Today's Poll - What's your take?

young, talented, and soon-to-be under the cap.

What’s not to like?

We have to assume that it’s to wait to make a different one in the summer. The one move he made is clearly expressly for that purpose.

Those who disagree, and argue “Player X was clearly available and worth giving up Batum!” have to also argue that either A) they know something KP doesn’t or B) KP was a worse judge of talent than they are.

I have to believe that the summer options, with our draft picks, trade exception, and salary space, will be greater than what was available now.

I can’t wait.

When you have a stud like Ruffin, for less than Paul Allen’s annual heating bill?

-Uncle Ben (Spiderman)

Therefore, if we don’t make the playoffs, it’s KP’s fault.

Should have picked up another center. What if Joel gets injured. He’s already playing with a bad wrist. How well do they do in the playoffs with Channing Frye as the starting center?

and get ricky rubio

Even though his contract is awful we could have got him for almost nothing (I am thinking of a RLEC for VC trade I don’t know if that was the rumor or not). I think VC would not have had a problem deferring to Brandon and would fit in well here.

I guess KP thought his age plus his contract makes him too risky, but the guy has a PER of 20.3 and adding him would make us potentially the best offensive team in the NBA. Hopefully we will make a move this summer.

seems to engulf some fans the way alcohol does to alcoholics and the way crack does to crackheads.

GOTTA…. (shake, shake)… MAKE…. ke, ck-k-k … … … a … move…

KP made the right decision in standing pat.

(Just because I like to be helpful, a sentence is one thought with a period after it.)

But I think the Blazers were wise to pull out of doing deals. I agree with what Henry Abbott said about scouting the other teams and what they’re attempting to do. There’s always more chances down the road to acquire players, or use the cap space in a trade. Saving money this season didn’t make a lot of sense.

I personally am not sure what the Blazers would have done with Jefferson or Butler as I said multiple times here in the Salmons trade threads. (I think it would have benefitted Portland more to do a deal like Salmons/Kenny Thomas than anything else out there. But, apparently finances came into play as John Hollinger mentioned in his chat today.)

To be honest, I think the Blazers were looking to be part of talks without making a deal. I think they’re going to wait until the summer, and then pounce when they have an idea of what this team looks like in the playoffs. I think that’s a wise decision.

championships are great but life is too short to start hating on players because they might not get us all the way there.

It’s a game.

Thats for sure.

And we can start talking about our pick and roll defense and how much better Bayless is then Sergio and how Greg is injury prone.

With all the roster changes across the board – Does this mean we are now the youngest team in the NBA????

Video

I’m disappointed.

Screw it. I think this will go down as KP’s first mistake. I think it is borderline crazy to not add a veteran presence with playoff experience. Look at our team, who knows what it takes to win a late season playoff race on this team. Who has any playoff experience? I am not saying KP should pulled a blockbuster, but he should have done something. We are too young and there isn’t a player on this team that knows exactly what it takes to be successful in the playoffs. Even if it was just a wise backup power forward or a savy vet point guard, something needed to be done. We have two veterans who have even played a playoff game. Joel played 5 total games and averaged 7mpg. Blake played 9 and averaged 20mpg in those games. Thats it. 14 total playoff games of experience for our entire freaking roster. You know the deals were out there for KP, he just wussed out and cost the blazers a chance to pick up a valuable mentor for our young team. We were one of the worst defensive teams in the league before the deadline, and we still are. If KP passed on Vince Carter over a 1st round pick, I will be very upset….

Well.. not everyone. We are sucking and need some guy who will suck in two years and cost everything? We are 7-3 in the last 10 games, only the l*kers, Boston, and denver have better records in the last ten. How are we on this cliff about to fall? Remember how excited everyone was about THIS team earlier in the year? It’s just weird how much people wanted Richard Jefferson or whoever. Even Ben is acting nuts.
Oh no, but we almost lost to Memphis! Well in the last two weeks Memphis Beat N.O. and Houston! Every game is tough this time of year, any team in the association can beat any other. Bottom line-33-20.
K.P.is smart, he’ll wait for something that will really help. And he won’t sell the future for now!

