1. The SF that Portland has acquired in the deal that can’t be announced yet may be Shane Battier. I don’t have a clear picture of what would be going out yet.

2. Another name I’ve heard for the potential small forward is Boris Diaw.

3. Kevin Pritchard was on Sports Business Radio over the weekend, and he let it out that the player Portland has agreed to acquire is an “acclaimed” one. Take that for what you will.

4. I also have it on good authority that Portland contacted Gerald Wallace of the Charlotte Bobcats today to feel him out.

5. Steve Francis’ agent was in Portland on Saturday to meet with Kevin Pritchard and Tom Penn.

6. Joel Pryzbilla’s “Base Year Contract” status expired on Sunday, so it’s a very strong possibility that he could/would be a part of any deal, which also may cause some of the delay.
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All quite interesting…

Over at Blazers Edge there’s someone saying that an LA paper is reporting that Steve Francis’ buy-out’s all but a done deal and the Clippers are in the process of working out a deal with him once he’s been set free.

I have to admit that I’ve gotten used to listening to AM radio in my car – first for Blazers games, then for draft coverage last night (flipping back and forth between KXL and The Fan – would *never* have believed that a few months ago…!

The honks on the radio somehow think KP unloaded Darius somehow. Very, very unlikely. If he did, I may have to question my current religion because Pritchardism will have all sorts of miracles to point to.

So I think we still see Darius here, but Steve Francis and somebody else moved to bring us a stud SF.

The guy at the Columbian thinks Rashard Lewis. Not likely, given what I’ve said all along, which is you don’t give a key rival who you play many times during the season a loaded gun to shoot you with, but if Pritchard (as quoted by Ropp and Dawson) is to be believed, something very special is coming.

Darius, meanwhile, will still be here until he finally sees the wisdom in walking away with his paycheck and no pressure to come back. Or, if he doesn’t understand that his continued presence on the roster (and on the cap-counting payroll) is killing us, hopefully his agent, who needs to continue doing business in this league, will…

Have people already forgotten how impressive they were in the playoffs (other than the meeting with the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals)? They have some great young talent that now has a ton of post-season experience, then play for one of the best coaches of all time, and they drafted well, filling the two holes they had offensively.

Considering the ages of Nash and Duncan, I’m thinking the Blazers need to be building to beat down Utah and Seattle/Oklahoma City…

Uh, Shawn Marion? Yeah, I’ll bite. But I’ll do my best to reserve my emotions until I actually see a press conference. Let me salivate for a moment… Oden-Aldridge-Marion-Roy-Sergio. You think Sergio is wetting himself right now? The plate has been set for him… he wanted an opportunity to show his Nash and Kidd skills, well, the boy got em.

“When a team over the cap performs a trade, they must use an exception, even if they reduce payroll. To have the salaries match, Portland receives an exception equal to the difference in salaries. This becomes important later. Why did the deal have to be done draft day? It’s because of the moratorium between July 1 – 11. Since July 1 is Sunday, it was imperative the deal be done to facilitate other trades, as you will see below.

“New York had agreed to a buyout with Francis. The buyout has Francis giving up his player option and taking about 10-15 million. Francis keeps the money, becomes a free agent, and may sign with another team. The buyout is transferable to Portland, meaning that if Francis signs with another team for the mid-level exception (5 million), the Blazers would only have 7.5 – 12.5 million count against the cap for this year, and nothing for next year. Letting Freddie and Dan expire this year would only have saved us 6.1 million. This way we eat the buyout and dump Zach’s ridiculous contract. Francis will never wear a Blazer uni.

“There are two schools of thought as to why we must wait until the New York trade is finalized, and both involve Phoenix. The first option concerns the reports that the Blazers are getting James Jones. In this case, the trade exception from the New York deal is used, along with the 3 million in cash, to get Jones and Fernandez. Phoenix gains some small cap relief (Jones), the trade exception (they can use later), and frees a roster spot and a guarenteed contract (the 24th pick).

“The second is that the Blazers are targeting Shawn Marion. In this case, Francis is traded, with the exception, cash, and probably another cheap piece such as Webster or Jack, for Marion. By gaining the Francis buyout and dumping Marion, the Suns gain a ton of cap space, and Francis is a Blazer for about 10 days.

“Even after the New York trade is approved, nothing further can happen until after the moratorium, which corresponds to Pritchard’s and Penn’s comments in the news conference.

“This is all speculation on my part, but it seems to make sense. Would Francis give up that much money? I think he would to get out of New York and STILL would get to collect 2 paychecks. Maybe the buyout figure is a little higher, like his full 20 million this year…we’ll know more later.”

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Shawn Marion? Freakin’ sweet.

If that ends up being the result of the Z-Bo trade, how would you feel then, TK?

(source: http://www.blazersedge.com/story/2007/6/29/7560/55490 )

Gotta say, I’m really upset we unloaded Zach for so little. If this is addition by subtraction, it’s only because we’re free of his contract and we cleared up roster spots. But Zach was our means to get that ’stud’ SF you were alluding to. Now what? We just went from being somewhat deep to wondering how the second string will shape up.

But I am excited to see what all this new talent does together. AND WE GOT TAUREAN GREEN AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT! Buh-bye Jack. But SO much young, talented and inexperienced talent… it’s not going to happen overnight. They wont even start clicking until next spring.

About the missing SF piece… I’d argue that Portland doesn’t need to make that move for a year or two. This team’s going to need one or two more to really hit their groove anyway. Why not wait until it’s really time to make the championship run and bring in a solid, veteran SF then?

Demetris Williams is going to New York as a piece of the Randolph trade. Which eases some of the roster stress surrounding Ime. But also (from the BlazerBlog, citing the Oregonian, which takes so long to load on my computer I generally avoid it) there’s another trade that hasn’t been announced yet, involving a small forward who isn’t Jones. Wondering what’s coming…

(source: http://blazers.blogspot.com/2007/06/aftermath-i-love-it.html ; http://blog.oregonlive.com/blazers/2007/06/but_wait_theres_more.html )

“Now, there was one other move you didn’t hear about, and it won’t be made official for about a week. The Blazers, in conjunction with the trade to New York, used a trade exception to purchase the Fernandez pick (which you did hear about) and will also acquire Phoenix’s James Jones. Jones is a good outside shooter and was very solid with the Suns the past couple of seasons.”

Jones is another small forward. He’s a 6 point, 2 rebound guy. He’s not the stud SF I’m thinking of. He may be trade bait. He may mean we don’t re-sign Ime. I really don’t know what to make of him…

(source: http://mikebarrettsblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/welcome-greg-oden-others.html )