Wallace also reportedly nixed a 4 year/42 mil extension with Blazers. 4/42++ makes his choices limited, I would think.
extremely scary deal as far as the rox are concerned. don't expect portland to be down there for too much longer. rahim and ratliff?
Will ATL go after Kobe with all that extra cap room? Seems like Sheed could be in H-Town yet... maybe if the off-season yields SF going away... or not. Then again if Sheed get a Kobe to play alongside... who knows. Crap I just had my stomach drop... what if SF ends up in ATL with Sheed and Kobe?
I've heard people say this too, but I dunno, Shareef has always looked like a PF to me. They say they're building around Randolph and then they come and bring in a guy who basically needs to play around the basket. They should've gone for a true small forward. Sheed's game actually complimented Randolph's well and created good spacing, since he stayed around the perimeter alot but has a strong post up game too. The Blazers were really starting to click it looked like. I'm curious too to see how Randolph and Shareef are gonna co-exist. -Nick-
i'm pretty sure wesley person's contract ends also. i seem to remember it coming up often in trade scenarios this offseason.
Seems to me that SAR doesn't have quite the range of Rasheed, he's still more of a 3 than Rasheed. Footspeed wise, better mid range game, will match up better to 3's.
This trade basically was about ATL clearing out the warehouse and starting over with a clean slate next year. Kobe? Ratliff brings Interior D, but is Ratliff & SAR that much more valuable than Rasheed. I don't really appreciate Rasheeds court tactics he pulls, but when the guy is on he can be one of the best forward in the league IMO. I don't see Por passing us up. We need to be keeping a closer eye on Memphis and Denver. They are playing much better than us, and they probably will pass us up.
Looks like a good deal for both teams. For the last few months I have been bringing up the Wallace for Rahim trade option. It just makes sense. The Hawks get Wallace and Person. Both of their contracts are up after this year so they shave a TON of money off of the cap. They didnt want to give up good guy Rahim in the trade but that is what you have to do to get out of bad contracts. The Hawks plan was to use Rahim to pawn off OTHER bad contracts, which in the trade was the Ratliff one. I think they still would like to move Terry but perhaps that will happen in the offseason after BYC. There is ZERO chance Wallace will re-sign with the Hawks as the Hawks are interested in cutting payroll and not adding on....otherwise they would have just kept Rahim. Wallace will be in MAJOR FA play in the offseason. Wallace has reportedly turned down 4 years at 40 million. 10 Million a year? Who is going to pay that? I doubt ANY teams under the cap will go after him. It looks like a Sign and Trade is the best option with Wallace but the Hawks aren't going to do him any favors unless they get draft picks and young talent. They arent going to take back crappy long term contracts. I think Wallace's only real option is to take a MUCH CHEAPER deal with a decent team than the 4yr 40M offer he got from Portland. The Blazers get exactly what they were looking for. They wanted good talent that had a short contract. Rahim fills in nicely here. He is only signed on for next season and then becomes a FA. This fits into the Blazers plans of getting guys off the books after next season. Additionally they get the CENTER they needed in Ratliff. His contract isn't that good but he is a talent. Clearly this is a MUCH better deal than the Dampier/NVE one floating around. The Blazers really dont lose much at all talentwise here and yet improve the character on their team and make sure their cap situation is still in good shape. I think the Blazers will probably bring SAR off the bench in a Jamison role as a 6th man. They will probably start Randolph, Ratliff and Miles on the front line.
Deuce's take is good, but I'd be surprised to see Miles start ahead of SAR. He is the definition of a high school bust, IMHO.
Why do these dumbass teams insist on clearing all this cap room for potential free agents? Like anybody really wants to sign with the Hawks...
Atlanta as a FA destination? Chicago hasn't been, and Atlanta can offer only one thing -- money. Sure that means a lot, but what quality player wants to be stuck in the morass that is the NBA's worst city for support etc? ATL will not get quality for their money, IMO. Too bad, it's a good town -- except for sports support.
Attendance wise......they weren't drawing very well. <a HREF="http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/shared/sports/nba/hawks/attendance.html">Atlanta Hawks Attendance</a> The team wasn't winning much and the players were grumbling, yet the payroll was significant. Why keep going in a direction that seemed fruitless? If they end up with only second and third tier free agents this offseason....what have they really lost? They will have gained better team harmony, a lower payroll and attendance probably won't drop too much. The won-loss record might be down a bit, but the current 18 - 35 isn't anything to brag on. <a HREF="http://www.nba.com/standings/by_division.html">NBA Standings by Division</a>
I'm not worried about Denver and Memphis. Even if they both beat us (which is debatable), we'd still be 8th seed and in the playoffs. But Portland has been 8-2 in their last 10 games. They have plenty of talent but hadn't been able to put the pieces together. It was looking like they started to put it together and might have been able to make a run for the playoffs. I'm hoping that the trade will disrupt their chemistry again and they won't keep up their current performance. As for SAR's loser tag, I'm glad that it will soon come to an end. People say he's never won, but he's only played for Vancouver and Atlanta. Now, he's on a real team and they should be playoff material next season at least. On the trade, I'm more envious that Portland got SAR than that Atlanta got Wallace. Certainly, his contract is heavy, but he's just the sort of steady contributor the Rockets could use. Obviously, talent-wise, Portland got the better end of the deal, since Person and Wallace likely will leave in the offseason. But, they've also handcuffed themselves to the high payroll route they had pursued in the past. Will it work any better this time than it did last time? They probably could have done more with cap space than Atlanta will be able to do: free agents would likely be willing to sign in Portland.
Well, here's some info from the Pro Wrestling Torch that pertains to that. It's a report from a fan who attended Raw live in Portland. Pretty interesting. So, there you have it. Wallace and Person got kinda SmackedDown.
In any case, SAR thinks of himself as a PF. He mentioned before the season that "we" (i.e., the Hawks) need a small forward. SAR probably falls into that dreaded "tweener" category, but for that, he's a pretty good one.
Doesn't anyone think it ironic that Rasheed Wallace got traded for the one person in the NBA named Reef?
Have you seen this year's free agent list? 2004 NBA free agents There is NOTHING besides Kobe and Rasheed. Let's face it, there is zero chance Kobe is signing with Atlanta. If they sign "second and third tier free agents", then they're still going to suck with players that have 4-6 year contracts, instead of Abdur-Rahim and Ratliffe, who's contracts expire after next season. They could have packaged SAR and Ratliff for a player that's much better than what they can get in free agency this year and still have about the same amount of cap space. Plus, the draft looks to be pretty weak also, though Wayne Simien looks to be a solid prospect
I heard a good analysis today on Dan Patrick from their NBA Guy. Since there is new ownership in Atlanta and there is virtually no existing fan base, the new owners have nothing to loose in tearing down their whole team and starting over. For them Rasheed is sign-and-trade bait or cap space, period. Portland is trying to reconnect with their once rabid fanbase by cleaning out the riff-raff. Oddly though the Portland spokesperson (?) was making a case that Stoudemire was really a good guy who made some mistake but was really trying to get redirected by visiting with John Lucas in Houston. Truth or smokesceen?
I think it was a great trade for Portland, not only for the short term but the long term as well. For the short term: Rahim and Ratliff are 2 solid citizens that will help Portland make the playoffs this season and next. For the long term: Stoudamire (16 mil.), Rahim (15 mil.), and Ratliff (11 mil.) all come of the books next year and Portland will be looking at a boatload of cap room where they can finally start that team over and get rid of their bad image.
