The reason Portland has not one anything is because SA and LAL have just been the best teams in the league durign Portlands dominant years. Its just that simple. Portland is an anuall 50+ win team and has been to a couple of WCF's but could not beat the undeniably better L.A. Lakers. You need to produce a real source about Cat refusing to except any role from the Rockets. That is just BS. If you say something like that then at least back it up or I'm not buying it. Besides JVG is the new coach now and will probably not take half the **** that Rudy T did. Trading Cat with out getting a good shooting guard leaves this team with a hole at the 2. Having said that...I would definitely trade Cat for Rasheed since Rasheed is better and much more valuable.
Every time I see a 'Sheed to Houston fantasy trade, it almost always includes Eddie Griffin. If the Blazers think that highly of Zach Randolph, why would they want Griffin? Just to back up Zach? Like someone said earlier, the Blazers can get more than Griffin and Cato in a deal for Rasheed. (BTW - I'd love to have Rasheed, but IMO the Blazers aren't listening unless one of the Big Three is on the table).
based on nothing but self concocted logic, I'd be willing to bet that the Blazers will only deal Sheed if the recipient takes the albatross that is Stoudamire's contract. Period.
Re : Griff : Blazers need another guy to play the pf if Wallace goes and Randolf moves up. Can't count on Sabo, prolly retires on th opt out. Davis/Dudley? Wallace/Randolf Wells/Q.Woods D.A./Kobe Stopper McInnis/Stodemire So If we take Wallace away, they need Cato at C. and another player (Griff) to back up Randolf. They don't need Cat, with Wells and D.A. Griff is younger and better value for them. On the other hand, they can platoon Davis at 3 and 4, so maybe they prefer to swap Cat for D.A. Cato and Rice are givens. It's the third player that's in question. Now look at salaries : Cato - 7 Rice - 9.2 Sheed - 16.2 Even match. The other guys are throw ins to make the swap sweeter and balance talent. EG - 2.2 Cat - 5 Mooch - 3 Boki - 1 Mc Innis - 3 D.A. is 7.5 Q.Woods is 1 Personally, I think the deal can go with just Cato/Rice for Sheed. The rest are just there to sweeten the deal/address needs.
Second post - I'm thinking a bit more about this one. I like Sheed playing with Yao. He's very versitile, tall, good shooter. It gives us two options in the post. Alternatively, we can play Griff (if we keep him) or Taylor in the post with Yao and run Sheed out to the wing. That's a good option for the entry pass and return cut. Three solid options up front and Francis in the backcourt with a Pike or better to nail the kicks. It's ok. On defense, we clog the middle, and use length to contest shots. Fairly safe plan. Should prevent easy buckets - hold to an acceptable 40%. However, if Sheed becomes ONLY a pf then our 3 spot sucks hard. We can't get the ball down. We lose. A lot. Rox HAVE to address that. Boki can't hang. MAYBE if you pull in QWoods in the deal, it's better? No. It still sux. All in all, Idunno, maybe I'd rather have SAR. I just can't diagram Sh$! for Yao without a decent 3; is Sheed really going to be a good early distributor to the Yao for a Yao-centered offense?
I agree with cloudnine. Rasheed is a good passer but he has been shooting more from the outside and isn't rebounding aggressively either.
You should post more often. I can't believe more people haven't picked up on this. I too have noticed that Sheed settles for a lot of jumpers. I've never considered him a 'banger'...if anything, he's more of a 'bonger' (couldn't resist). Do we really need another soft, chronic-smoking, jumpshooting power forward? I think we have plenty already...
