Frye trade rumors, Greg Oden's rehab and more

One of the more interesting things in the rumor mill lately is the rumor that the Blazers are trying to trade Channing Frye LINK. According to this article we at least offered him to Chicago for Tyrus Thomas. That seems a little ridiculous to me as there's no way in hell that Chicago would consider such a deal. You also have to consider the source. The New York post is widely regarded as a rumor spewing rag.

On top of that there's this article LINK, in which they talk about Pritchard sitting down with Channing Frye and swearing it's not true.

A slightly less interesting (at least short term) subject is Greg Oden's rehab. Here's a video of Greg rehabbing in the pool. LINK Looks like he's workin' hard to make sure he'll be in top shape for next season. From what I've heard of Greg's rehab he pretty much gets up in the morning, goes to the practice facility to do some rehabbing in the pool, goes out to lunch somewhere and then spends the rest of his day in a machine that moves his leg for him while he watches movies. Word is, he loves the Comcast on-demand.

Another interesting development, if you wanna call it that, is the free agent crop for 2009. As you may or may not know the major asset we received in the Zach Randolph trade (Other than getting Zach out of town) is cap space in 2009. With Steve Francis (forgot he was part of that trade already?) and Raef LaFrentz expiring in 2009 the Blazers will have a lot of cap space.

It's actually a little more complicated than that, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is who's really going to be available in 2009. The only really good player that will be an unrestricted free agent thus far in 2009 in Joe Johnson, who doesn't really knock my socks off. The rest of the possible free agents that year are from the 2005 draft and they'll all be restricted free agents. So sure, we could offer Chris Paul a max contract, but the Hornets would likely match. It's almost like those guys aren't free agents at all.

But word is there are some players from the 2004 draft that aren't happy with the extension offers they're receiving. If those players don't get offers they want they have the ability to take their one year qualifying offer. That would make them unrestricted free agents in 2009. The most notable players in that group are Ben Gordan and Luol Deng. There's been a lot of articles about how the two of them aren't exactly thrilled with the offers that Chicago has given them thus far. Here's the latest one LINK It's one of the notes near the bottom of the article.

So there's a little ray of sunshine for people like me that are generally skeptical about the idea of our 2009 capspace being useful.

Words of Wisdom from Bob Ristau: "If you haven't ever lived somewhere and you claim to be a fan of a team from that place, it brings into question the validity of your fandom. Sports fandom is similar to religion in that if you weren't brought up in it, I question your motivations."

Seriously, don't panic

Ok, so Greg's out for the season. Still no reason to panic. Keep your chin up and look forward to an entertaining season.

Up front we still have (ranked by importance by me) Aldridge, Frye, Przybilla, Outlaw, Josh McRoberts and (lest we forget him) Raef LaFrentz.

We've got a good young group of point guards that are gonna keep this team on the move in Blake, Jack, Sergio, Taureen Green and Petteri Koponen.

We've got a nice collection of swingmen in Roy, James Jones and Martell Webster.

We won't make the playoffs, but it'll still be a lot of fun to watch.

Don't panic.

The number one piece of advice given to the intergalactic hitchhikers that Douglas Adams created is the one that Blazer fans should follow right now.

Greg Oden is going to be fine. So don't panic.

We'll know a lot more later today when he's had the procedure done. But it shouldn't be a big deal. Here's the latest on the situation and it's all just speculation. So everybody just chill out, stay strong and don't panic. We'll all get though this together.

Bold predictions

I have two bold, or as bold as putting something in an internet blog can be bold, predictions today.

Prediction #1: Steve Blake and James Jones will be the starters at point guard and small forward, respectively (I hope I used that word right). They will play upwards of 30 minutes at those spots.

Because Oden, Aldridge and Roy, respectively, have a strangle hold on the Center, Power Forward and Shooting guard spots it's kind of been assumed that the small forward and point guard spots are up for grabs. Beyond that there's a certain amount of belief that neither of those spots will have any sort of hierarchy and will be run by committee.

