From the Portland Trail Blazers communication department:
TRAIL BLAZERS EXERCISE OPTIONS ON ALDRIDGE, ODEN, RODRIGUEZ AND ROY
PORTLAND, Ore. - The Portland Trail Blazers exercised fourth-year options on the contracts of forward/center LaMarcus Aldridge, guard Sergio Rodriguez and guard Brandon Roy, while exercising their third-year option on center Greg Oden.
The moves, announced today by General Manager Kevin Pritchard , keep all four players under contract through the 2009-10 season.
The Trail Blazers acquired Aldridge, Rodriguez and Roy in 2006 draft day trades.
Portland selected Oden with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft.
There's no big surprise here, as not exercising these options would mean letting the players go off of their rookie contracts for no compensation, an obvious impossibility in three of the four cases and a highly unlikely scenario in the last (that of Sergio Rodriguez...only a complete bridge burning or failure would make such a move make sense). Don't get too excited about names you don't see here. Players up for restricted free agency like Channing Frye, Martell Webster, and Ike Diogu are handled through a different mechanism, which there is still time to exercise.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)