News from the NBA draft By Adrian Wojnarowski Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 7:56 pm EDT NEW YORK -- Isiah Thomas made a bid to return the New York Knicks to the Eastern Conference playoffs by acquiring Zach Randolph from the Portland Trail Blazers for Steve Francis and Channing Frye, as Yahoo! Sports first reported on Thursday night. Also in the trade, Portland sends Dan Dickau and Fred Jones to New York. The motivation for the Blazers was two-fold: General manager Kevin Pritchard wants to build around his pick of a year ago, LaMarcus Aldridge, at power forward. Also, he was determined to rid Portland of the remnants of the Jail Blazers era. With four years and $61 million left on Randolph's contract, Portland still saves on the two years and $33.6 million left on Francis' contract. Sooner or later, the Blazers will probably look to buy out the remaining money on Francis' contract. For the Knicks, Randolph, with all his past troubles, is a rare double-double player. He averaged 23.7 points and 10.1 rebounds for Portland a year ago. Jones is a player that Thomas pushed to draft as coach in Indiana. We still have a chance in resigning Francis again!
