More bad news coming out of Center One Court today. It seems as though Joel Przybilla has had enough of the poor effort and general laziness of some of his unnamed teammates. Of course, we'll probably know those names sometime after July 1 when Joel takes his free-agent game to Chicago or Toronto, but I bet we can guess who Joel's talking about. It's become a yearly ritual for players who get traded from the Blazers to start the badmouthing as soon as the ink is dry on their new contract. When it's a guy like Ruben Patterson or Bonzi Wells, you take it with a huge grain of kosher salt, but when a guy like Joel starts talking, people, especially free-agents and potential draft picks, take notice. Then again, it's probably not going to come as any surprise to most people out there that Darius is a lazy hack.
Przy hasn't had a great season this year, mostly because of injuries and, well, no one in a Blazer uniform short of Steve Blake has looked all that effective, but he's still going to get paid. Young, big, hard-working, good guy in the locker room; those are things just about every team needs, and are willing to pay for. The question is: Can Paul Allen find enough change in his couch cushions to keep Joel in Portland? Does Paul even care at this point?
It's possible that Joel will re-sign, and that move, along with shipping Darius out for the first CBA compliant offer, would be a positive step to righting this train wreck. Signing Przy would also make Theo expendable, which, if included in the right move, could really free up some cash for free-agents in the 2007 off-season. Add in a decent back-up power forward or a ready-to-contribute shooting guard from the draft and the Blazers have a team that...might suck less?