Obviously there is a lot of chatter right now about which players we should target via trade, free agency, and the draft. I say we should focus more on what we need and let those questions answer themselves. Or wait for KP to, whatever comes first.

DRAFT: Over the last few years our fan base has, rightfully, fallen in love with draft-day excitement. Those days are over, folks. Brandon Roy has said it: "I want to win a championship". I'm not saying that we shouldn't utilize one or two of our draft picks, but we definitely should not package them with any significant amount of assets to obtain a higher draft pick for the purpose of contributing next season. I would be all for packaging said picks with existing assets to get a player that fits the Blazer's timetable, preferably someone who has playoff experience or at least three years of NBA experience. This is a MUST if we are looking for someone who will need to fill a role that requires immediate contribution. Even a Ricky Rubio would require giving up too much and would simultaneously set us back three years if we NEEDED him to be our starter (which we probably would after trading away all of our point guards to get him).

Diagnosis: Trade secound round picks and AN asset (current player or player rights) for solid role players to assist Brandon's quest starting next year. I think a player that could fill a James Posey / Kurt Thomas / Eddie House - type role at the back-up power forward would help us the most here.

STARTING POINT GUARD: First let me say that I am completely against trading Steve Blake. No, he isn't our starter, but he is still extremely important to our team. While lacking the lateral quickness, defensive ability, and the ability to put pressure on the opposing defense he still brings the smarts, toughness, and big game experience that is so valuable to a team competing for a championship. Especially at the point guard position, as a backup. No matter what we do here, we still need Steve Blake. Now, what we need in a starting point guard are exactly the weaknesses in Steve's game stated above. Especially the part about being able to put pressure on the opposing team's point guard. This is very important because it will wear out the opposing point guard quickly while limiting their ability to focus on running their own offense. This is imperative to throwing the competition off their game plan in the playoffs. As we've seen, once this is accomplished we've pretty much won the series.

Diagnosis: Use a combination of our first round pick, cap space, and multiple assets to aqcuire someone who posseses the attributes mentioned above, and a high b-ball IQ.

SMALL FORWARD: Again refering to Brandon's declaration that our time is now, when we try to decide who our starting small forward should be, already on our roster or not, we should look at what we will need from this position to win a championship. Period. The way I would go about it would be by likely playoff matchups that would be the most challenging. The first player to come to mind is LeBron James. All paths to a championship is going to run through this guy for a while. I realize we won't be able to stop him no matter what we do. Our goal should be to make it as hard as possible for him to "do what he do". And what he does is bully smaller, finess-oriented small forwards out of his way to the hoop with his superior strength and athleticism.  Sorry for all the Tayshaun fans out there, but he's already been ruled out. LeBron knocks feather-weights like him over.

Diagnosis: We need a small forward who is physically strong, well-built and can (at least) put up some resistance and make guys like LeBron and Carmelo work. One player I can see as a possible solution here is our own Martell Webster. We know that his athletic ability is very underated. We also know that he looks like a pretty strong guy. What we would need is for him to pack on another 10 pounds of muscle without comprimising his athleticism and shooting touch. Also, I'm not worried about focusing on one opponent too much here. if we are developing a small forward to compete with LeBron, well, 'nuff said.

BACKUP POWER FORWARD: I won't go into too much detail as I have already addressed this position under the draft portion of this post. What I will say is that whoever this person is, they need to have big game experience, size, defensive ability, toughness, and six fouls. With LaMarcus, Joel, and Oden already on our roster this guy won't play that much. Hopefully we can get a team-oriented guy who will go out in the last three minutes of the third quarter, rebound the heck out of the ball, and kick guys like Scola's ass (pardon my French).

Conclusion: Should be a pretty active, exciting off-season even without a lottery pick. I don't think too many fans of the other contenders can say the same thing. KP, Penn and co. have done a great job of setting us up to improve. I expect they will make this a recurring theme. GO BLAZERS!