Millsap rebounds quite a bit better as well. Defensively LMA has better potential (by quite a bit), but it’s just not looking like he’s going to get there. Millsap is likely the better of the two (both long and near term).

In any case, they key to all of this is finding a trade where we can get equal value back at a position of need. That means PG (or possibly SF) and someone whose age fits inside our championship window. I can think of Devin Harris and Danny Granger who fit this bill—and we’re not going to get either player for LMA straight up. Obviously, we’d like Derek Rose; but that would likely require Roy/Oden. Even Devin Harris is close to requiring Roy/Oden. What I’ve come up with is this:

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/traderesult?players=2983320428103025298234222382&teams=17171717222222&te=&cash=

Honestly, even with Rudy included, the Nets probably turn this down. They’d think about it because they’ll likely have enough cap space to sign Lebron in 2010 and have a very good, very cheap player in Rudy who could round out there line up without costing them much. Nets fans probably wouldn’t go for it, at the very least (they think Vince Carter is worth REC+Outlaw). But from our perspective it consolidates talent nicely and gives us a very good play off rotation for 2010 of:

Harris
Roy
Batum or Webs
Millsap (hopefully)
Oden

Blake
Outlaw / Webs / Batum
Joel

for Devin Harris. We could snatch Tony Parker for that kind booty. I like your thinking though.

Amare was the best young PF in the league. You would be lucky to trade LMA and Rudy for his last year of service. It starting to be a joke that LMA is some kind of future all-star hall of famer, one of the “big three.” Amare could be one of the big three. LMA is gonna be a good PF but not in Amare’s class.