Saturday, July 29, 2006

Get Busy Livin' or Get Busy Dyin'

Let's go while we're young! Apparently the Blazer front office has decided to take a slight vacation and aren't doing anything right now. As best I can tell, this is what they're currently going with as far as a starting 5:

Jack, Roy, Miles, Randolph, Joel.

Now that's not too terrible, considering the team just won 21 games, I'm open to any bit of improvement here. The overwhelming opinion has been that they are going to trade Miles this season. Nate doesn't like him, and even though Paul Allen supposedly does for some strange reason, it doesn't appear that he's in the plans. The problem would be that only Travis Outlaw would be left on the roster as a SF. Nobody is going to trade you a SF for Miles straight up, that makes very little sense, so that leaves you with making a side move for your starting SF. Everyone loves rumors, rumors are fun, rumors are great, so let me throw a few ideas out there, because clearly our front office needs some help coming up with some plans. First let's get some rules out the way, all of the following work under the current salary cap, that's rule number 1, no crazy trades that aren't possible. Rule #2, the whole goal with dealing Miles (or Randolph) is to either clear salary, so don't take on anything long term, or improve long term. With that, on to some things that make sense, note to the Blazer front office, put down the mojito and pick up the phone.

When in trouble, call the Knicks. You could get Thomas to do just about anything, we know this, so you can actually think of stupid things with him and he'd do it. One idea would be Zach and Miles for Jalen Rose and Channing Frye. This gives the Blazers a quality big man rotation, and a starting 3 with a monster contract that's off the books this year. Champaign all around.

Call the Lakers and see what they want for Lamar Odom. Odom has 2 years remaining on his contract, Zach has 4, a Randolph for Odom trade works under the cap. That gets you your SF, and it cuts 2 years off a moronic contract. This would move you to a starting PF of either LaFrentz or Aldridge, not so good, but then you're free to deal Miles for a serviceable starter there like...

Miles for Troy Murphy. The Warriors seem to be shopping him around, he'd be a nice fit along side players like Jack, Roy, Odom, and Joel.

None of these get you into the playoffs next year, I know this. It's just time for the Blazers front office to get moving. I figured I'd at least throw some things out there, they seem to be too busy doing...well...nobody really knows what they're doing right now.

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