[Portland talk Radio] Morey wanted to move Battier/Alston last offseason

Bruce Bowen has been a much bigger part of these recent Spurs championship teams than any of the guys you mentioned. Let's get real. It's not like I wouldn't like an athletic, high scoring 3 who could create his own shot. Bring them on. The Rockets need one. They also need Battier. Help defense and being able to hit threes is important on any team, but on this team it's essential. Yao and Alston have improved on defense, certainly, but they always have needed Battier to help out. Battier also routinely covers the other team's best offensive player. Who else is going to do that? Defense is the one thing this team can depend on and it's why they've been able to win despite having their two best players out for extended periods of time over the last few years. The main thing he gives the team is his example. He plays hard night after night and I think it's rubbed off on his teammates. He's steady. He dives after loose balls and takes charges. He does what it takes to win. It all sounds like a cliche, but if you look at championship teams, they all seem to have a guy like a Battier even if they don't all-star shooters at every position. I just don't think you trade a guy like that (especially one who has such a reasonable contract) unless you are getting a really, really significant talent upgrade at a need position.

 

i'm not so sure now. i checked nbpa.com and couldn't find anything. it's either a s&t player can be packaged as davis's big contract made it all work or curry's byc status made it possible for sweetney and jackson who combined for around half of curry's then pay.

 

So, here's the deal.

We trade Battier, BJax, and Rafer to Portland on draft night for........

Raef Lafrentz, Travis Outlaw, and Jarrett Jack. Throw in this year's first if we have to.

Yeah, I know, sounds like garbage. But here's what we do.

Start the season off with

Jack or Brooks at the point
McGrady
Outlaw
Yao
Scola

as your starters.

Then you've got the other point guard along with
Luther
Novak
Raef
Landry

coming off the bench.

Not bad.

Then at the trade deadline, you catch up to NJ who is worming it's way down into the lottery, and you and give them Raef (expiring), plus a couple future #1s, plus Luther, plus cash for Carter or Jefferson......whichever one they want to dump with the agreement they are gonna buy out Raef so we can re-sign him ala Brent Barry. New Jersey is going to want to dump if they ain't in the playoff chase. They are gonna put the full court press on Lebron James, and possibly even another top free agent, plus go after a lottery pick to rebuild a dynasty in the East.

Now we've got:

Jack/Brooks/Francis
McGrady/Carter
Carter/Outlaw/Harris
Yao/Deke/Raef
Scola/Landry/Outlaw/Raef

We have to mortgage the future. But tell me, who beats that team? You wanna run, we can run you out the building. You wanna half-court it, we kill you in the half-court. We mismatch everybody. You've got a half court defensive point guard in Jack that can shoot better than Rafer and finish. You've got the quickest guy in the league in Brooks. Wanna race? Try Brooks/Carter/Scola/Landry/Outlaw. Wanna walk it up and play big? Try Jack, McGrady, Carter, Yao, Scola or substitute Raef for Scola and go giant size.

 

we would not have made that 22 wins if Shane had been traded

 

The only player I would trade Battier for is Artest, in a sign-and-trade. We need his defensive tenacity on most games. How many games had he either shut down or slow down the opponents' best players?

 

I'd trade Battier in package deal with BJax and whatever else for:

Shawn Marion
Richard Jefferson
Vince Carter
Mike Dunleavy

 

jopatmc,I think you are overvaluing LaFrentz's importance as a player. Secondly, why would he exercise the ETO when he is making over 12M next season?

 

I think everyone is forgetting that the rockets defense was pretty good before Battier ever got here.

 

He expires next year. He will get bought out at the trade deadline in all likelihood.

 

leebigez -
More ammo for you.

The GM of the Blazers is Kevin Pritchard. He was the GM of the Spurs before going to Portland. Pritchard "dabbles" in $Ball. The difference? Pritchard was a PG at Kansas and played several years in the NBA.

However, if Morey were able to deal Battier for some (not under tall) athletes? I take back everything I ever said about him.

 

Yes he is also one of the NBAs best defenders.

 

Are we saying that we made a mistake on trading Gay away for Battier?

Personally, I will only trade Battier for Artest or anyone who can play D and shoot.

If we want championship, we will need a player who can lock down D on other team's best player. Quite frankly, I don't see anyone out there that are available and better than battier other than artest.

What we need is an upgrade on Alston, Backup scorer at the 3 and a backup Center if Deke won't be back (if he's back we need a backup for a backup, lol).

upgrade on Alston can only be thru trade or draft.
upgrade on SF (if we keep Battier) would be Green.
Loren wood not a bad option for backup C.

Morey seriously need to review our medical staff. Landry is not the beast he once was and that's a concern and added issue with our medical staff.

 

Yeah ok, he's known this all year long yet waits until now to reveal this? I don't buy it.

Hopefully Battier won't get traded unless it's part of a major deal to get a another great player back. It baffles me at how underappreciated Battier is.

 

battier is our only trade bait. maybe, except for rafer.

battier's defense is great, but how many times have we lost more games because we had no offense? alot.

i don't like outlaw personally, he can't create his own shot yet. i prefer, artest, maggette, which are more reasonable. or you can try to get marion, jefferson, carter, which i doubt though.

if we don't have to trade battier, and we can trade bobby's contract and rafer, then great.

 

Agreed. He just seems to lose wherever he is. I think I read a statistic that he has already lost 800 games in his relatively short career.

 

Ricky Davis = JR Rider.

DD

 

Batman for Outlaw and their 1st. I'd like that.

 

I've only read page 1 and page 6, but Battier for Outlaw seems decent to me. Battier consistently gets 10 more minutes a game or so than Travis and starts. Travis, on the other hand, puts up comparable stats, stats which have improved every year in the league, and he will have just turned 24 at the beginning of next season. Plus, with his height and athleticism, he's shown he can be a solid defender, too.

As someone mentioned, the Rockets were a pretty good defensive team pre-Shane, too. I'm not diminishing Shane's defensive prowess, but either you're winning in the playoffs or your not. Thus far, we're not.

All that said, you could definitely say Shane would be as big a pickup for the Blazers as vice versa. I'd definitely ask for the rights to Rudy Fernandez. I doubt the Blazers do that, though.

Maybe I'd try something like Shane, Luther, Chuck for Outlaw, James Jones, Channing Frye.

 

I'd give Battier for their pick if DJ's available. Other than that, I say no. I strongly feel that we need solid perimeter shooters to put around Yao and T-Mac. Outlaw doesn't fit that bill.

 

Annnnnnd failure