He can score, rebound… I’d have had it instead of Turkoglu

> John Canzano had a piece about pizza and water.

One rec for Ben – Elgin

I am really tired of wild “reports” of possible deals. Their main function seems to be to get attention rather than get real (excluding our Dave/Ben reality check team). “The 50 milloin Portland could offer”…. why stop there, Mr. Allen has more that that, he “could” offer a LOT more, pay any tax…. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. That could get some headline clicks. Give me a break. I remember someone saying, “once you hear about a deal, it is already dead”…. that would be nice in this case.
Turk doesn’t want to go NW, lets not force the guy against his will !!! Please, don’t do us any favors. Walking from the nice deal with a finals team, really ??? When is enough enough ? Yeah, doesn’t make sense to me either.

Many has said that we need to up grade to win the Championship. This is all based on their performance in the play-offs last year. IMO, we needed the play-offs to get that experience that everybody is talking about. I have heard many bloggers say that we just drew the wrong team for the first round. I think that Houston was a good team to go up against for the first time in almost a decade because the team found out how tough you had to be and how tough it is to go up against a team that has great players. The got some quality experience.

I don’t think anybody thought we were going to the finals last year, although, we came closer than some realized. Remember the two games we lost in Houston by what a total of 4 pts. Those games could vary well have been won. It was the lack of experience and choking up that made us lose. There is no way of proving it, but I would bet you the house I don’t own, if we were to play those games over with the same players after the experience we gained we would win those games.

Remember the plan was just to make the play-offs to get experience. Most of the fans didn’t think we were experienced enough to make the play-offs or if we did it would be eighth seed. We would get beat in the first round. Be honest, How many, including me thought we would be in the upper seeds, have home court advantage and tie for the championship with Denver?

Now, it seems like most fans want to trade these young men off because they are not good enough to win it all. Nobody knows that because nobody knows how good the same team will be next year. We dropped the players that wanted to go somewhere else to get more pt. or weren’t fitting in to what we needed. We replaced them with what I feel is pretty good off the bench type players.

 Why can’t we give these players another year, if for no other reason than to thank them for going to war for us and playing with the heart that we all should be proud of. The over achievement of this team was because of chemistry and the want to win.

It is common knowledge that we need team D. Not individual D. We were getting better and were almost respectable at the end of the year.

Now, you want to trade of players that didn’t play great D for players that don’t play any better D. You want to trade someone off that is a crunch time player for someone else that is a crunch time player. You want to trade someone off that is streaky at shooting for someone that is streaky at shooting, you want to trade off someone that will probably get better with age for someone that will probably get worst because age. You want to trade inexperience for experience for instant satisfaction of thinking we could win the championship with him next year. I would bet the house that somebody else might win in my first bet that even with Turk we won’t win it all next year. That is because of the lack of team D not individual D and we are not there yet.

With or with out Turk we are going to be a lot better next year because of growth and chemistry. We might win a few more games with Turk than without him, but that is no guarantee. If Martell stays healthy and Travis improves on D. we could probably be as good.

I am sorry about the rant and raving. I am not against Turk; I am not against Outlaw or Blake. I am just saying why mortgage the farm when he is not needed until after the following year when we will know more.

 Who knows we could very easily win it all with the guys we have. Besides all of that if you got rid of Blake and Travis, you would have to find someone else to hate. You hated JJ until you ran him off than you transferred your hate to Travis until you run him off then you will discover Turk can’t walk on water and isn’t that much better than Travis after-all and will start hating on him. Oh and I forgot Oden which isn’t the savior you were waiting for. Like the rest of the team give him a chance to grow.

hg

I’m really starting to wonder if KP already has a deal in place for Travis, as I’ve come to the same conclusion you have. This is very unlikely to be a smokescreen.

if we got Hinrich and Turkoglu, that would be acceptable.

Hedo is a great guy to have on your team. Willing to do what he is told, take clutch shots, etc.
BUT…isn’t anyone wondering why instead of resigning Hedo, the Magic opted to go with a guy two years his senior instead? The reason is simple, the Magic’s system made Hedo above average (chuck away at 3’s, have one of the most dangerous dunkers in the league drawing attention down low, and a host of great 3 point shooters spreading the flor), but the bottom line is he is a good solid player, but not a 10 mil/tr. player. The Magic had him for 5 years, they should know more than anyone if he is worth that right? Coming off a championship berth and all, they decided to blow up the team and let Hedo go because he wanted that much money. Sounds to me like a great big flare just went up. The Magic relied on Hedo more than anyone when Jameer went down and they still deem him expendable at that price, but other teams are willing to stomach it?

I could see the Magic getting bullied into that price because their fans are all sentimental about the Finals berth, but why are other teams jumping off the cliff blindly thinking that they will land on something doft? If the only team that looked over the edge and saw what was below said uh-uh, no way, then what the hell are the rest of you doing? The Blazers have one of the most exciting lineups in the NBA, why get a point forward that can NOT create his own shot, relies on having a dominant post player with major spacing from 3 point shooting and a screen to make a play. This isn’t Roy or Wade who can create in traffic. This is a guy that needs a wide open lane and a head of steam.

That being said, you will get a good player in Hedo, and a good locker room guy. I am just saying he won’t be worth that kind of money, this year, next year, or in 4 years. But there is no turning back now, so I hope I am wrong!

Hedo would help take the pressure off Roy and give us anther guy to initiate the offense. Ariza does not do this for us at all. We already have what Ariza is bringing to the table… and for a lot less money.

Ariza finially became effective by developing a moderately legit offensive game. Batum is halfway there, the attacking the basket thing needs to come next.