I say that's hogwash. I say Blake and Jones are the obvious choices to start and they're so much better than the rest of the field at those positions that Nate McMillan is going to have a hell of a time trying to find any sort of consistent minutes for Outlaw, Webster, Jack and Sergio.

I've thought this from the moment we acquired both players but today my feelings were strengthened by This Article

I know, it's not the most objective article because it comes from the Blazer web site. But it still tells me that not only are Blake and Jones the best option we have at point guard and small forward, but they're also the hardest working players at their position.

Prediction #2: The Blazers will win more than 45 games and make the playoffs this season.

I mostly make this prediction based on my first prediction. I figured the big three would do well and it would be up to the rest of the team to play their roles properly in order to propel us to real success this season. With Blake and Jones playing most of the minutes at the other two spots I am confident that not only are we a team of the future, but we're a team that people will take notice of this season.

my famousness

I just figured out how to really put in links. So I figured I'd throw out the links of my post draft fame.

Article that quotes me

You Tube video with me in it

I'm with my friend Garen (Who's the one that deserves all of the credit for the brilliant "Welcome to the Garden of Oden" slogan. Maybe he should look into patenting that and maybe making some money off it.) at about 1:30 and then at 1:50 you can see my beautiful back side with my sign.

I figure this takes up a good 2 minutes worth of my allotment of 15.

Waiting for the season to start

I don't expect anything to happen between now and the start of the season. That said, I do expect the Blazers to be shopping Jarret Jack, Martell Webster and Joel Przybilla HARD.

It would not surprise me one little bit if the Blazers started the season with a starting lineup of Jack, Roy, Webster, Aldridge and Oden with Przybilla getting all the backup big man minutes in order to better shop these three to other teams.

To get us a little excited about what's comin down the pipe the Blazers have been kind enough to release the pre-season schedule.

Link to Pre-season Schedule



This is a shoutout to Mike Staley. I'm hoping you can be there on the 21st in your best red and black to represent the home town team.

BLAKE IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to the our friends in Denver Blake is coming back to Portland...

Rocky Mountain News Article

Most interesting parts of the article...

"The free-agent point guard said today he has agreed to a three-year deal with the Trail Blazers."

"He was willing to return to Denver but opted for Portland as the Nuggets were on the verge of finalizing a contract with guard Chucky Atkins.

"That's OK, if that's the direction they want to go," Blake said in a brief phone interview. "I just decided to go back to Portland." "

=========================

This further fuels speculation that Jarret Jack will be traded. It's hard to believe that the Blazers would go into next season with Blake, Jack and Sergio (who has been dubbed the point guard of the future) on the roster.

Summer League games on TV and Web

All of the summer league games will be shown FOR FREE via the web this year.

http://www.nba.com/summerleague2007/scoreboard.jsp

If you're lucky enough to have the nbatv network they are showing some of them. But most of them are tape delayed. Example: tonight's Blazers vs Celtics game is at 7 pm but it won't be on nbatv until noon tomorrow.

A GOOD trade coming?

People are universally saying that the Blazers got hosed in the Zach Randolph deal. Maybe Kevin Pritchard doesn't care so much about getting hosed in that deal because he had a separate much better deal.

Pritchard was interviewed the night of the draft by Sports Business Radio and there was one interesting statement.

http://www.sportsbusinessradio.com/audio

Click on the play button, wait for the audio to load and skip up to the 33:44 mark where he starts talking about Tom Penn and his role in the draft night maneuvers. What Pritchard says is...

"We've made a trade and it hasn't been announced yet. And we can't talk about it and it probably won't be done for another 7 to 10 days yet. But it's a good trade for us and it allowed us to gain a pick and a player and also a uh uh uh uh an acclaimed player uh who we feel very good about and uh we wouldn't have been able to do that without his expertise"

Some people are speculating that this is the Pheonix deal in which we know we're getting the 24th pick (Rudy Fernandez) and James Jones. And then there's another part of that deal that hasn't leaked yet where we will get this "acclaimed player" Kevin speaks of. Crazy people are saying Shawn Marion, but I dare not dream.