Yao is the low post. He always takes his shots from there, barring fatigue. There's no need to add a second full-time low post option. Rasheed can play inside and outside, and that's what's so great about him. We can take perssure off the middle, but we can also attack it. Rasheed Wallace has played with Arvydas Sabonis, so he's undoubtedly picked up a thing or two about playing with a passing C, and having to pass it back. My source for Cuttino Mobley not being with his role is Doc Rocket. You may not find him to be a reliable source, but I certainly do. Trade talk can break down at any moment, but when a player says something, and someone who's gotten us insider info before tells us, then it happened. The only way it wouldn't be true is if he LIED. I seriously doubt he lied to us. Besides, we don't need a source. I just need to watch Rocket games to see that Mobley takes more shots than he should. As for having to take back Stoudamire, that's impossible. Rasheed makes around 17M and Damon makes around 13M, meaning they'd have to find someone who's going to give back 30M in contracts, with the new CBA not allowing any players contracts above the 13M MAX? No way. Stoudamire goes with one of the swingmen. The reason Portland would do my trade is because, simply, they won't find better pieces than Reef and Ratliff. It's EXACTLY what they need. I don't think they get better bang for their buck anywhere else. Atlanta basically dumps salary in this deal. They get younger, and probably get one or two draft picks as well. This is what they're looking to do right now, as we cans ee by their dumping of Glen Robinson.
I like the fact that Stoudamire would backup Steve that would allow Steve to play some Shooting Guard!!
The rockets need to do something, and quick Or else we're back in the Lottery the way teams are improving out West SERIOUSLY ...............................So everyone sayin this trade is not gonna happen better start prayin that it does, because if it doesn't we're screwed next season To the point of the post, the hold up is probably what we're willing to accept in return, not what we have to offer, Its a fact that Portland Owner Paul Allen is sicka and tired of the Jailblazers press and will not accept it any longer, Nobody is untouchable on the Blazers Also the teams that have improved out West, did it by giving up scraps.............Hell Minnesota got Spree for Marc Jackson, and some Pocket Lint.....Philly got Big Dog for "Honey I shrunk my career" Van Horn We have valuable commodities people, trust me
I think Cat would be the sixth man, Damon would be the point, and steve would be the two. No way does Damon come off the bench. For two reasons, he is a capable starting point, and most importantly the coaches wouldnt want to hear him crying after every game about how he should be starting.
There's no way Portland would trade R.Wallace for a few crappy players. You either give them Yao or Francis, otherwise the chance of landing R.Wallce is ZERO. And we know we won't give up either of them. There's a lot more possible trades that make sense. We don't need to talk about this one.
I think I'd do that whole deal. Good trade mate. We'd get back Woods potential at the 3 spot for Eddie's potential at the 4. Does anybody think Portland would do something like that?
I think a Damon/Steve back-court would be great on offense, but be abused on defense. I only take Damon from Portland if we somehow get to hold on to Eddie - we'd need his shot-blocking to back up our tiny guards. I guess it all comes down to how badly the Blazers want Damon gone.
Ya know when I see Sheed's game all I see is a more polished version of Griffin. Two guys who'd prefer to shoot around the perimeter then bang in the paint. Sheed has more credibility and his game is more polished then Griffin's, but if you really want a guy like that, then look no further then Griffin. Atleast with Griffin the contract will be cheaper, and you'd save on some cap space.
What I don't understand about these trade proposals is that we only ave 10 players under contract, yet we're always giving up 4 people for 2 or something like that. It's hard enough to find good players just to fill the 12 man roster as it is...
Maybe Eddie gets to that level and maybe he doesn't. All I know is that he's had two years now and been given every opportunity, yet his improvement has been marginal. Here's the hard thing about what you're saying: Let's say we keep Eddie another year, and again, he only improves just a little. Suddenly, the excuse about his being young is no longer valid and his trade value drops like a stone. My feeling is that I'd always rather have a bird in the hand rather than two in the bush - better the polished guy than the question mark. And at this point, I don't care who is cheaper. We built Les a new arena and are letting him pocket over $100 million in naming rights. I don't want to hear people crying about the luxury tax right now.
Especially considering nobody really knows if the luxury tax will even be in effect for this season..it hasnt in the past IIRC. tierrebrown... well, we could always go find Tierre and sign him up..right?
