Tayshaun is the most overrated non-Blazer in the history of the Edge. It’s not close. He’s 30 years old. He was no longer good on D this year, much less elite. He was a very good glue guy and defensive specialist – two or three years ago. But he’s not anymore, and he’s terribly overpriced at this stage of his career.

1. Tayshaun will be 30 years old by playoff time in his first season here

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. With the extremely young roster, I think many Portland fans have a warped vision about a player’s age. A 30 year old defensive-minded SF still has a lot of productive time left in the NBA. By the time Prince does start to decline in production (2-3 years) he can make a seamless transition to a bench player with Batum starting which works well with Batum’s development.

2. Batum is 20 years old and will be as good as Prince within a couple years.

Yup, but it would be nice to bring in a veteran who can help this team take the next step toward being a contender, and immediately give you the production that Batum will look to put up during the prime of his career.

3. Tayshaun is only signed for this year and next year.

This will be nice because after that, Roy will be on a max contract, Aldridge will have a near max contract and Oden will be up for an extension. At that point, Prince will be 32, a solid role player who would come off the bench and likely willing to take a pay cut to play on a championship contender. While money isn’t really an issue for Paul Allen, you shouldn’t have three near max contracts on your roster with a couple players making $10M+

4. Rudy is only 24 years old and was very good his rookie year

Correct, but he is positionally blocked by Roy. You can’t afford to play Roy and Rudy at the wing positions in the playoffs at the same time. Neither is a solid defender. That causes worse mismatches for Portland than the opposition. Getting Prince gives you the defensive option with some solid offensive production limiting mismatches in the playoffs.

5. No one on the team played better with Brandon Roy last year than Rudy Fernandez (12 per 48)

I already mentioned that you can’t play Roy and Rudy at the same time against teams with physical or talented offensive perimeter players. That includes: Denver (Melo); Houston (Artest); Lakers (Kobe). Unfortunately that is three of the four teams that made it to the second round.

6. Tayshaun would ruin all of our cap flexibility

You have cap flexibility so that you can go out and get a guy like Tayshaun Prince. After this summer (when Aldridge and Roy get their extensions) our cap flexibility is ruined for the next decade or so.

7. Tayshaun being on the team would seriously stunt Batum’s growth.

Really? I would think that a veteran mentor who plays exactly the way you hope Batum will some day would actually benefit him… immensely. What will stunt Batum’s growth is if he in on an overly crowded roster fighting Outlaw, Webster and even Rudy for minutes at SF.

8. Tayshaun duplicates Batum’s defensive skills while providing no answer to the real threat (LeBron)

Before LeBron becomes the "real threat" you need to get to him (and he needs to get to you) which means you have to play a guy named Kobe. With Brandon Roy usually defending the easier player, that means that Batum and Outlaw are primarily guarding Kobe. Our chances of beating the Lakers improve greatly if Prince and Batum are guarding Bryant.

9. Teams will key on Roy even more without having a dynamic offensive player like Rudy on the roster.

How many minutes of the game do Roy and Rudy play together? I would argue that having a SF who can handle the ball, create for himself and others (and can play next to Roy for 35 minutes without creating a defensive liability on the court) would do a better job of keeping the defense honest than a backup SG who only plays with Roy when (1) They are in a small lineup or (2) Roy is running the offense in the fourth quarter.

10. Using two of our biggest assets on small forward when our real probelm is point guard isn’t smart.

Our real problem is defense. At PG and on the perimeter. I already addressed how making the trade takes away our two worst perimeter defender while opening up PT for a two better perimeter defenders and adjusts the roster so that it makes sense to play Bayless over Sergio (replace our worst PG defender with our best.)
Additionally, adding Prince actually makes it easier to fix the PG position. Since both Roy and Prince are very capable of running the offense, you don’t need a PG who can run the offense. He only needs to be able to defend. Those aren’t too hard to come by late in the first round.

11. Tayshaun’s defense will seriously diminish as his quicks go, and he’s getting high in NBA miles.

Again Prince diminishing and Batum ascending is why this works so well. As for Prince’s "NBA Miles" this is only his 7th season in the league and he hasn’t missed a game in the last six.

12. We hold Rudy’s rights for 4 more years at very cheap money and Outlaw’s this year for very cheap money.

The affordable contracts are only of value if you will have cap space any time soon. Since Portland will be over the cap next season, Rudy’s cheap contract really only means that if and when you look to trade him, you can only take back $1.3M in salary without adding other guys. That isn’t good on a team with no bad contracts.

13. The Pistons were better last year without Tayshaun on the court, and actually worse with him at SF than PF.

I can’t say that I watch Pistons games enough to say whether this is true or false, but I am very skeptical.

14. Tayshaun’s D on SF’s has gotten worse each of the last 4 years

05-06: All Defensive 2nd Team; 06-07 All Defensive 2nd Team; 07-08 All Defensive 2nd Team; 08-09: Most votes to not make the team (3 All-Defensive First team votes, 10 All-Defensive Second Team votes.)