35?

I’d say he’d get close to 36 minutes a game + or – a few. If we blow our cap space and give this guy close to 50 million it’s going to be for him to be a starter and play starter minutes. I’d expect that at the very least until Hedo is closer to his Mid 30’s and also closer to the end of his contract here, he’s playing the starter minutes very comparable to Brandon and LMA.

Also with Hedo, it might be about the money. But in General I’d say Dwight is incorrect to say it is ALWAYS about the money. What have we seen here? Pryzbilla chose Portland, when equal or better money could of been had. Rudy sacrificed significant Euro’s to come play for Portland. So it’s rare, but clearly NOT ALWAYS about the money.

On the other end of the spectrum we have Canzano’s contention that we need to convince Hedo that Portland has good Pizza, and point out that we have rivers? Equally as ridiculous.

Somewhere between Dwight and Canzano is the truth. My feeling. Borrow one of Paul Allens Yachts, take Hedo down the beautiful Willamette all the while serving him Pizza covered in money .

There has to be another option. These all suck.

A legit 6’10 forward, and he did play under Stan Van Gundy. Not as good as Ariza, but I think Hedo is akin to Hinrich on defense. Tougher than expected, won’t back down from better players, and won’t be embarrassed to get burned or dunked on.

I’d take that to take the pressure off #7.

Also, Isn’t Ariza just as likely to get picked up by another team (a la Toronto) if we don’t get him. Damage done. Lakers are over cap, so they need to downsize, Ariza wants full pay.

I hate the idea of Ariza coming to P-town after what he did to Rudy. Not sure if it’s rumors or what, but if the Hedu trade “infuriated” Rudy, how do you think he would like Ariza coming to town?

KP doesn’t want to throw Blake and Travis away, obviously. The last such contract we had was Raef.

Except for the fact that he’s reporting it as a rumor. Reportedly shopping him. That’s the classic unattributed comment reference. For all we know, someone called up Thorn and asked if Harris could be had. Thorn says “What are you offering?” That becomes “New Jersey is reportedly shopping Harris.”

My rule number 1 in discussing possible trade or FA signing moves – believe nothing that you hear. What will be will be.

and yes.

sign-and-trade deal wherein the ballclubs swapped Anderson Varejao and Ron Artest. With Artest on the Cavaliers, LeBron James would transition to a combo forward on both ends of the court. The Cavaliers could then sign Rasheed Wallace to the mid-level exception and have a three-man rotation at the forward positions of James, Artest, and Wallace.

At least he’s not hating on us for no reason this time.

In the next few years anyways.

If we sign him to a huge contract and then decide we don’t want him any more in a year or two, he’ll be impossible to trade. If we sign him to a reasonable contract though, he could be a valuable trade asset.

Turk is a pretty big upgrade at the SF position and provides some valuable veteran leadership.

Side PnR with Hedo and GO with LMA spotting up midrange or corner 3
Pick and Pop with Roy and LMA, Roy and Hedo

also imagine the baseline plays and backdoor cuts we could run with the ball in Hedo’s hands. The difference between Hedo on Orlando and Hedo in Portland is that the opponents can’t put their best perimeter defender on Hedo (i.e. Ariza). Since the Roy Wonder demands attention from 1-3 players at all times, the lane is going to be more open for Turkoglu drives and inversely the same will be true for Roy.
I also think that getting Hedo will allow us to keep Blake and not regret it later. Blake is one of the best 3 point shooters in the league, and all of the PGs we are looking at (save Hinrich) are subpar deep shooters. With Hedo and Roy on the floor, Blake’s lack of playmaking ability will mostly become a dead issue. With all that said, I wouldn’t mind hinrich as PG, since he replicates most of Blake’s role with the added bonus of better defense. I believe we will have to deal one or more of our current SFs, for the sake of playing time and waste, but the target will probably be a veteran PF and not a PG.

wach is the turkish spelling of watch ;)

Haha. Nice post.

1) Portland doesn’t have to “crush” their record from last season. In fact if they repeat the number of wins they will be going well. And considering how they played the last month of the season, particularly with regard to point differential, and there is good reason to believe they will improve on last year’s record.

2) Hedo isn’t really an A-lister, as you put it. I’m not sure he’s ever made an All-Star roster. He’s certainly in the spotlight right now, but that’s more a combination of his being one of the very few FA’s that’s deemed of interest in a poor crop of FA’s and of the recentness of his appearing in the Finals. Both of those spotlights are the sort that fade very quickly. Come December, no one is going to be tuning into the Blazers because of Hedo hype, unless he’s performing at a level that has the Blazer’s red hot.

3) Based on his record to date, I don’t see where Kevin Pritchard or Paul Allen, for that matter, value media hype and the spotlight over putting together a team with a chance at a title. In fact everything so far says that Pritchard is all about taking the patient, long term approach. Sure he is aware of PR, but I challenge anyone to show where it is appaent that PR has been the primary factor driving any of Pritchard’s personnel decisions.

[Comment From RB]
Can you please explain why Portland wants a 30 year old inefficent scorer? Help me with the logic.

KDonhoops: Because he was on TV a lot this spring. Sorry for being flip, but that’s what drives it. Every damn summer.

Audio? TV?

Kevin Pritchard (PDX) What is the biggest downside of bringing in Hedo?

John Hollinger: The fact that he’s 30 and might stink in two years. That’s the downside potential.

I think a lot of people are way overvaluing Hedo’s playmaking skills. Why do we need a PG, Roy and Hedo to make plays?