Yahoo! Sports' Awoj reports...
In what would be a brazen bid to usurp the Portland Trail Blazers on Hedo Turkoglu, the Toronto Raptors are considering making an offer to the free-agent forward, league sources said.
Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo could make an offer totaling close to $56 million if he cleared additional salary-cap space by renouncing Shawn Marion, Anthony Parker and Carlos Delfino.
Turkoglu, a unrestricted free agent who had a terrific postseason for the Orlando Magic, has been the centerpiece of Portland's free-agent recruitment. He is expected to travel to Portland on Thursday to visit the Blazers. Portland could likely offer a five-year, $50 million contract.
This report seems to directly contradict earlier reports that the Raptors were no longer in the Hedo hunt.
Jason Quick, however, comes through with more on the team's side of today's earlier report on Rudy Fernandez's apparent unhappiness with the chase for Hedo Turkoglu.
The "news" that Rudy Fernandez is "infuriated" with the Trail Blazers for their interest in Hedo Turkoglu comes as a surprise to coach Nate McMillan and general manager Kevin Pritchard, both of whom had separate conversations with the guard earlier this week on the phone.
"I just spoke with Rudy two days ago, to see how he was doing, and he said he was doing fine and that he was happy,'' McMillan said. "I talked to him about our moves, and how we did in the draft, and why we did what we did in the draft and he was fine with it. We talked about Sergio (Rodriguez) and he was OK with everything we've done.''
As mentioned and linked below, Casey Holdahl has audio that appears to confirm Rudy's general happiness with his situation in Portland.
-- Ben (benjamin.golliver@gmail.com)