Luol Deng available? Hmmmm

[Wizenheimer]

How about Raef, Travis, Martell, Jack and McRoberts for:

Ben Wallace, Deng AND Gordon? It sucks to lose those guys but....

PG: Roy
SG: Gordon
SF: Deng
PF: Aldridge
C: Oden
Bench: Joel, Ben Wallace, Rudy, Blake, Sergio, James Jones.

Hell throw in our pick and Sergio if we have to, what would we need them for?

that would be an OK trade for right now, I think it's accurate to say that deng/gordon > outlaw/webster. But Wallace is not better then lafrentz, jack, and mcroberts, when his contract is considered.

The problem is one of 'ceilings' in my view. Deng, and especially gordon are most likely pretty close to their ceilings. On the other hand, it's difficult to peg where the ceilings of Travis and Martell are compared to their current games. Some of us think Outlaw's is higher and others think Martell's is.

But if we're all kind of right and both Travis and Martell improve significantly over the next couple of years, then this trade could end up bad for portland.

And of course there's the simple fact that portland would have no guarantee with either Gordon or Deng of re-signing them. And if portland did and the 2 got the contracts they wanted, Portland could have 5 players signed to near max contracts 3 years from now...ouch!

[tucson]

Deng would be an interesting player depending on what it takes to get. I'm not convinced Chicago is willing to give him up and Wallace wouldn't be a good fit with this team.

Still, the ideal small forward should be a good defender who can hit threes and keep the spacing for Oden and Aldridge. Productive role players are what this team going to need to replace the younger guys getting minutes now. Defenders, rebounders, and three point shooters. Look at what the Spurs have outside their big three. Role players as productive or better than Blake, Pryz, and Jones are what best compliments this team.

The young guys have great potential but none are very productive right now, when you consider shooting percentages or rebounding and none are standout defenders either. Without the shooting of Blake & Jones and Joel's defense and rebounding this team would be where most of the "experts" predicted and Roy wouldn't be an All-Star and Travis fourth quarter heroics would seem like garbage time points since we would have been too far behind for those points to matter. All three are having much better seasons than last year. Another way to look at it is watch how difficult it is for this team to win recently in games when those three have struggled.

I believe KP has a keen understanding of the importance of role players and how they can help a team win more than a particular 20-10 guy whose having all kinds of trouble helping his team in New York. Getting James Jones and Rudy for Zach is key thing the makes that trade different than for what Memphis got for Gasol.

So Deng and Gordon (I'm less enamored with him) would be nice young talent but will be costly to acquire and keep and ultimately won't help this team win better than savvy, productive role players that can be had for shorter contracts around the mid-level exception or vet's minimum.

[waverider]

Somehow I think this topic got off track a bit. It's not Deng AND Gordon its Deng OR Gordon. Chi is not gonna let both go. IMO if they do resign one of them (which is likely), it would be Deng - so from their standpoint why not at least try to use Gordon to get rid of Wallace, especially if he's not likely to be resigned.

However, Paxson has made nothing but stupid moves the past few years both via trade and draft - so who knows?

[Norm2953]

We've been dealing with all of these trade questions, that I'm
sick of it. As much as I like Deng, Chicago like NJ and teams
like Dallas are frustrating teams to talk to and nothing ever
comes from the talks.

Let's just get past the trade deadline make whatever changes
we need after the season. Even if we do nothing, we are going to
add Greg Oden and no team is going to get better in the off-season
than the Blazers for 2009.

[Mr Odd]

I dont mean to get on anyone but
Oden is not a fix. He will help but
in no way will he slingshot the
Blazers into a deep playoff
threat type of team. Dont
get me wrong, he should
be a great help in D and
rebounding, he will also
help in the offensive
end, if teams double
him it will leave
shooters open.
But the Blazers have
a long way to go building
this team in where they can
go far into the playoffs for a title run.
imo

[mojomarc]

I dont mean to get on anyone but
Oden is not a fix. He will help but
in no way will he slingshot the
Blazers into a deep playoff
threat type of team. Dont
get me wrong, he should
be a great help in D and
rebounding, he will also
help in the offensive
end, if teams double
him it will leave
shooters open.
But the Blazers have
a long way to go building
this team in where they can
go far into the playoffs for a title run.
imo

Two words: David Robinson. He took a scrap team to something like 56 wins his rookie year and was an overtime game at the MC from making the WC finals were they likely would have beat Phoenix.

[Effigy]

Yeah, when you get a legit dominating big like Oden, well, he should be a fix. We obviously want to improve around him but, he alone should put us into the second round if he and the rest of the team are healthy.

[frankiethefixer]

there is no way the bulls are trading deng just to dump wallace's contract.

[Three34]

Is this the same Deng that they just refused to include in a deal for Pau Gasol?

[Cliff Levingston]

there is no way the bulls are trading deng just to dump wallace's contract.

Bingo.

[see4miles]

two reasons why KP won't trade for Luol unless the deal is brilliant.
Same reasons Deng will earn FAR less than he was offered by Bulls earlier this year:

1) Injury prone. Soon to reach wagner/ LaFrentz levels

2) Summer international games. Ie small chance of him getting a full Summer off. Until AFTER 2012.
He's trying to become the British Jordan and he can only do that properly by either playing in the Finals (unlikely) or for the Summer team.

I think we should pick him up though if the price were right...

[Village Idiot]

I like Deng but Chicago isn't going to give him away cheap. At the same time, how much better is he than Martell + Outlaw and is his game a good fit for us? Personally I'd rather stick with Webster and Outlaw because they're superior outside shooters. Right now Outlaw is close to Luol's level and doesn't have any physical concerns.

If we're going to address any positional needs it should be at point guard.

[SinceClyde]

If Oden wasn't a fix, then the blazers would have picked Durant. A center with Oden's ability will change the blazers game completely. They will be such a good 3 point team it won't even be funny. Hype has faded from Oden, but I'll post the Orlando camp results anytime to remind people what shocked the country before he got hurt.