A large percentage of Rodriguez’ assists went to Rudy when the 2 of them were on the floor. Did that make the Blazers a better team, or just the Spanish Armada more exciting to watch?

When he talks to every paper in every single country in the world in the “Ruin my Trade Value” Tour ’10.

M—

as Rudy is on a minimum contract…

was tendered a qualifying offer in the summer of 2008, so the team held RFA status on him; yet, he was finally renounced in 2009 to clear some cap space. So yeah, Navarro was never bought out and waived; thus, his ordeal isn’t an example of the current situation with Rudy Fernandez. Again, actual past examples of Fernandez’s current situation — in the case he and the team sign off on a mutually agreed upon a full termination of his contract — would be Vassilis Spanoulis, Arvydas Macijauskas, Antoine Rigaudeau, et al.

of course, that’s been a while. Didn’t they behead anyone with a known IQ over, say 110 in the French revolution…. not a great idea…. Of course, the smartest learned to get “common” real quick.
JUST PLAYIN (mostly).

So…I’m overweight then?

Bad analogy.

nobody really knew how bad the Nazis were at the time. The true ugliness and scope of their goals were unknown for many years. Land grabs were fairly common for many generations in the Old World, and the French had no reason to suspect that this time was going to be anything new. The German soldiers were nice enough, and truth be told, many French citizens were unhappy with their government and welcomed a change.

So feel free to tow the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” line if you want to reinforce the Ugly American stereotype (in my experience, the notion that we’re stupid is far more popular than the idea that we’re obese), but if anybody wants to read an amazing book written by a Russian-born, French Jewish woman during the evacuation of Paris and subsequent German occupation, check out “Suite Française”, by Irene Némirovsky. It’s a work of fiction written while Némirovsky was evading capture. She was eventually found and executed in Auschwitz, her novel lost until the ’90’s when it was recovered and printed. It is unfinished, but what is there illuminates the situation in France leading up to the signing of the Armistice, and the immediate consequences. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this remarkable book is Némirovsky’s efforts to humanize the invading army.

Sorry to get all serious, but I get sick of people trying to get cute by bashing the French for the Armistice. The French are an amazing people with a gorgeous country and rich history…if you care to look.

but it doesn’t dispute the validity of the stereotype. I don’t think people should go around being prejudicial, but I also think you can’t ignore observable phenomena because of worrying about appearing racist.

Passive aggressive seems to suit him pretty well, unfortunately.

That hurts Patty’s chances.

I know Claver plays better D, is faster, and is taller and longer.
Babbitt seems like a much more fluid offensive player, with much better range.

We need Animart, maybe he’s seen enough of Claver to make a determination.

It’d be interesting to see how many people jump back on the bandwagon.

I’m surprised his agent hasn’t foresworn him from media contact. It just shows me they’re a second rate team

Rudy’s American agent (Andy Miller) has been telling small market NBA teams not to bother asking Portland about Fernandez because he won’t be happy playing for them

(Ditto for non-contending teams and teams with good SGs)

So, hoping that Rudy will receive Blazer-positive advice from his rep is like cleaning up the Pamplona streets after the bulls have run though ’em. Not a pretty sight

Cold? Check.
Godforsaken? Double Check.

He can sit on past the end of the bench?

If you really think Rudy would go to Greece, ask Childress, Pekovic and Kleiza while they all just left there, along with any other respectable non-Greek pro basketball player.

Roy then plays all of his minutes at SG

I’ve been looking forward to this for the last 2 years. So has Roy, apparently, since he’s looking all lean and skinny this summer

Matthews >>> Fernandez re: Brandon’s long term health

I made a case a few times over the summer. Here’s one. It seemed to me like he didn’t have a lot of potential to improve, he was playing behind our best player, and his stock was high.

As often as I disagree with Dwight Jaynes, he was also calling for a Rudy trade last summer. He had somehow gotten it in his head that there wouldn’t be enough minutes to go around in the back court, and that someone would end up being upset, and that person would be Rudy. He was spot on.

Rudy wasn’t affected by his back after surgery, he said he felt better than he had in years

it was between the ears, he “lost confidence” because Bayless was given the starting job after Roy tweaked his hammy

Fernandez realized that being an international star in Portland wasn’t going to happen for him, and he wasn’t getting any younger and would miss his big chance at making money, so he’s gone on this “I’m not happy” hissy fit to try to get out of his contract

It’s good to see more and more Blazer fans starting to figure this out. Rudy was healthy in March-April and he doesn’t need anyone in Portland making excuses for him, anymore (he’s got enough Euros to tell him how great he is…)

I ain’t sure what the right decision is right now, but I do know I hate him talking to every media outlet from here to Mars about wanting to be traded (and if he isn’t saying that, I hate that it’s being translated that way).

I do know I’d rather we not dump him for nothing, and look for something that is best for both sides. Keep him, let him be healthy and show his value again, and either keep him or move him along. Doing these interviews can’t be seen as helping him, though, so I don’t get it.

Mortimer

If Rudy doesn’t want to play for Portland, he can’t play for anyone else in the NBA. This is a big mess. Is Rasual Butler still available?

I doubt Rudy Fernandez would go all Carlos Boozer on the Portland Trail Blazers, though.

I vaguely remember you putting it together last year. In retrospect, it would have been dumb for his agent to agree to it. Heck, in retrospect, his agent screwed up pretty badly as it is.

While we’re probably overpaying for LMA, I don’t think we could have kept him any other way. And I hear your brain screaming that you don’t want to keep him anyway, but the Blazers do. So overpaying it is.

in total guaranteed salary, particularly if escalators were in place to make it potentially go from $55 million to $65 million — which’d make for $2 million in possible annual incentives — yet, we’ll never know the answer to that. If I recall correctly, the franchise still had a week-long window to negotiate a contract extension — since the deal was signed on 10/22/2009 — before the deadline date at the end of October. Shoot, I’d’ve gone down to the wire.

So I’ve got to question LMA’s desire to compete, and that’s not a small concern for a “core player” on a team that is hoping to be a final’s contender, soon

So he put Jerryd in the starting lineup, instead.

Whatever the reason, it was akin to passing over the 2nd string QB in favor of the 3rd stringer and Fernandez probably figured that he was never going to get a shot to start, and that means more to him than most players. He is a rock star in Spain and while he could understand playing behind an all-star like Roy he couldn’t wrap his head around not starting while Brandon was out.

Amlmart1 said that Rudy’s family and girlfriend left Portland at this time because of this perceived slight, so we can all imagine a hurt and lonely Rudy going back to his empty condo every night, contemplating his future. It’s not hard to see where he lost his confidence, but that doesn’t forgive all of his whining and his disappearing act when the team needed him the most, in April

The Blazers need mentally-tough players to reach the finals. This is why I favor Bayless, even though he doesn’t have pure PG skills. You just know that Jerryd is going to keep coming, no matter what’s thrown in his path. He could settle into a Herm Gilliam role and not complain about it, then be a real difference-maker in a key game where nothing else is “working” offensively.

Przybilla is another example of this kind of lunch-pail role player, Joel won’t say a thing if he only plays 10 mpg, but he will play hard for those 10 minutes, and he’ll always be ready to play 35 minutes for a couple of months in case of an injury. These kinds of players don’t just show up on the waiver wire every week, and they shouldn’t be tossed into trade proposals lightly.

From listening to Cho talk the last couple of days, I get the feeling that he understands this, time will tell if he balances out the bench with mentally-tough players who will shut their piehole and know their role