CrushAlot wrote:

Paladin55 wrote:Just looked at Portland's salary situation.

They are at $65 M for the upcoming year.

Would some cash and our 2012 #1 for their 2010 #22 be worth it if we cannot find a late #1 elsewhere?

Just wondering.

I believe Houston has the 2012 pick from the Hill trade. Teams are not allowed to trade 1st round picks two years in a row so the Knicks could only swap the 2011 pick and traded the 2012 pick to the Rockets. I think the next 1st round pick they can trade is 2014. I guess that means we are all in for the plan.

You are right. They can swap with us next year, and get the 2012 outright. Thanks.

Back to Rudy for a sec., what's not to like exactly? If he's healthy, you're looking at a 6'6" supremely athletic & skilled wing who's quick, a tremendous ball-handler & shooter with smarts and guts..an overall excellent offensive player. A guy with a tremendous feel for the game who can absolutely make other players better as well as put the ball in the hole himself. If given the same minutes Wilson Chandler got last year (35.7 mins. per game), I'm tellin' ya right now, this gives us more than Wil's 15 pts. a game. I'm not trying to shortchange Chandler in any way, shape or form, I like the Mayor a lot -- he's a good young player that's coming along nicely not to mention he's a real good kid too -- but I just feel Rudy Fernandez has a chance to be a better player. It's scary to think what Rudy could do in an uptempo D'Antoni system with 15+ shots a game every night. I really feel like this guy's ready to assume a much larger role somewhere else - Portland doesn't seem to be the best spot for him anymore. He really needs to get out from Roy's shadow along with a few other up & comers who might have passed him by in McMillan's rotation.

As impressive as Chandler's looked at times and again not to take anything away from him, I really gotta question how good he'll really become. On a terrible team, and we've be atrocious the past couple of years, he's made progress but Wilson's best year came last year where he went for 15 and 5. OK, not bad...Decent, but certainly nothing Earth-shattering...For all the positives Wil brings (most is still based on potential), he's got some obvious limitation: he's not a good ball-handler, he's not a good outside shooter, he's not making anyone better, he very well might have peaked & have limited upside from here on in, he's injury prone and perhaps his best quality--his defense--could even be considered a little overrated. Think about that last part for a sec.: he's shown flashes of good defense at times, no question, but I wouldn't call Chandler a lock-down defender by any means and really question whether he'll ever become one. He can defend 3 positions which is certainly a plus but to be honest, I've seen just about every game this kid's ever played for us and I can only recall 4 real standout/memorable defensive plays that he's made (2 of which didn't really count): Two blocks on Kevin Garnett (both coming in preseason play if I remember correctly) once in our house coming weakside on a baseline fadeaway by the Ticket after the whistle had already blown and once in Boston on a post up; a nice block on a Kobe Bryant drive in LA a couple of seasons ago close to halftime and the nice block on Josh Smith right at the rim to save the game against the Hawks at home this past year. Now on the flipside, I've seen him get burned countless times by the better players in the league -- Kobe, Lebron, Joe Johnson, etc.. Point is, Wil's a good defender, but I don't think he's the stopper we all have envisioned & hoped for. And he may never be. I see a good young player that's still learning but I have a real hard time seeing him taking that next step for a number of reasons. I think Chandler may be what he currently is which is a nice young player who still has some potential (if we acquired Lebron and Bosh he'll probably never realize that potential here btw), he can score, defend 3 positions fairly well but has limitation in several key areas: outside shooting, shot-selection, ball-handling, overall B-ball IQ, a killer instinct, ability to make others better...

Rudy Fernandez, on the other hand, does contribute in these areas and I feel he'd make for a much better support player playing alongside a couple of stars. Remember his play in the Olympics against team USA a couple of seasons ago? He did stuff in that game Wilson Chandler could only dream about and he did it against the best competition in the world. 3 key guys (Lebron, Bosh and coach Pringles) were all there to witness it in person and I betcha they haven't forgotten about what they saw. I know I haven't. Kill me if you want guys but I think we should seriously consider this deal. Laugh if you want but I might even look to sweeten it up a little (a 2nd round pick perhaps [I'd prefer a future 2 as opposed to 38/39 tonight], even more cash than we first offered, etc..) to ensure it gets done..

Finestrg wrote:

Juice wrote:Supposedly from Chad Fraud this is one of the better offers

# The Raptors have had serious talks today with the Portland Trail Blazers about a deal that would send the 22nd pick and Rudy Fernandez to Toronto for the 13th pick. The Blazers have been very aggressive about getting up into the lottery, but have been reluctant to part with both Fernandez and the 22nd pick to do it.

You can certainly understand this from the Blazers' perspective but I can't for the life of me figure out why Toronto would want to do this...Makes absolutely no sense for them whatsoever. First off, losing Bosh is a very real possibility for them so you figure keeping the pick at 13 (or possibly using it to get an even better pick if possible) should be the priority, not trading down 9 slots. You would think at 13 they could get an impact player, either a frontcourt big to replace Bosh directly if need be or a player at another position that has considerable talent. And then what do they need with Rudy Fernandez exactly? They already have Demar DeRozan, Sonny Weems and Marco Belinelli all under contract that play the same position. Plus they're close to being over the cap and may have use of the MLE & LLE -- maybe they want to use part of either of those exceptions to bring Antoine Wright back -- he played pretty well for them last year. Not to mention they also have Bargnani and Turkoglu who are both basically perimeter threats -- do they really need another gunner in Fernandez on top of all these guys? Very odd if Colangelo is really considering this...

it'd be par for the course for colangelo.. he's done a horrible job in toronto.

i am completely onboard with getting rudy, but for the 13th pick? that's just not a good deal.

AnubisADL wrote:

Juice wrote:Supposedly from Chad Fraud this is one of the better offers

# The Raptors have had serious talks today with the Portland Trail Blazers about a deal that would send the 22nd pick and Rudy Fernandez to Toronto for the 13th pick. The Blazers have been very aggressive about getting up into the lottery, but have been reluctant to part with both Fernandez and the 22nd pick to do it.

This makes sense because Derozan is NOT a SG and is a SF. Plus I have a strong feeling Hedo will be traded.

Good luck finding a taker for Hedo's contract. it's one of the worst in the league.

djsunyc wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Good luck finding a taker for Hedo's contract. it's one of the worst in the league.

maggette was just dealt.

zbo's deal was dealt.

everybody can be traded. and hedo has a good rep around the league...considering abc kept saying the reason orlando didn't advance was b/c they didn't have hedo.

bad contracts can ALWAYS be dealt b/c there are gm's ready to take a chance on guys.

hedo is older than those guys, has a longer deal and isn't putting up numbers. ZBO and Corey both put up numbers on good shooting. Maggette just put up 20ppg on 52% shooting . hedo put up 11ppg on 41% shooting at the same money, but he's older and has more years on his deal... 2yrs in a row shooting 41%... I don't think he'll be easy to move...