Taking a leap of faith, and assuming that Richard Jefferson was the best deal on the table (maybe VC contract was too long and Larry Brown was driving too hard of a trade), then by not trading for him and keeping RLEC, the Blazers are in a position to outbid Milwaukee for R. Sessions. Just a thought.

If Greg’s injury is serious, sign him up.

rec.

I wonder if OKC would take Oden for Durant?………. AAA hA Ha ha ha ah ah….tears

What the hell is going on with Oden now? Is this really happening? Are we really watching the second coming of Bowie / Jordan?

Thank God for Brandon Roy. Thats all I gotta say

would like to see them swing a deal to move up in the draft to get a stud like Harden, Griffin or Blair.

We need David Lee now!

ls on it’s way.

have the self-proclaimed experts stopped crapping themselves?

Paul Allen using his money to invent a transmogrification machine!

Jaybay with Sergio’s court vision and freak passing ability?

Sign me up.

Just Curious if the reports were true about this who would have done it?
I really like Batum a lot but i think I may have done it.

If we were absolutely going for the future and not caring about this season, then why have we committed to playing Sergio and letting Bayless sit on the bench?

Either we try to win now, or develop our young talent. The other three rookies get time to work through their mistakes. Bayless sits on the bench.

KP stays true to making a team even when we complain about it.

I can’t believe these rumors of RLEC and Batum for Wallace. That’s insanity for Charlotte. They’re still very much in the playoff hunt and they would lose their leading scorer, best defender, and only blue-chip asset for Raef’s contract and a rookie with decent upside? Uh-huh.

They wanted us to pick up Nazr Mohammed’s contract, which we were right to nix. Why? Because we prefer the financial freedom this summer when a) things will have worsened economically and teams will be that much more desperate to unload talent for savings and b) Pritchard and the front office have seen this team in the playoffs and will have that much better of an idea of what’s really needed to take the next step.

Sure, we can guess. We can point to deficiencies at SF. We can talk about the PG quandary. But to me the truth of the matter is that we’re not going to win or lose in the playoffs based on whether or not we have Vince Carter as one more threat on the offensive end, or Caron Butler, or Gerald Wallace. We’re not prevailing in a seven-game series against L.A. because we threw Andre Miller into the kettle with thirty games to go.

No, we’re going to lose in the playoffs because the team is young, green as April grass, and there’s no way, repeat, no way a roster anchored by our core guys (who I love to death and fervently support) are beating Kobe Bryant in the second round. Or Tim Duncan. Or a Jerry Sloan-coached Jazz team, for that matter. We’re too young, too inconsistent, and we have never seen playoff defense or playoff intensity before. And you only have to look at matchups like the games down in L.A. or the Boston game to see that validated.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this team is primed to make NBA and sports history by charging to the championship. And maybe LaMarcus is a double-double dynamo in June and Oden is suddenly magically able to play 30-35 minutes a game and average 14 boards and 3 blocks, and Travis morphs into a stopper and all the pieces fall into place. That’d be nice. I’d love to be wrong. But I don’t see it.

Nor do I see us looking back on that first- or second-round series and saying, “Man, I bet we could have won that Spurs series in six instead of losing it in five if Caron Butler had been on this roster instead of Travis Outlaw.” I simply cannot see that. I can see myself being wrong and us going on a tear and making noise in the playoffs against all odds. That would be outstanding. But if that doesn’t happen and we fold, I think the chances are incredibly remote that a February acquisition would have turned that tide.

And maybe I’m wrong there too. Maybe I’m eating those words in May when we get rolled and Richard Jefferson truly would have made the difference. But I’m not willing to mortgage our window of opportunity for the next two years to roll those dice. And neither should anyone who wants to see a ring in this town.

P.S. I agree completely about having to count freak wins against freak losses, but it doesn’t fly when comparing to other teams. They’ve all had the same amount of goofy outcomes as we have at this point. The only disparity I think is relevant [blatant homerism] is that I truly feel that we have been the recipient of some very poorly officiated games this season [/blatant homerism]. But y’know what, a big splashy expensive small forward acquisition wasn’t gonna fix that either.