15. Tayshaun was absolutely dreadful this year in the playoffs (-0.43 PER, -21.9 Roland Rating)

Four games (All Against LeBron James) is a very poor sample size for playoff success. Take all look at any other year of his career (he made the conference finals every single time.)

Rudy is the more exciting player to watch, but nothing he did can’t be done by Webster if he was asked to do it.

I disagree on this point. Think of all the shots Rudy hit late in the playoffs to almost win us games against Houston. Webster can’t take shots like these, he just can’t. If Nate would have called these plays for Rudy when we were down 2-3 instead of waiting till we were down 5-6, we might have pulled out one of those first two road games and won the series.

I like MW a lot, but I’d rather see him and Batum each playing 24 (plus maybe a few extra in a small lineup) than seeing Prince playing SF and MW moving back to SG.

Minutes wise this would help us because Roy/Rudy/MW/Batum/Outlaw will require too many, but that’s why so many of us like Blake/Outlaw for Hinrich. We upgrade Blake and we really don’t miss Outlaw at all, since we’ll have MW back to cover that spot for us. Even if by some fluke Webster goes down again, Roy could cover a lot of minutes at SF because Rudy/Roy are a deadly combo.

rudy was an NBA rookie last year not used to the rigors of a NBA season. He was compared to Webster in what, his 3rd year? Rudy showed he’s a gamer in the playoffs and has shown repetitively that he loves big game moments (lest you forget him posterizing superwoman after blowing by kobe). He not only shoots an excellent 3pt% IN VOLUME but manages to wow us all with passing ability we have not seen since Sabas threw no-look over the head lobs to bonzi wells. Basically Rudy>Webster.

Also have to disagree with the notion that “both sides think they may have given up too much..” in this proposed trade. If I were detroit, I’d do it in a heartbeat. They are dismantling/rebuilding. Tayshaun is old and doesn’t fit their rebuilding plan. I’d imagine they also let sheed/AI walk this summer and possibly look to retool with Boozer(/Bosh next year) and barring that will possibly part with even rip hamilton for young assets/picks. In short, trading tayshaun (amir johnson, and a weak pick in a weak draft) for two young cheap talents is a no-brainer.

Last I wanted to contend some other points made above by others:

*Cheap contracts are great regardless of our situation in the future. Having players on cheap contracts are VERY attractive to other teams so although we wont have the option of making big splashes in FA we can still manage trades easier with affordable contracts. Our model has and always will be the Spurs and they have done an excellent job of this and can thus afford to be opportunistic and choosy. The counter-model would be the Wizard-to this day I fail to understand why they offered a max contract to Zero (spending two full years in pseudo-retirement on the bench disqualifies you from being an Agent).

*Prince>Outlaw to be sure but offensively its less clear. I thought Prince>Outlaw on offense but your numbers say different. Outlaw played 25% less minutes and averaged better than 25% or at 25% less stats almost across the board. Extrapolations are always fuzzy as certain players need minutes and others are more efficient in less minutes, but take that for what its worth. There is no doubt regardless of stats that I would take prince over outlaw on defense every day and twice on sundays…game-deciding offensive heroics-thats a different story.

*Rudy & Roy can’t play together? What? I swear I saw them in the game together A LOT. As a starter rudy looked lost for all of one game that he played because he wasn’t comfortable with his role and hadn’t adjusted to it. Had he played it all season long, he would know what’s up. Rudy is a baller and a damn good one, but I think everyone is underestimating Roy. People are talking like Roy’s a weak defender. Who stifled the Rocket’s speadster? Who is known for game-winning blocks on our team? Roy. And he wont get tired by playing defense. Does Kobe look tired to you? I don’t know if another NBA player has more miles on him than Kobe and he has taken up the challenge of defending hard for 35+ mins a night. Why couldn’t Roy swap over to the SF and play with Rudy?? Rudys shown he doesn’t need the ball in his hands to be effective and in my mind that makes him the perfect compliment to Roy.

“holding” lebron to 40+ points a game was awesome. He’s a regular kobe stopper too haha

I just don’t understand where all this Martell Webster plays defense thing is coming from. Martell Webster so far in his career has been a terrible perimeter defender. This doesn’t mean he can’t improve in his, what, 4th year? But I’d like to see some evidence of Martell playing defense. I called this like 6 months ago, that Martell was going to turn into a legend around here simply because he hasn’t been around to critique. Its like blazer fans who actually miss Jarrett Jack. Seriously?! Steve Blake is a better 3 point shooter (look it up) and Rudy in his FIRST year is absolutely a more unique talent and deadlier offensive weapon (at least he doesn’t just camp in the corner). MW also has 0 trade value right now because, oh yeah, he just missed an entire year with a foot injury also known as yao mingitus, or sambowiedisease. That foot injury that won’t quite heal right is flat out scary. As a blazer fan, of course I hope MW comes out this next season guns blazin’ but I’m not ready to ship out Rudy just so MW can get more minutes. You’d think he’d have to earn them…

but the defense would be terrible. Same thing applies to Rudy if he were to start at the SF position. Prince puts up comparable offensive numbers, but also keeps a respectable team defense on the floor.

Can we turn around & turn Prince, Bayless, Przybilla & picks for Tony Parker?