I think it's more likely that it's a completely separate trade that nobody has leaked anything about yet. I expect to hear something some time next week and I don't know why but I've got a hunch it'll be Wednesday the 11th.

And as an added bonus here's a video of Stephon Marbury flipping out about getting Zach Randolph...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYY338_JgvI

More to the Zach Randolph trade?

The latest greatest Blazer rumor to hit the scene is that there is more to the Zach Randolph trade than meets the eye.

When this deal first started to leak there was talk that Malik Rose would be involved. But because he's in the last non-exercisable year of his contract he can't be traded until he exercises that player option to add those two other years on July 1st.

The idea: What if Rose is part of the deal and he will be traded for Darius Miles?

So this isn't just a Zach trade. This is a "dump all your garbage" trade. And just like Steve Francis, Malik Rose's contract expires in 2009. That means that in 2009 the Blazers total salary would be in the neighbor hood of 35 million dollars. So we would have a depth chart something like....

c- Oden/Joel Przybilla
pf- Aldridge/Channing Frye/Josh McRoberts
sf-NOBODY
sg- Brandon Roy/Martell Webster/Rudy Fernandez
pg- Jack/Sergio/Taurean Green/Petteri Koponen

AND something in the neighborhood of 20 million dollars worth of cap space.

The big trade sure looks a lot better that way doesn't it?

poor poor bitter Celtics fans

The bitter Celtics fan said:

Let me preface this by saying that I like the blazers. I am from Boston and am a celtics fan, but I live in Portland and enjoy the blazers team (although I am only a true fan of the Cs).

I believe that as a result of years of bad luck ending with one stroke of good fortune you are being a tiny bit unrealistic. By which I mean, ludicrously unrealistic. Every team's fans will overrate their own players, but let me put it to you this way:

Zach Randolph does not play defense. He is a locker room CANCER. He makes over 12 million per. He turns the ball over 3+ times per game. He can certainly score. He is not worth a top player like Josh Howard or a hall of famer like Paul Pierce. He is not worth a lottery pick.

For Randolph, you can expect to pick up a pick in the early to mid 20s OR a rotation player (possibly even a fifth starter a la Sasha Pavlovic or Greg Buckner). It sucks because Randolph is better than Pavlovic and Buckner, but no team will ever win an NBA championship with Zach Randolph and NBA GMs know this.

So have fun, propose whatever you want to, but don't get your hopes up too high.

And for god's sake I love Oden too, but remember his foul trouble in the NCAA Tournament, he is not perfect.

My Response:

Top 5 reasons for this thread's existence.

1. The Telfair Trade. If I was a Celtics fan that would give me cause enough to hate the Blazers forever.

2. WE GOT THE #1 PICK!!!!!! This is yet another Tim Duncan like situation. The Celtics thought they were gonna get the top pick and a a sure fire HOFer. And yet again it didn't happen.

3. East coast bias

4. The Zach for Theo and #5 rumor. We didn't come up with it. We didn't go around to the Celtics board and spout it as gospel. It just happened. And some Celtics fans were thinking "that might not be so bad" and when that thought hit their collective heads they realized just how much they sucked and were likely to continue to suck for another 10 years and they had to take their aggression out somewhere.

5. The Redsox resent slide. Much like the realization of the Celtic's present and future suckyness this is an anger that needs to be re-directed. Our board is as good a target as anything else.

Kevin Pritchard is he to which we owe all

Kevin Pritchard is the light. Now he who made us for this very thing is Kevin Pritchard, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit. and you said, Behold, Kevin Pritchard has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that Kevin Pritchard does speak with man, and he lives.