With Pritchard and The Blazers; The Rich Get Richer

How does a young team like the Blazers go about improving upon their best season since 2003? That will be the main question heading into the offseason and the draft. This team has been seen as the next potential dynasty for the past two seasons and they have not disappointed in their rise to the occasion.

Two seasons ago, even with the future expectations for this team, most prognosticators predicted a below .500 season. The Blazers finished 41-41; an even .500 on the season. This record would have been good enough to make the playoffs in the east but in a strong Western Conference, it wouldn’t cut it.

Last season the predictions were that the Blazers would just slip into the playoffs with a low seed. The team exceeded those expectations with 54 wins on the season and grabbing the number four seed and home court in the first round. They simply were unfortunate to meet up with the Blazers most difficult team to match-up against in the Rockets.

The other factor was hunger. The Rockets had been bounced from the playoffs in the first round for three straight seasons and this Blazer team had never been in the the playoffs. The Rockets just wanted it more and played harder to get it. This will serve as a great lesson for next years run.

After this impressive season, the Blazers have their lowest draft position in quite a long time. GM Kevin Pritchard has worked his magic in the draft many times before and grabbed players like Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Fernandez, Nicolas Batum, and Jerryd Bayless. All of whom have far out shined the players that were taken in their stead and/or what was given up to get them.

In this draft Pritchard will have to dig up some more of that magic dust if he wants to steal another great player.

Word is that the Blazers have their eye on Davidson point guard, Stephen Curry. He is a bona fide top ten pick so it will take so wheeling and dealing to get him. Luckily, that is what Pritchard does best.

When the Blazers traded up to get Jerryd Bayless last year, the intention was to convert him from shooting guard to point guard. Bayless shined in the summer leagues and looked like yet another draft day coup by the Blazers. But the regular season was a different story. Baylesswas buried behind Steve Blake andSergio Rodriguez on the depth chart and rarely saw action. He was pulled out of the garage only during garbage time to give the other two some rest.

There is no question that Bayless has the skills to be a superstar in this league but I don’t think it will be for this Blazers team. The Blazers may have discovered that he is not going to be a point guard. He is a shooting guard. And on a team that boasts Brandon Roy and Rudy Fernandez at that position already, it is a near impossible uphill climb. The Blazers should trade Bayless while he still has maximum value. He would be the main piece in any draft day trade.

Another forgotten player for this Blazer squad is Martell Webster. He was hurt all of last season and this team has moved forward without him. He is a great player who was just starting to come into his own prior to his injury but now with the emergence of Nicolas Batum, Webster could be expendable.

This Blazer team’s biggest position concerns coming into the offseason are point guard andpower forward. LaMarcus Aldridge needs a back up who is an underneath the basket banger type. A player like that would help this team hold their own against any team in the league. Channing Frye is not that guy. Frye is an Aldridge clone without as much game. Which is great for continuity but bad when the team needs more toughness in the paint.

If the Blazers by some miracle, keep their draft position, you can bet they will be looking for a player in that mold. Most signs point to the drafting of power forward Gani Lawal out of Georgia Tech in this scenario.

But as we know, trying to predict who the Blazers will take at their “original” draft position is an exercise in futility so let’s just say for sake of inevitability that the Blazers trade their first round pick.

Every season since Pritchardhas been in charge, he has traded up. But with this being the youngest team in the league (we won’t count Raef LaFrentz) there is a chance that the Blazers would trade out of the first round altogether and pick up a veteran or two. Afterall, the Blazers have FOUR second round picks that could be packaged as well.

A few guys out there that could be available for the right price would be Josh Smith, David Lee, Ronny Turiaf and perhaps even Chris Bosh.

I would say that Bosh would be the only guy on that list that would keep Pritchard from salivating over a lottery pick.

I see the draft playing out like this for the Blazers:

The Blazers want Stephen Curry so they trade Jerryd Bayless, Martell Webster, and the 24^th pick to the Knicks for the No. eight pick and David Lee. This is, of course, contingent upon Curry being there at the No. eight pick.

Then they package three of their second round picks to jump back into the first round and grab a power forward.

This leaves them with a high second round pick to use on whatever they want. Most likely it will be a foreign player who is not ready or available to play for the team yet. They leave the player overseas to develop.

In the end, they get their point guard in Stephen Curry, a nice forward in David Lee, a trash collecting banger underneath like Gani Lawal or Tyler Hansborough, and a future star developing overseas. And all they lose is two players that weren’t part of last years fantastic run anyway.

This scenario would add solid depth as well as a blindingly bright future to an already brilliant present and near future for this Blazer team.