Thursday, April 17, 2008

2007-08 Regular season officially dunzo

Now that regular things are all finished, its time for the playoffs. It is gonna be crazy. It will also be crazy if I somehow manage to not ignore everything else in my life and avoid having my world crumble around me.

Outside of the playoffs, we can start cranking up the meaningless speculation on one Portland Trailblazers organization. Yahtzee.

On the draft front, Portland has one lottery spot and three (or more?) second round picks.

As far as player development, don't forget the team has The Finnagler and Joel Freeland still developing in Europe. Both are reportedly progressing well, we'll get a chance to see for ourselves during summer league. Odds are we won't see either one in the upcoming regular season, but the much drooled over Rudy Fernandez will probably be here.

Which leads into another interesting topic, roster spots. The NBA maximum is 15. The Blazers were full this season. Add Fernandez on for next season (I think they cleared his spot by waiving Big Pun). After that things get messy and speculative. According to HoopsHype, Blake, Wafer, and McRoberts are not under contract after this season. I'm not sure that Steve Blake contract is correct, as it was reported as a three year deal when he signed. Plan on him being here next season.

All of these factors are being juggled and you can bet KP and crew are discussing a whole mess of possibilities. Trades? Who stays? Who goes? Who arrives? Interesting times ahead.
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4 comments:

josh said...

Von Wafer's contract is up. McRoberts has a second year on the contract, but it isn't guarantied. LaFrentz and Jones both have player options they could exercise this year that would make them free agents. So there is the potential of having five roster spots once you count those guys and Miles.

April 17, 2008 at 6:32 PM
Jack Brown said...

Yeah, LaFrentz could go, but why? Have you seen his contract? Think he can get that somewhere else?
Plus I gather he's a positive enough influence around the team and can still spot a few minutes as a big man when needed, so I'm not sure the motivation from the team to do a buyout (just a season before it expires) is there. I think KP is aiming at 2009.

A lot will be decided in the draft. Four picks this year, and definitely not room for everybody. Should be fun.

April 19, 2008 at 10:43 AM
josh said...

Yeah, I don't think LaFrentz will go anywhere, just that he could. I'm actually not convinced that James Jones will opt out, either. After the up-and-down nature of the season, all his talk about liking it in Portland, and his guarantied money next year, I think he stays. Which would mean that there are only three spots, and even that would assume that McRoberts and his non-guarantied contract are waived. I don't think that happens, so we're back to our two open spots.

You're absolutely right: it should be fun.

April 19, 2008 at 10:47 AM
Jack Brown said...

And we haven't even talked about how there aren't many guys on this team you would want gone. From the outside, they all seem to have good work-ethics and be contributing to the good culture.

There will probably be some moves made that will pull at the heart strings a little bit.

April 20, 2008 at 9:40 PM

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