Here is part two of what this summer hopefully will be for the Trail Blazers… (Please read Part 1 if you missed it yesterday.)
3. Ne pas dépenser sur le Nicolas Batum
Don’t overspend on Nicoals Batum! Oklahoma City does it the right way and spends money on young players that have proven to be good with the potential to be great. Someone will probably make Batum one hell of a deal that we’ll have to consider matching. The difference is that that team probably thinks one of two things: either one, he’s the missing piece to their almost championship team, or two, he’s better than he actually is. In this market Nicolas Batum should not be making more than $9 million a year. Maybe he proves he’s worth more by the time the next contract comes up, but right now he is simply a nice player who can be the fourth best player on a championship team.
Hell, his destiny may just be as a future sixth man extraordinaire. He is not a superstar and shouldn’t be payed like one.
I know that Blazer fans are worried of being bitten by letting a player go before they realize their potential, but we need to stand our ground on this one and make sure to understand that if Nicolas Batum is our second highest payed player, then we will not be in title contention for the duration of that contract.
Instead…
4. Target Eric Gordon or O.J. Mayo
The main reason I liked having Jamal Crawford is that it’s been forever since Portland had a player that when he shot, I thought it was going in. Every time. Doesn’t matter that it wasn’t necessarily working for him this season because, really, nothing was working for anyone — the entire organization just continued to stare at their impotent manhoods and simply pray it started to twitch… besides Greg Oden, of course. (Easy jokes can be funny too.) And yet, if you thought about it, you could conjure up at least a half-dozen examples of when Crawford made incredible, unfathomable shots. He’s a scorer. The next one’s going in.
These two guys, Gordon and Mayo, are younger versions of Crawford in that regard (and Gordon’s probably better right now).
Now, I understand that spending money on a player with an injury history only adds to the Memento corollary, but I’m not sure there’s anyone out there that’s going to argue Eric Gordon isn’t a breakout star waiting to happen. Both he and Mayo can command attention on the wing and score as naturally as Ryan Gosling willing droves of women to remove their panties. (Well, maybe not that naturally, but that man’s a freak of nature. It was an unfair comparison to begin with.)
If Portland was able to spend their cap space correctly on two of the four players already mentioned (Nash, Batum, Gordon or Mayo), coupled with a good draft, this would be a great off-season.
But it still wouldn’t be enough. The last thing on Portland’s list should be…
5. Get Lamarcus Aldridge another star
Just like Batum can’t be your second highest paid player, Lamarcus can’t be your best. He’s made great strides, and he’s my personal favorite current Blazer (since draft day, if you please), but he is not ready to be the man that takes a team to a championship. He can definitely be your second option, but he’s not consistent enough to be the first. I’m hard-pressed to think of a time when Lamarcus took over a game like true superstars do. Talent-wise he’s probably in the top 15 right now in the league, only the top 6 can take their team on their own, everyone else has to do so with better players around them. And, unfortunately, I don’t think Aldridge will ever get there. I don’t see him commanding the ball consistently, barking at players not doing their jobs, or ever eventually getting to the point where he just says, “screw this, get on my back and let’s close this thing out.” No, unfortunately right now he seems likely to fulfill a little more of the potential Rasheed Wallace had.
However, if Nash comes on board, then it works because he becomes your best player and will do his damnedest to turn Lamarcus into Amar’e Stoudemire with a jump shot. But (more realistically) if they strike out on that option, then there needs to be a conversation about packaging players for another actual star. The list includes, from greatest to least.
Pau Gasol: This one probably can’t happen, but at least you know that the Lakers are looking. Packaging a lottery pick with Wes Matthews and possibly Nic Batum should get this done. You might be overpaying a little, but you’d be getting another top 20 player. Plus, Pau likes to play on the block, so Lamarcus could venture out from time to time without causing the same problems that plague Gasol and Bynum in LA.
Joe Johnson: Granted he’s probably the most over-payed player in the league, but he matches what is necessary — a scorer unafraid to take big shots, you can run an offense through him, and he can play multiple positions. Not to mention that if we just sent Atlanta a slew of 6’6” wing players looking to get their own stats, you know they’d take it.
Andre Igoudala or Rudy Gay: Both are seemingly interchangeable, expendable pieces that are playing on team’s that think they can win without them. Igoudala is only 28, and could probably be had in exchange for a much cheaper Nic Batum as a starting point, while Rudy Gay may be a little more difficult to get considering the players/assets that Portland has to give up, the Grizzlies already have and are better in comparison. Do you give up the #11 for him? If you think that player will never be any more than one of the best 30 players in the league, then yes.
Again, though, an unconscionable star player able to get his own shots and (wait for it…) plays both ends of the court. Both of these players are already where you want Batum to be, and they’re under 30 making them worth the risk.
Josh Smith: Perhaps the best player on this list (even with Gasol included), but I’m not sure how his and Aldridge’s games would compliment one another? That, and if all of your fire power is in the post (where Smith finally forced himself to be last season), but you have no one to get them the ball, then I’m not sure what good it does? But his talent can’t be questioned, and if you didn’t have to give up too much (Think Wes Matthews, Luke Babbitt and $3 million in cash… maybe a pick if necessary, just protect it better than New jersey did) then you roll the dice on this every time.
Kevin Martin: By all accounts this could happen today. Houston is trying to get pieces and assets to trade for Dwight Howard. Find an asset that you’re willing to give up and send it Houston’s way and get a twenty-nine year-old efficient scorer back in return.
Carmelo Anthony: … stay away from Melo. Not that this is a possibility anyway, but it’s been proven that he’s not ready to share the ball enough when it matters to ever get what he needs to out of his teammates. The only time he did anything resembling that was when Denver made their run a few years ago, but he knew he had to listen to Chauncey Billups or he would get pelted with a bag of batteries.
Two other tiny moves that could be done: re-sign J.J. Hickson to a reasonable deal. If nothing else we could have a J.J.O.J.LMA starting lineup to look forward to; Re-sign Jamal Crawford (especially if you can trade Wes Matthews).
Whatever happens, please stop talk about creating our own “Big Three” this summer. You know why Miami has a Big Three? Because all three of those players are top 15 players! The likelihood of getting together another group within that company is slim and not the only recipe for a championship. If you remember, a team beat them last year when Dallas simply got it in their heads that they were better than them. Oklahoma lost, yes, but are you reading anything that says people don’t expect them to have another shot sometime soon? And yes, they have three great talents, but those three also have defense and shooters around them to help with the burden when necessary. (They also have a coach. Which just seems like a weird idea over here, apparently.) A Big Three means that you have at least three options that you feel comfortable with. We have one. We need more.
In the end, all that matters is that on draft day and beyond this team gives their fans something to be happy about, something to look forward to. We’re a bleeding-heart group that desperately wants to know the feeling of success again. Too many times and for too long have we been teased with the temptation that we might be good enough only to go down in a crumbling heap atop our own fragile expectations.
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