Blazers Wanted Ammo Over Roy?

[spectre_]

If that was Jordan's intent all along (trade Okafor the moment he could) then Jordan is soft for letting LB talk him into doing what he did and that worries me.

LB said (or it was reported) that he told Jordan we didn't stand a chance of sniffing the playoffs without Okafor, so I firmly believe he played a big part in him being here that last year. The "trade him the moment he could" was my prediction and it turned out that's what we did.

FWIW, I'm making the same prediction about Felton if he gets a retail deal. I think Jordan absolutely loathes the idea of losing one of "his" players for nothing so it wouldn't shock me if he matched a higher deal...but if he does I think that's the writing on the wall.

Of course we can always hope he can actually get some value next time around.

Agreed, but 8 other teams passed on him too long before we did. Not only that, but a guy like DeAndre Jordan was long touted a top 5 and even a top 3 pick (like Gerald Green a few years before). If we had drafted on talent that drops you never know what we might end up with.

The other very important thing to look at was the roster though. We had a few bigs at the time and only the 1 point. We needed a quality point - which we got.

They all sucked offensively tho. I have no clue about college, but according to DX:

“Stanford is relying on Lopez to score more this season, especially on the low block, where Lopez’s results have been mixed. Inside five feet, Lopez looks nearly automatic, showing good touch and the strength to finish over pretty much anyone at this level. He shows solid footwork and will use drop-steps, spin moves, and mini-hooks to score. When he wants to, Lopez does an excellent job establishing deep position and sealing his man off down low.”

we had no one that could score like that. Even with Okafor we could have absolutely used that skill. In regards to Jordan he'd dropped long before the draft (again, going of of stuff now vs knowledge then) and he was apparently a lot more raw.

I'm not about to say I wanted the guy...as noted above I don't know crap about college players and I've long been in the camp that it's more trouble than not on drafting white guys (BOT...ESPECIALLY unathletic white guys whose only position is the most athletic position!). I don't think I even had a preference; at that time I was more afraid that we were going to deal Crash for a higher pick in order to draft Westbrook...which actually would make for a poll topic 2 years later. I did want Westbrook in my neverending quest to get that combo guard, but not at the cost of Crash.

I think the underlined factor here is that we SUCK at drafting and should trade away draft picks at all costs rather than make our own selections.

Pretty much, and that's the line of rationalization I'm using on trading that 2nd future 1st for TT.

[spectre_]

We needed a quality point - which we got.

And this is true. Everyone knows LB wants 3 PGs and we had 1 who had had a very shaky first few years in the league. I don't fault LB for wanting to draft DJ at all, and that's even if Felton did eventually pan out (which it appears he has somewhat). As I've stated numerous times I love having quality depth at the 1, and DJ provides that.

Shame DJ has struggled so much all year though, but kicking it in now is better than starting out strong and then fading out. If ever we need his scoring it's right now.

[thruthefire]

Passing on Lopez for Augustin was ill-advised, but we've compounded it by trading for Diop (a ridiculously bad move by Brown) and Chandler. And then promising Lopez we would take him and then pulling a 180 was pretty bush league. But as far as value goes, if Augustin plays like he did last season, then we made out better than most teams do on 9th picks. And one would expect a lottery point guard to improve quite a bit from his rookie season. I guess we'll just have to wait and see with that.

[Rich4114]

In the NBA, when you have two guys who show an equal amount of talent and one of them is 5'10" and the other is like 6'11" - you go with the 6'11" option. It's something Bob Bass always did when he ran the Hornets and it led to us building a pretty successful team that way. You can never have too many skillful big men. FA PG's are always available to be a backup.

I liked DJ, but I liked Lopez way better and he could've played PF WITH Okafor. There was plenty of room for both of them even if we planned to keep Okafor.

I don't know what our team would look like now had we made that pick, because we might not have traded for Boris and Raja which means no Jax which means we'd still need a SG. But whatever, we can look back on this teams poor decisions on the draft all we want - it won't change anything. All we can do is hope lighting strikes and DJ becomes more like what we got his rookie year and Alexi becomes more than a D-League all-star for the red lobsters.